Dimitri’s muscle threw a black cover over my head to drag me from the SUV. I wiggled as they hauled me out and onto some sidewalk. “Is this necessary? I came willingly.”
Dimitri exchanged Russian with them both, and then I heard his footsteps get farther and farther away.
One of them grabbed my elbow and yanked me forward. Walking beside another individual should have been easy, but I tripped two or three times before the man swore in his native tongue.
The other grabbed my opposite elbow. “Just get her to the room, yeah? We don’t have to do anything but keep her there until Ivan is comfortable bringing her in.”
“Ivan said day or night,” whispered back the one I was sure would crack under the pressure tonight. “We should be delivering her straight there. He wants—”
“Dimitri’s in charge. We watch her for the night, huh? What’s the worst that could happen? Just a little bit of fun for us, if nothing else.”
I’d be killing him first. I knew his tone, the one that slithered the wrong way up your spine and sent shivers everywhere. My insides revolted at the mere thought of having to withstand his advances. A whole night meant I’d have to outsmart them or use everything Dante taught me. I’d been lucky enough to have training sessions with him, to know that I had a chance at defending myself in this situation. I knew I would have to and knew that if I got through all this alive on my own, I’d make it a mission to continue training with Dante.
My chances were slim, though; two armed against one unarmed wasn’t great odds. The little girl in me, the one who’d cried in that small room when Marvin didn’t come to her bed at night, was shaking. The woman in me knew I’d be able to live with it. That woman was like a sword: burned and beaten until she was so sharp she could cut through anything.
I stumbled over some cement steps and counted each one they dragged me up. We only climbed half a flight. The metal click of a lock and the carpet under my shoes told me they’d brought me to an apartment of some sort, not a warehouse or somewhere to kill me off.
It seemed my grandfather still made most of the rules. “Do I get to meet my grandfather tonight?”
“She’s going to tell him if we don’t bring her tonight. Ivan will—”
“Dimitri is the boss.”
“Are you so stupid, huh? Ivan owns us. He’s making us escort this woman to him. Not Dimitri. Dimitri doesn’t want that. I’m not being a part of this shit.” He shoved my elbow away from him.
I yanked my other arm to see if I’d be able to maneuver out of their reach.
The second guy let me go without much fight because he was arguing. “Maksim, just settle down. Want a drink, huh?”
Maksim scoffed, but I heard genuine concern from the other guy. They were close enough for him to want Maksim to stay. I wanted Maksim to stay too.
“Can we remove the head cover at least?” I asked. “I’ll drink you both under the table all night if we’re just waiting on Dimitri.” Confidence went far with men, especially Russians who liked to drink. I remembered how Georgie’s friends would eye me up when I downed a shot.
“You heard Dimitri—a few hours aren’t going to hurt if he’s gone for the night.” Maksim sounded like he was getting rid of his shoes, and then his hands were at my neck, loosening the binding.
“I’m not taking ownership of that if he finds out,” his partner replied gruffly.
The light blinded me for a second, but I scrubbed my hands over my face and combed my fingers through my waves. “You might be stuck with me for a very long time. Blood’s Russian, you know?”
“Half Russian,” he shot back as his blue eyes scanned my face. They hovered on my lips like any creep’s, and I licked them just to taunt him.
The game we were about to play would begin with taunting. Maksim pulled out a bottle of vodka, and I took in the small room. The carpet was old like the rest of the small apartment. It looked like a stopping point for the bratva. They might check in and out of here, but no one lived in the space. The wooden table was worn with scratches and stains, and the chairs wobbled badly from years of abuse, but there were no photos on the walls and no food in the refrigerator, just alcohol.
And glasses in the cupboards.
Maksim poured generous helpings, and we drank.
Three shots in, I was looser than I wanted to be but keen enough to know that Boris, Maksim’s friend, was enjoying my company a little too much.
He drank double what I did and made a show of it as if to impress me.
His hand had been rubbing my thigh for the past five minutes, and he’d just gotten up the courage to tell Maksim to leave us. “Katie wants a couple hours with me to herself, right?” His eyebrow rose, and his hand squeezed hard over my jeans.
Had I mastered everything Dante had taught me? To the point I could execute every move perfectly? It was all about the right timing, no mistakes, making sure I was committed to the outcome.
