December 28th, 1899

My lyubimaya dócha [Beloved Daughter],

It is hard for me to write you these words, but I am afraid your dear mother has passed as of this morning. I bid you to come home to pay your respects to her. We shall wait for you to have her funeral, for she cannot rest in peace without her family here.

Love,

Papa

Nikolai Kostova leaned against the wall, hidden in the shadow of the stairwell, but with a direct view of the entire hall of the top floor of the Benjamin Hotel. Nina and David had just left and only Natalia would be in the room. However, he knew she had plans to go to the Met this Sunday, so the room would be vacant the moment she stepped out.

Which meant the opportunity for someone to sneak in would be wide open. He dug his hands into his pocket and fingered the cool, metal key there. He'd swiped Natalia's key Friday night when she had been drinking to excess over the man she had met at Irving Hall, made a quick mold of the key from a bar of soap that had been in his own hotel room, before easily sliding the key back into her pocket and taking her home.

As drunk as she was, she didn't think twice about letting him help her up to her room. He loved his friend, but sometimes she was far too trusting for her own good. She seemed to barrel into people's lives, a walking, talking sugar bowl, let them take advantage of her sweetness, and then watched them all get a toothache from it and leave. Inwardly, he winced at her naiveté and then straightened as her door opened and she stepped out of it. She was beautiful, for a woman. Good to the core of her soul, open, trusting, and accepting of everyone despite the flaws they all wore so plainly.

The exact opposite of Nina Teleshova. A hard, cold woman who seemed completely uninterested in anyone unless she saw a use for them. How Natalia put up with that constant porcupine, he was sure he'd never know. But, it didn't make him want to be around her any less. He put up with Nina because, despite her many flaws, she had been bullied and picked on just as much as him. The little blonde woman was the only one who had stuck up for either of them, and for that alone, she had both of their unwavering loyalty.

Which was why he was here. He waited until she had disappeared behind the elevator doors before he sauntered to their door and slid the key that he made from the mold of soap and silently slipped into the room.

Moving over to Nina's room, he pulled a chair into the darkest corner of the room and then he sat and waited.

For over an hour, he sat there.

Finally, as he suspected, the fire escape rattled as weight moved across it and then he watched as the window was forced open by a familiar figure. Sergei Legat slid into the room with the grace from a lifetime of dancing, his muscles contracting beneath his clothes as his feet came through first, followed by his torso, shoulders, and head. He straightened up as he looked around the room, not noticing Nikolai in the corner.

Until he stood up, "Looking for something, Sergei?" He asked, an ice-cold fury settling his bones. There was a lot of reasons to dislike Sergei, many personal ones including bullying, but Nikolai drew the line at this. Natalia hadn't been sleeping well since the break-in, with the exception of when Jack stayed the night, and the thought of her being scared by this prick made him clench his fists and prepare for a fight.

Sergei narrowed his green eyes on Nikolai, folding his arms as though he hadn't just been caught breaking into a hotel room, "If it isn't Kostova, putting his big nose into something that's none of his business."

"And breaking into a woman's hotel room is your business?" Nikolai shot back, raising an eyebrow at him haughtily. When Natalia had first told him someone had broken into her room, he had thought it was just a crazy event. Until he began to notice the way Sergei was constantly hanging around her and Nina, just close enough in case they happened to drop where their new room was.

And he had been far too close to Natalia at the cast party the night before last. He hadn't liked it and he was prepared to use any means his father had taught him to find out why Sergei was targeting these girls. "Look, Nikolai," Sergei was saying, "This is none of your business so if you'll leave and be quiet about this whole mess, I won't tell everyone in the company about your preference for men."

It was the wrong threat to make.

"Did you forget who my father was?" Nikolai asked, rhetorically, before he felt his muscles tighten the second before he tackled the man, straddling the son of a bitch and grabbing his hair to pull his head back before slamming it back on the carpeted floor. He leaned back on his heels as he took in the unconscious man. He sighed, stood, and tossed the male lead over his shoulder, "Doorak." Fool, He muttered as he glanced around to make sure he hadn't disturbed anything in the room before he left. Sergei weighed a ton, but Nikolai had carried heavier bodies.

