If we’re going to make a formal agreement with the Russians, I can’t do that on my own. My father is still the capocrimine. No matter how far he’s withdrawn, he’s still the one in charge.
Which means I have to tell him everything.
I sit down with him over breakfast, at the little table in our kitchen. Greta has made him a poached egg on toast with a side of fresh fruit. She offers me the same, but I’m too keyed up to eat.
Papa looks well-rested this morning. He’s freshly showered and already dressed for the day, despite how early I came to the house.
“What is it, son?” he says. “You look excited.”
“I met someone,” I tell him. “A girl.”
I see Greta perk up, over at the stovetop where she’s boiling water for tea. I know Greta has always had a soft spot for me. She always told me I was the type to make a woman very happy.
I think she was picturing some kind and gentle girl. Someone like my mother. I don’t know what she’ll think of Yelena.
With both Greta and my father listening closely, I explain how I met Yelena, and how I’ve been dating her ever since.
“Alexei Yenin knows,” I tell Papa. “I don’t think he’s happy about it. But he’s willing to make a formal truce.”
Greta sets down a steaming mug of tea in front of each of us. Papa lifts the cup to his lips, taking a long, slow sip.
His beetle-black eyes look troubled.
“I looked into Yenin when he took his position here in Chicago,” Papa says. “He’s violent. Cruel. Utterly ruthless. Feared even in Moscow. Not someone I planned to build a relationship with.”
“I know, Papa,” I say. “I don’t like it, either. But Yelena isn’t like that. When you meet her, you’ll see. And her brother isn’t bad, either.”
Papa is quiet, his face still. I know his brain is ticking away, examining this development from every angle.
“We have unfinished business with the Russians,” he says. “Bratva do not forgive easily.”
“Our history with the Griffins was just as messy. And look how well that turned out—now they’re our strongest allies. You never would have imagined that five years ago.”
Papa presses his lips together, considering.
“Fergus Griffin was my enemy, but I knew him. I respected him. I could trust his adherence to our agreement. I trusted him with Aida.”
“It’s Yenin who will be giving Yelena to us,” I say. “She’s his only daughter, too.”
I can tell Papa doesn’t like this idea, not at all. Still, he’s considering it. For me—because he wants me to be happy.
I press him. “We have the advantage, Papa. We have the power, the money, the positioning. Yelena will be living with me. We give them nothing, we risk nothing.”
Papa looks at me soberly. “Don’t be overly-confident, Sebastian. Yenin is not a fool. He does nothing without reason. If he agrees to this, it’s because he sees some advantage.”
“His advantage is partnership with us,” I insist. “We’ll allow them to expand their territory—it won’t matter to us, we’re making most of our money on the South Shore now. We can allow him to take over the parts of the business we wanted to jettison anyway.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Yenin will become our employee,” Papa says. “If you think you can delegate to him, that he’ll be happy with our scraps . . . you’ve misjudged him.”
“I know all that!” I say to Papa, unable to hold back my frustration. “I know the risks. But this is what I want, Papa. I want Yelena.”
Another long silence falls between us. This time I don’t break it. I wait it out. Waiting to hear if I’ve convinced him.
“Alright,” my father says at last. “Set up the meeting.”
Alexei Yenin agrees to come to The Anchor restaurant, which is widely accepted as neutral ground for the gangsters of Chicago.
Almost three years ago today, my father sat across from Fergus Griffin at this same private table, to negotiate the terms of Aida’s marriage to Callum.
I wasn’t present for that meeting. Now I sit right next to my father, bookended by Nero and by Jace, who may not be Italian, but can be trusted for an encounter as sensitive as this.
Nero likes this idea even less than Papa did. He’s stiff and unsmiling in his chair, his narrowed eyes fixed on Alexei Yenin.
Alexei has brought three men of his own: his son Adrian, the silent enforcer called Rodion Abdulov—who I know Yelena despises—and a third soldier he introduces as Timur Chernyshevsky.
We all agreed to come unarmed, but I know Nero has his knives on him at the very least, and I have a gun concealed in my jacket. I’m sure the Russians did likewise. If we had intended to enforce that particular rule, we’d have met in a bathhouse instead.
Yelena isn’t here. I had hoped Alexei would bring her. I wonder if she’s sitting at home right now, wracked with nerves and praying that everything goes smoothly.
The silence stretches out between our two groups as Yenin and my father consider one another.
Papa speaks first.
“Thank you for coming to meet with us today,” he says politely. “As I’m sure you know, our children are eager to make an alliance. The Italians and the Bratva have had a rocky history in Chicago. But with each new generation comes an opportunity for a fresh start.”
“Who can stand in the way of young love,” Alexei says, an amused gleam in his pale blue eyes. “Water will cut through stone, given enough time. My daughter is that water, chipping away at me.”
My stomach clenches tight. I don’t like how Alexei talks about Yelena. He’s acting like she’s a spoiled mafia princess. Like he’s a hard man who’s only soft spot is his daughter. I don’t believe that for a second. Yelena is no Daddy’s Girl, and Yenin is no indulgent father.
“We all want happiness for our children,” Papa says. “And we want security for their children. I believe an agreement can be reached, for territory and rights, that would benefit us all.”
“That is my wish as well,” Yenin says.
While he’s talking, I’m looking at his men as well as Yenin himself. Watching to see if they give away anything in their expressions that betrays Yenin’s words.
Though Adrian was so cordial the first time we met, he looks irritated today. He doesn’t meet my eye, but stares down at the tabletop, scowling. Maybe he’s unhappy at the thought of “losing” his sister. I know how close they are.
Rodion’s expression is impossible to read. He keeps his jaw tightly clenched, probably because he’s effectively mute, and therefore doesn’t open his mouth very often. Yelena told me that his old boss cut out his tongue. Maybe he hates the idea of anyone glimpsing that humiliating injury.
Timur looks nervous and twitchy. He’s the youngest of the Russians, with a smooth face and a slim build. He keeps looking across the table at Nero and then dropping his eyes again, cowed by Nero’s furious stare.
It takes over an hour for Papa and Yenin to work out the precise terms of the agreement. They argue over a few of the particulars, but in general, Yenin is surprisingly amenable to the terms.
The only point on which he won’t budge is that he insists the wedding take place immediately.
He fixes his cool blue eyes on me from across the table, his face unsmiling.
“You may consider us old-fashioned,” he says, “but the purity of our daughters is of high value to the Bratva. Were someone to take my daughter’s virtue . . . then leave her defiled, without a husband . . . that would be a grievous insult.”
He stares at me with a cold anger that assures me that he knows I took his daughter’s virginity. The implication is that he’ll forgive my lack of patience, as long as I rectify the transgression at once.
Papa looks over at me, eyebrow raised. Yelena and I have only been dating two months.
I don’t care. I know who she is. And I know what I want.
I nod my head. “Let’s set the date,” I say.
Nero writes up two copies of the formal contract. His script is swift and slanted, but surprisingly legible. He leaves space at the bottom for Yenin and my father to sign.
They each write their names twice: once on my father’s copy, once on Yenin’s. Then Nero hands my father his knife, and Papa slits the ball of his thumb with the razor-sharp blade. He presses his thumbprint onto the bottom of both pages.
Yenin does the same, cutting his flesh without flinching. He makes his marks right next to Papa’s.
This is a blood oath—a tradition older than the Italian mafia or the Bratva. It’s our most solemn promise. We’re allies now, and Yelena and I will be married, with no option to back out.
I feel no sense of fear as I add my own prints and my own signatures.
Actually, I’m flushed with triumph.
Yelena is mine.