I had to be ready to kill. You didn’t pull a gun without knowing you were going to pull the trigger.
“Why not, huh? The Italians never gave me much to write home about. Let’s see if Boris packs a punch.” I winked at Maksim, and he squinted at me like the whole thing made him queasy. In another life, we would have been friends. He would have read my wink for what it was.
I’m going to get rid of this man. He’ll be the first of many who will never hurt women again.
“Get the fuck out of here, man,” said Boris. “I’ll call you if I need you. Be back in an hour?”
“You sure?” Maksim was already getting off the worn chair, like a dog finally let off his leash.
“Sure, go.” I shrugged and flipped my hair over my shoulder. I locked eyes with Boris and smirked at him. The looks I had mastered . . . I could trick any man into thinking I wanted him.
But I had to have mastered Dante’s escape and survival tactics too.
I didn’t know which was better, a surprise attack or one where I looked him dead in the eye. My little girl was shrinking back into the corner of the room, cowering in fear, but the woman wanted to show her how to be brave, to stand up and fight.
As the door swung closed, I poured myself another shot without giving Boris any attention. I downed the whole thing and then backed myself against the door.
“How do you want to die, Boris?” I asked, staring into his eyes, the smile I had for him a second ago completely gone. “I could choke you out or break the bottle over your head before I stab you to death.”
“Twisted.” He groaned and rubbed his pants before he got up to come toward me. “I like it. I think I’d like to make you scream once or twice before you try to scare me, though.”
Adrenaline whipped through me, shooting off in every direction before Boris descended upon me. My palms sweat, my heart beat at the speed of light, and every thought sprang from my mind like hair full of static.
Instead of letting him touch me, of letting any part of this happen, I grabbed his hand and brought it to my throat like I was playing a damsel under a strong man.
The position was one Dante had taught me. With the perfect pivot and a palm strike to his wrist, I would be able to throw him off balance and, with the right amount of leverage, get him in a chokehold.
Before his other hand could come up to touch me, before his hot breath could mingle with my own, I executed the move.
I believed in myself.
I stood up for me and the little girl in the corner.
I put my strength, my hate, my repulsion into it. I gave it all I had.
Pivoting hard into my palm strike, I forced all my momentum into his wrist. He yelped and fell toward the wall, a little unsteady after all the vodka, right where I needed him to be. I swung my arm up and around his neck to garrote him. He started swinging immediately, but my body could take the punches and the pain. I clamped down harder because, if I were to let go now, I’d die.
Him or me.
My death or his.
The amount of energy he was exerting by flailing, wiggling, and flopping around like an idiot had hope growing in me. Dante said the more they moved, the less I had to.
I guess the bratva was still disorganized, because Boris hadn’t been trained to deal with me.
Punching me over and over again in the side was his main defense. He tried throwing us into the wall, but my garrote was tight.
Never let go if you want to live.
He bent at the knee, then to the ground; then his breathing stopped.
I held on for minutes. Maybe twenty. Maybe a hundred. Maybe I would have stayed in that position forever.
I’d killed again, and I wanted to be sure the life was mine before I released the hold.
That’s how Maksim found me when he returned. “Fuck, Katalina.” He bent down to loosen my grip, eyes full of something that looked like remorse. “Did he attack you? I shouldn’t have left. I wasn’t sure . . . You seemed—”
“It’s not your fault, Maksim.” I slid up to sit against the wall and pulled my legs toward me. We stared at the lifeless body. “He had it coming, right?”
“Most of us have it coming.?”
Thinking of all the things the mob had done, of lines crossed, laws broken, lives taken, the only answer was yes. We were trying to outmaneuver one another, but in the end we all had it coming one way or the other.
“From what you can see, I’m not long for this world,” I said. “Take me to see my grandfather now, please. I’ll owe you. Maybe he’ll owe you, too.”
“You can’t hand out favors from the grandfather of the bratva, Katalina.”
“How do you know?” I shot back. “You ever met his grandkids before?”
“Well, no.” He sighed over Boris’s corpse. “And I’m thinking you’re the only one I can handle meeting. Dimitri is going to kill me anyway. Let’s get you there quick before I have to provide an update.”