Nina sighed as they strode out of the hotel and hit the streets of New York. It had been quiet between them since leaving the room, but it was not in the least bit awkward. It was actually rather pleasant, just being next to him with no need to fill the silence. She took the time to revel in their arms looped together, his hand over hers. It was a big hand, warm and a bit calloused, which surprised her and made her wonder about his past. There were more questions than answers when it came to David and she wanted to know what was under that icy exterior. He was a man of contradictions and she found she liked it very much. He could be so sensible in one moment, yet awkward in the next. A strange mix of a man who still had a tendency to be a boy.

He handed her the bag he left the hotel room with a few blocks into their journey, "Eat one. You need food if we're going to walk all over the city." His words were encouraging and light. When she looked up at him, his eyes were light blue, too. Not the usual frosty blue.

Her stomach growled in response and they both smiled as she took the bag and pulled her arm from his to open it and select a strawberry Danish. "Oh my…" She murmured, as she bit into it, "This is absolutely marvelous. Who makes these?"

The Danish wasn't warm, but the pastry was still flaky and the strawberry filling was absolutely mouthwatering. She finished the first one and immediately pulled out another as David chuckled, "My sister's husband owns a bakery. I think she married him because of his baking ability."

"Smart woman." Nina told him, greedily licking the filling from her thumb, "This is food from the heavens." She sighed as she looked in the bag and realized she'd eaten them all. "You weren't hungry, da?" Glancing over at him, she felt a glowing warmth light up in her gut and begin to hum as she saw he was smiling at her with a look that was obvious infatuation.

"Not for pastries." He murmured, his voice an octave lower and she realized he was watching her lick her fingers and she felt a hot blush crawl through her.

"David Jacobs, are you flirting with me?" He disposed of the empty paper bag and brought her hand to loop through his elbow once more, pulling her closer to his side as she said those words.

She was satisfied when he blushed, obviously not used to flirting and especially not being called out on it. "I-uh," He tried to come up with a proper response, but he floundered and she giggled as his ears turned pink.

"I'll save you, glupyy mal'chik." Silly boy, She said, "Now, tell me why a business man such as yourself has such calloused hands."

Her question made him take his hand off of hers long enough to glance at it before he gave her a half-smile and returned it as he replied, "Well, when I chose the location for my hotel, I chose an old hotel that had been closed for years. It was falling apart and the loan and investors' money only went so far. I had to do a lot of work by hand, which meant I had to learn how to do it first. The time spent doing all that manual labor will do this to your hands."

She turned her palm over on his arm and felt the callouses when he put his hand back on hers, "I like it. It's like my feet, you can visibly see the signs of our work."

He shook his head, "What is it with you and feet?" He asked, but she knew it was just his way of teasing her and the mention of their time in his hotel room brought a hum of happiness. He had to have been thinking about it to bring it up. She, too, had been thinking about it. Perhaps too much. Her performance the night before had been less than ideal.

Suddenly, her thoughts turned once more to the bad review. One, that's all it was, but it only took one person's opinion to destroy a ballerina's career.

As if he read the turn of her thoughts, David spoke to pull her away from them, "You're a great dancer, Nina. Why are you upset about one bad review?"

His voice was soft, soothing, and she sighed as she tried to find the words to explain why it was that one bad review bothered her so much. "All it takes is one bad review and I feel like I'm fourteen again and my old tutor is screaming at me for a mistake. It fills my brain up with his deep, Russian yells repeating over and over again until it gives me a headache and I want to scream but there's nowhere to do it…" She let her words trail off, realizing she was rambling one of her most private things to him and she glanced up to see he was listening intently, his eyebrows drawn as he thought her words over.

