Lol, he is fond of him as the leader of knight and not as the person that would take his precious daughter from him. Good thing Ruto is away or else Nikolai might be tempted to create a situation where Ruto disappears permanently.
I feel like empress Juliet isn't dead... or maybe she came back to life.. bt according to how Ruto said he'll bring her back instead of bring her corpse back, she's definitely alive. ( I could be wrong 🤔)