I nodded and we left, man down, drinks gone, and plans completely ruined. Maksim drove fast, city lights whipping past us. We crossed over the river, through fields outside the city lights, and into a small suburb.
A white cedar house appeared in the distance. As we neared, I saw the lawn was taken care of, and the cedar shake gables with a wraparound white-stained porch looked welcoming. Understated but expensive. I wondered if Ivan had picked the place out himself.
We drove up onto the cement driveway, and a floodlight came on. Not a second later, the front door light flicked on too.
Ivan had been waiting.
Now that we were idling just twenty feet from the man who had given life to my mother, whose blood ran through my veins, my body wouldn’t move to open the door.
Maksim cut the engine and waited. “I’m not sure if you want me to shove you out or drag you in, but I’m pretty sure you should walk.”
A laugh burst out of me. “You’ve had about as bad a night as me.”
“You could say that. I’m a little fucked in the head right now, probably why I gave you as much leeway as you got.”
“Fucked in the head from what?” I inquired, maybe because at that moment, he was the only person I felt safe with. I wanted to be in that car with him where I knew he wouldn’t kill me. At least, not yet.
“That’s a story for another day, Katalina.”
“If I see the light of another day,” I grumbled.
“Be happy you got this far. It could have been worse.”
“How so?” But I knew there were worse things than a Boris rushing me.
“I should have called Dimitri. If I was smart, it’s what I would have done. I would have had to let him torture you, fed you back to the bratva where we aren’t sure you belong. Normally, if we aren’t sure, we just kill you. There’s no real soul to this brotherhood, not like with the Armanellis. You know that right?”
“But Ivan wanted to see me. He didn’t want me dead. There’s some hope there, don’t you think?”
“Ivan’s going insane, probably. Still, no one’s sure. No one’s sure about anything anymore, and you’re the wild card. I couldn’t take the risk of not listening to Ivan this time.”
“Guess that’s good for me. Or for Ivan. Should I call him that when I meet him?” I stared straight ahead at the white garage door we’d parked in front of.
“Ask him yourself.” Maksim pointed at the front door, and there stood a tall, older man with a full head of silver hair and a smile that was deceptively comforting.
“If I’m still alive after all this, I’ll owe you.” I whipped open the door and went to meet Ivan with strides that ate up the sidewalk. I’d face whatever the man had in store for me.
He swung the door wide open and waved me in. “You made it tonight. I’m pleased. Dimitri said tomorrow morning instead.”
“Dimitri had other plans for me tonight.”
Ivan peered over my shoulder and nodded at Maksim. “Ah, that one shows the true loyalty, then.”
Ivan closed the door behind me, and I took in the sleek wood floors, the arched doorways, and the delicate blue china in the dining room across the foyer. “You have a nice home.”
“It does what it’s supposed to.” He waved away the decoration. “I had a wife once, your grandmother, and she loved this type of china. Silly woman went and bought hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth during one of our fights.”
I hummed as I walked toward the mahogany dining table chairs. He motioned for me to take one and sat at the head of the table. We stared at each other, his ice-blue eyes studying me like I was a science experiment.
“You look a little like your mother,” he said.
“I doubt it.” I shrugged, knowing I had a lot of my father’s features.
“You’d be surprised.” He pulled at his ear and then got up to grab a picture from inside one of the built-in cabinets behind him. He set it on the table, and the picture clattered against the wood. He slid it across the table.
The woman in the picture wasn’t smiling. She stood against a tree, her mouth downturned and her blonde hair blowing in the wind. Staring off into the distance, she looked like she didn’t want anything to do with the person behind the camera or the world in general.
I’d had that look before.
I shrugged. “If you say so.” I set the photo down and let it sit between us. The silence stretched, a good indicator that blood didn’t mean instant closeness.
Ivan’s phone buzzed, and from his raised eyebrows, I could only imagine that Dimitri had texted him about Boris. “Dimitri is on his way,” he said.
My blood should have run cold, or my heart should have sped up. Was this really where I was supposed to be? Instead of with Rome, Bastian, Cade, and Dante?
No.
That family wasn’t really mine. They’d made that very clear.
“I guess more Russian blood will be spilled tonight,” I said. Dimitri wanted me dead, and now he had good reason to kill me.
“Your loyalty lies with another family. I didn’t ever want that for you.”
