Page 142 of Twisted Little Game

“Well, your family is fucking awesome.”

“Oh. Hang on a second,” Tate says, sliding out of my grasp for a moment and jogging off toward the guest room we’ve been staying in here at Luke’s house.

Tate pops back out a moment later with a small gold gift bag in his hands.

“What is this?”

“A gift for you.”

“What? This isn’t Christmas. I didn’t know Thanksgiving comes with gifts.”

“It doesn’t,” he tells me. “But I really wanted to give you this.”

I reach in past the tissue paper and pull out a heavy photo frame. Inside is a collage. Dozens and dozens of photos are put together, side by side.

And every photo is one of me and my mother together, from my childhood.

My throat goes tight all of a sudden.

I haven’t seen some of these photos in years.

Some of them, I’ve never seen before.

There’s one of my mother and me, sitting on the hood of our old black Cadillac, and she has her arm wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me close. She’s smiling, and I am, too. I must be ten or eleven in the photo.

I swallow past the tightness in my throat.

“Tate… how? How did you…”

“I can’t claim all of the credit,” he says. “Maks didn’t tell you, but a few days after both of you cut ties with the family, he did a tiny little mission.”

“Mission?”

“A B&E.”

“Breaking and fucking entering? What?”

“Maks said he always knew of one of the windows in your father’s house that didn’t have a good angle for the security cameras. He went in and nabbed a few things he cared about, or thought you would care about. One of them was an old photo album.”

“Holy shit, Tate.”

“He gave me the album, saying that you might want it one day, even if you didn’t right now. I went through and found each photo that was just you and your mom.”

“It’s so beautiful.”

A stray tear drops off from my eye and down onto the glass front of the frame. I put it down on the hall table nearby and pull Tate into a close hug.

“I’m so glad you like it.”

“Fuck. I am not smothering you, am I?” I murmur against his hair, clutching him so tight against me.

“No. Well, maybe a little, but I love being smothered by you.”

I puff out a laugh as one more stray tear falls down my cheek. I finally release Tate and he leans back, kissing me at the bottom of my jaw.

“Thank you,” I tell him. “This is what I want to think when I remember I am a Petrov. This is more important, anyway.”

“She loved you so much, Roman. You can see it in every picture.”