Suddenly, he was hailing a carriage, "Hang on, we're changing plans real quick." He said, opening the door and helping her into it. She missed where he was telling the driver to go and then he slid in beside her and it lurched forward, the clopping of the horse's hooves almost drowning out the other city sounds.

"Where are we going?" She asked, peeking out the window.

He grinned, looking dashing with his curly, brown hair a little ruffled from their walk and the cold, fall wind. His blue eyes danced every time he turned them on her and it made her feel like the most beautiful woman around when he did that. "You'll see. Just a few minutes." He told her, looking out his own window.

The carriage began to cross a bridge and she glanced out when he yelled up to stop them part way. He paid the driver and helped her out, his eagerness to show her whatever it was causing her to smile so hard her cheeks began to hurt. Nina couldn't remember the last time she had so much fun. Dinner with his friends was fun, but this was so much more than that. Just the two of them, informal, feeling like two teenagers exploring the world together. It was exhilarating.

He stopped them right in the center of the bridge, along the metal railing, and he grinned at her right before he leaned over, nearly scaring her to death that he was going to fall causing her to grab him by the waist just as he screamed down at the river below, the sound all but drowned out by the crashing waves below and the busy bridge behind them.

"David!" She exclaimed as he stood back upright.

"Your turn. Let it out!" He told her.

She slowly let go of him, placed both hands on the rail, shot him a sideways glance before she took a deep breath and then screamed over the side.

If you asked Nina what she would do while exploring New York, she never would have dreamed up this moment. But, screaming over the side of the bridge, at the river and crashing waves, was somehow incredibly exhilarating and it helped ease the tension and anxiety she felt over the bad review. She straightened and turned to David with an awed expression, the screaming of her old dancing instructor gone from her mind. "Neveroyatnyy." Unbelievable, She murmured, "Who taught you this?"

That question caused his smile to drop slightly, but he forced it back on as he asked, "Did it work?"

"Da. Yes." She replied, "But, you didn't answer my question." She persisted, as he held his elbow out for her to loop her hand through once more.

David sighed, "An old buddy of mine. When we were kids, we led a newsboy strike because they raised the prices on us. We came to Brooklyn to get support from other newsies and on the way he stopped to scream over the side." The slight lift of his lips left him looking bittersweet on the memories.

Nina caught the tensing of his muscles and the narrowing of his eyes as he spoke and she took a wild guess, "Was that old buddy Jack?"

It was the right guess, but she supposed it was wrong for her to bring it up because, for the first time that morning, his blue eyes returned to that wintry, glacier blue. She felt a stab of regret for bringing up that name, but she was still curious about the man David hated. Mostly because she wondered what he could have done to instill such hatred in the hotelier. "Jack." David muttered, liked a curse, passing her a glance from the corner of his eyes, "Still curious about him? Because he saved your luggage?" His words were argumentative, as though he were readying for a fight she did not want to have.

And then it clicked. Her eyes narrowed up at him, "Are you jealous, David?"

Her words ruffled him, and he scowled, "Of Jack? Hardly." His argument came too close on the heels of her words, disproving their truth. "Jack's barely making a living, he has a child to worry about, and he looks like he could use a meal. Who is he compared to what I've built? What I've accomplished in the last eight years since being a poor, newsboy?"

"My luggage had letters from my mother, letters I've never opened." The secret came out in the silence that followed his petty tirade, but she did not have it in her to judge him for it. He should be proud of all he'd done, and perhaps what Jack did to him warranted his eternal hatred. Without knowing the reason, she couldn't weigh in. What she did know, though, is that without Jack, she would have lost those letters forever. Never knowing what her mother's final year of life was like…the thought made her despondently sad.

David stopped them in front of a tavern. Moriarty's, it proclaimed, and he turned to face her, his hands going to her upper arms as his eyes, now a warmer blue, searched her face, "The letters in your box?"