“But my mother left me to my father. What did you expect?”
“She’d run around with Douglass forever.” He waved off the notion of my mother loving my father. “Those two thought love could conquer everything.”
“It didn’t,” I finished for him. “It never does.”
“Your mom came to terms with that before your father. She didn’t tell anyone about you when she was pregnant. I thought she was just hiding away with your father for a time. Then she came to me in the middle of the night, determination in her eyes. She wanted to learn from me, be in Russia with me, and leave for there immediately. I was so happy, thought she and your father had broken up, so I took the opportunity. I trained her and Dimitri for years. Until they turned on each other. The night she died, Dimitri admitted it all to me. He wanted to prove his power and desire to take over the mob, so he made a deal with the Armanelli family.”
My hands shook, and my heart turned cold and black. “Mario was—”
“—always making deals, Katalina. But your father worked closely with Mario so that Mario wouldn’t do much else to you. I found that out much later. It’s only been a few years that I’ve known I have a granddaughter. Had I got to you before your father died, you’d never have been embedded in the Italian family.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“Mario didn’t pay your father to take care of lightbulbs. He threatened him into staying nearby so he could keep an eye on you, make sure we didn’t come for you instead. I would have too if I’d known you’d been born. Mario swore he wouldn’t take your life, because you’d be a part of his family instead. Your father said no. And then he died, or so I’m told.”
“He didn’t want me to be a part of any of it.” I shook my head, everything starting to click into place.
“Mario always had a soft spot for children. And what better child to hold over my head than my own grandchild.”
When the body is given too much to handle, too much to bear, it looks for outlets. I found mine by snapping up from the table, by pacing the floor in denial. “My father, he would have told me at the end, he would have . . .”
His letter, crinkled now in a little box I kept, with words so straightforward but cryptic at the same time, made all the more sense.
“You’re beautiful. I choose death so you can live. I won’t tell you to stop working with them. I know you’re in too deep. Make me proud, Katalina. Show them you were meant to stand out or get out from under them.”
My grandfather didn’t look at all anxious like me. He sat there, hands folded on the table, blue eyes bright and full of too much life for someone who was supposed to have dementia as he retold the story. “Dimitri’s not good at much, but he’s good at being a snake, at bringing everyone to his level. He devolved and got angry when he found he couldn’t have children, that he couldn’t carry on the Russian Family. He was furious when I told him he wasn’t worthy of much if he couldn’t do that. So he slithered around this city, trying to ruin your mother just as he’d been ruined. He found you. You were his golden ticket, a baby she’d hidden from the family. He ordered you both killed. By then, Mario had other plans for you, but not your mother. He steered you his way from the beginning.”
I shook my head, closed my eyes, and breathed in deep, trying to calm the quaking. They’d delivered blow after blow as if I were empty inside, as if I couldn’t feel the pain. “He’s not steering now.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Ivan narrowed his eyes. “I think that’s up to you.”
The front door clicked and then swung open. Two seconds passed. I listened closely to the footfalls of the man who’d ordered my mother to be killed.
They called Rome a monster, but now I knew the feeling, the stirring deep in my bones and the wild shaking of the cage where I kept my emotions locked up. The war in me had begun. I wanted vengeance, and I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to tame the beast of that desire.
“Dimitri, you made it,” said Ivan.
“I texted you that I would, that this niece of mine already brought down a man in our family. We end her now.”
“I don’t think so, son.” Ivan closed his eyes like he was frustrated with him already. “Sit down.”
Dimitri spat furious Russian words at his father.
Ivan’s cold stare turned frigid, and the room dropped ten degrees. I longed for the power to control the room with just a look. “Sit down, son. Or I’ll make you sit down.”
Dimitri’s eyes jumped behind him and around the room. No one was there, but then two men came from the shadows. One was Maksim, and he stood behind my chair while another man stood behind Ivan.
“You’ll die for the way you left Boris.” Dimitri pointed behind me, and a vein popped on his neck as his face turned red. “That bitch—”
Ivan’s hand slammed down on the table. Then he stood, and as old as he was, when he curled his lip at his son, the predator in him showed. “You don’t speak to family that way.”
“She’s not family. She’s a bastard child, a mutt.”
The cage that had been holding my emotion broke. The door came unhinged and the beast flew out. “Careful, uncle. A mutt’s bite is always worse than a purebred’s.”
