Whiskey Sunrises

32- Seen, Not Heard

Nikolai and I spent the next couple of hours talking about how everything worked while they were growing up.

I understood why he wanted to keep everything from me more and more with each story he told. It was obvious that he never wanted any of his children to grow up the way he had, that he wanted to protect me from having to witness my children growing up that way. The fact that he was working so hard to escape that life changed so many things- if not everything. We laid there in a comfortable silence after Niko said that we'd spoken about it enough for one day, stating that he didn't want to overwhelm me. He really did feel that way, but I also knew that he didn't like revisiting those memories. I could see the pained look in his eyes when he spoke about things that happened when he was younger, but it got better the older he got. He'd learned to switch his emotions off after a few years, he explained.

Jax burst into the room ruining our little moment after not finding me anywhere (probably thinking that I was abducted to use as a bargaining chip or something). He stopped abruptly after finding me cuddled in Niko's arms, fully clothed this time, and raised an eyebrow to indicate that he was waiting for an explanation.

"We talked." was all Niko said, causing me to roll my eyes and bite back a snort.

"Come on Jax, let's get some coffee and take a walk. It's gonna take a while." I kissed Nikolai's cheek, promising to find him later on before following Jax to the kitchen.

"Not to sound like the typical big brother here, but you better have a damn good explanation Al." he warned.

And I did. I didn't go into detail, but I told him as much of the Volkov brother's childhood as I could stomach. I told him about the girl Alexei loved, too, causing him to pale considerably.

"You'd think he would learn from his brother's mistakes." he sighed, pouring us a second cup of coffee after we made our way back to the kitchen.

"What would you have done?" I asked, knowing he would have done exactly the same.

"You're probably right." he mumbled after thinking about it.

"I need some advice, Jax." I sighed, thoughts going to Tony's reaction this morning.

"For?"

"Tony."

"What happened?" he asked, eyes going wide. "Please tell me you didn't fuck him, Al."

"No! I did not fuck him Jax, jeez. I told him that Niko and I talked and he went batshit crazy. He basically told me that I was stupid for trusting Niko again and that it would bite me in the ass. That Niko didn't care about me and didn't love me- that if he did he wouldn't have done what he did."

"He's jealous." Jax said almost instantly. "What did you tell him?"

"In a nutshell? That he didn't know what he was talking about and to fuck off. Why would you think he's jealous?"

"When Nikolai fucked up, he thought that he'd have a fair chance of getting together with you again, obviously. You and Niko kissing and making up forced him back to square one." he explained in a 'duh' tone, a look to match.

"I've talked to him about that already!" I exclaimed, exasperated. What would it take to make him understand?

"Doesn't mean his feelings are going to disappear over night, sis. Besides, he's probably trying to look out for you too. You don't know how hard it was to watch you break down after you left the bar- Tony's probably never seen you like that. I was surprised that Splint didn't go beat his ass."

"There are so many other things we need to worry about right now- I don't want to worry about Tony picking fights he can't win." I sighed, dropping my head into my hands.