She nodded, speechless at the compassion on his face as he gazed down at her. He seemed like a decent man, on the surface, but to see that level of feeling, so open on his face, stole her breath away.

He blew out a breath and dropped his arms to his side. She mourned the loss of his touch, ached to press close to him and have him wrap his arms around her, but she held back. As she always did. Because the fear of leaning entirely on a person who could slide out from under you paralyzed her from allowing that scenario to play out in real life. "Jack was my best friend." He finally said, breaking her from her thoughts. "He even courted my sister for a while. We thought they'd get married, but then he stopped coming around as much and started pulling away. The next thing I know, I have one of the guys telling me that Jack has a new girl. Without ever breaking things off with Sarah." He ran a hand through his hair, "We fought, he left. Went to Chicago. I thought I'd never have to deal with him, again, and Sarah married Edward and she was happy."

Nina absorbed his story, putting the pieces into place, "He found out he had a child and came back, yes?" She asked, reaching out to touch his arm. Jack betraying him and his sister seemed a good reason to despise him. Nina had been burned like that once before, understood what it was like to pin hopes on a man who turned around and went into the arms of another, easier woman. It was an age-old story, really.

David nodded and looked up at Moriarty's, "This is the tavern I met the sailor who gave me the rooster."

She followed his gaze, surprised he would take her here. "After your Minnie died?" She asked, inwardly wincing when she brought up yet another person from his past that he seemed uninclined to talk about.

Instead of being angry at her, he smiled uneasily, "Let's save some secrets for another time."

There was just a touch of pain behind his eyes, so she let him drop the subject and then once more took his arm, "Where to now?" She inquired, gazing up at him from her eyelashes, hoping she could ease him back into the light-hearted David of this morning.

Glancing around, he rubbed his bottom lip as he thought, "Hmm, want to see Battery Park? It's not as grand as Central Park, but we'll go there next weekend."

Nina smiled and let him lead her, feeling a thrill run up her spine at the thought of more time spent with him like this, "Are we having dinner tomorrow night?" She wondered, aloud.

"If you would care to join me." He murmured, expertly weaving them through the crowd. "Jack won't be there, though." He quipped, causing her to laugh at his unexpected teasing.

"I hardly want to see him, now, after what he did to your sister." She told him, honestly.

His eyebrows furrowed, "My sister told me she forgave him." He shook his head, "What he did to her…she said, it gave her the opportunity to find her real happiness with Ed." A thoughtful look crossed his face as he contemplated those words.

Nina almost told him about Ivan, the words on the tip of her tongue, and it surprised her that she felt comfortable with him enough to tell him about it. She swallowed back the name, however, and instead focused on the concept before them, "She's right, no? One mistake on Jack's part brought her to find the real love of her life…that's not so bad." She paused, before adding, rather recklessly, "And if she can forgive him, why can't you?"

His shoulders squared and tensed at her question, his eyes flashing once more to that icy color before thawing out. David heaved a sigh that seemed bigger than him, "I don't know. He betrayed our friendship and he doesn't have the decency to apologize for it."

She didn't know Jack well enough to ascertain what kind of person he was, but judging from the story, she could guess. She shrugged, "He was young, selfish. He saw your fight as you, protecting your sister, not as a betrayed friend."

David passed her a mystified look that brought to her mind all of his friends and how they looked at their significant others. It made her giddy and more alive than she'd ever felt, "Race, Blink, and Mush have been badgering me about forgiving him for years. You're the only person who's gotten me to actually consider it."

A/N: YOOOO! Davey and Nina are so introverted, they only like to tell me their side of the story in small doses. So, I apologize that this particular chapter was so long in coming. However, I'm so excited about Nikolai. He's an interesting character that seemed to just come suddenly, out of the woodwork. Like, he'd been observing everything and now he wants to tell me. Haha! Thank you to my lovely reviewers, WordyAF and my guest reviewer!

I would love to hear what you all think of this chapter! Drop me a review!

Truly,

Joker is Poker with a J~