“Is that so?” He laughed maniacally, turning in a circle so he could look at each side of the room. One eye twitched, and he scratched at his arm aggressively. He was sweating, eyes bolting every which way, and then he ripped his gun from his belt. “Why don’t you show me, then? What’s that bite like, niece?”
“We won’t be doing this,” Ivan mumbled and waved a hand behind him. “Dimitri, if you’re going to fight, at least do it when you’re sober.”
The man behind Ivan walked slowly toward Dimitri, who swung to aim his gun at him, eyes wild. “I am sober! I’ve been sober this whole damn time.”
“You got addicted to the drugs you were selling a long time ago.” Ivan tsked. “Put down the gun.”
“No!” Dimitri screamed and waved it. While the gun wasn’t aimed, Ivan’s man quickly advanced and disarmed him like he’d done it a million times before.
Ivan pointed to the table, and the man set the gun there. We all stared at it once Dimitri stopped struggling.
“A long time ago, I would have killed you myself,” Ivan whispered, his tone sending shivers down my spine. “I’d have killed both of you. I would have thought I was invincible, that I would lead the family forever.”
Dimitri struggled in the guard’s grip. “I can lead. I’m good enough. It’s been in my blood from the start.”
“You’ve been nothing but a cancer to me from the start!” Ivan snatched the gun and aimed it at his son. “You’ve been a disappointment, Dimitri.”
“No! Your daughter was the disappointment, Dad. Look at what she left us! A woman mixed with God knows what. She won’t even provide a decent bloodline!”
Maybe it was that freedom to finally do whatever I wanted, maybe it was the girl who’d never fit in coming out to scream she was worth something, but I wouldn’t sit there silently. “What’s a decent bloodline, Dimitri? Just so we’re all clear. Earlier tonight you were ready to have your way with me, no?”
“I wouldn’t have you bear my children. I’d have shown you how to submit to a man. It’s what you’re good for.”
“Is that what every woman is to you?”
He panted out short breaths and shook his head, a frown across his face. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
Taking his time, Ivan placed the gun on the table, and we watched as he glanced at his only child, then shoved the gun my way. The sound of steel sliding across wood was heard for miles, across the city, across the mob. “I either give this bratva with all the businesses and money tied to it to you or to her. You’re both my blood. This is what we do. When my mind fails me, my bloodline will not. So I think you do have to explain yourself to her, as she’s a new generation, my son.”
“Those businesses are mine. She’s not a damn thing!” he shrieked and struggled against the man holding him in place. He was out of control, drops of sweat forming on his brow, his arms whipping about until he finally caught hold of his captor’s face and gouged an eye.
He took his freedom quickly and flew at me in a jealous rage, screaming, “You’re a bastard child. A mutt. Your mother was nothing, and so are you.”
“She was your sister.” I flinched at the spittle flying from his mouth, but the cold weapon in my hands held most of my attention.
“She was exactly what you say all women are to me.” He cackled in his mania. “I fucked her and I’ll fuck you. I’ll show you your place whether—’
The shot rang out, and the bullet ripped a hole in his flesh, just like the devil in me wanted to.
His blue eyes widened as he grabbed at his heart. He whispered, “You shot me.”
The red spread like a virus across his shirt and his hands. I watched him realize his fate.
I never looked away, not when I was taking a life. Deserved or not, the man got my attention at that moment.
“How could you . . . I need a hospital.” He looked at the men in the room.
No one moved.
Then he screamed it again, “I need a hospital.”
Not even his father loved him enough to tell him he would live, that he would be okay. The men at his side stepped back and away.
As Dimitri crumpled to the floor, tears and wails of agony escaped him. He didn’t hold on to his pride in death; he begged and pleaded instead. I searched everyone’s eyes, and not one held an ounce of emotion. This was the bratva I would inherit.
I stood from my chair, laid the gun back on the table, and crossed the room to my uncle. I knelt before him and grabbed his hand. He repeated over and over again that I was nothing as he took his last breaths.
But he held my hand, his fingers clutching mine like he was scared and needed the comfort. He pulled it close to his bleeding chest as he disappeared from the world.
Did he take my soul down to hell with him when he left? I wasn’t sure.
