We spent another week together with no hiccups. The doc came and told me I would be showing soon. He also said the heart sounded strong and gave us pictures of the fetus.
I handed them to Rome and told him to do something with them. We both stared at them like foreign objects, not sure how to handle precious baby memories when we barely had precious memories of our own.
We decided one could go on the fridge and the others we’d put in an Edgar Allen Poe book on one of our shelves for now.
“Is it morbid that we’re putting life into a book about death?” I asked.
“It’s shining light where there’s darkness. It’s poetic if nothing else.” He stared at the books. “Remember when I read to you.”
“Maybe you should read to me again.” I waved him on and we went to the panic room. We lay in that bed like two lovebirds, as if we weren’t mobsters. He rubbed his hand over my stomach at one point and asked, “Do you feel her in there yet?”
“No kicking or anything. But—it sounds weird, I know it sounds so fucking weird—I feel her heart. She’s brighter than us, Rome. She’s so freaking bright and full of joy. I’m going to deliver joy into this world and she’s going to wrap all our hearts up in it.”
He didn’t say anything. He stared at my stomach with love, though. His fingers rubbed back and forth and then he pressed down on her before he lowered his head and kissed my skin. “Made from darkness but pure light. I’m going to be obsessed,” he murmured.
My heart warmed and my mind buried this memory somewhere safe with all the memories I had of my father, of his love, of his own heart. It was where that memory belonged.
I didn’t have a lot of good in me left, but I felt the good spread here, with Rome, talking about our baby together.
I wanted to freeze us in that moment because I knew our lives wouldn’t stay this perfect.
I walked on eggshells for days after. I didn’t want to disrupt our happiness. I tried to stay in, tried not to rock the boat.
But I was the bratva queen.
He was the underboss of the Italian Mob.
Something was bound to happen.
Rome had a big event a few nights later at New Reign. He wanted me to come. I’d grumbled that I’d think about it and that Maksim would be available if I wanted to get ready and go.
I didn’t.
Rome had winked at me and said that it would be good, that other Pahkans and families would be there, that I should make an appearance. I fake-gagged and he laughed as he swung the door closed behind him.
I got the call only an hour later.
One of my guys had been trafficking, not just one or two women but truckloads of them.
My stomach rolled with the news. It’d been someone close, one of the men who’d done security for me the night of the opening of New Reign.
He’d made small talk with me. He’d smiled to my face.
And betrayed and lied behind my back.
I gave Maksim the news and he delivered the message that I wanted everyone to meet immediately at the bratva’s facility. It was near the lake, in an allotment of empty warehouses that weren’t really empty at all.
I didn’t say a word to Maksim as he maneuvered the SUV there. The rage pulsing in my veins screamed loud enough.
The bratva had disobeyed me again, and Vladimir had headed the operation. He’d questioned my authority and gone against the contracts. Change was always hard. It was like packing your bags and leaving the comfort of your home to walk into a pitch-black abyss, knowing you would never get that comfort back. Why leave that warm bed, that cozy blanket that smelled just the way you wanted it, for something completely unknown. Everyone could say it would be better but no one could promise it.
The bratva knew the grass hadn’t been greener before. They were human. They knew the darkness that lurked in the shadows of the unknown and they wanted to cling to the tradition and home they’d had before.
So Vladimir rebelled. I knew he hadn’t acted alone, but he’d have spearheaded it. He’d smuggled in women under the guise of a legal shipment for one of the Stonewoods’ many businesses within the aerospace field.
It put us all in jeopardy. And it signed his death sentence.
We pulled in to the facility’s parking and my heartbeat quickened. I was new to it all, wanted to call Ivan and ask him to come with me.
I knew I couldn’t though. Ivan had made his intentions clear.
When we walked through the doors, Maksim stood close to me, ready to do damage if anyone acted out. The bratva were all sitting, heads hung low, and two of them had Vladimir in their grip.
“The bucket over there contains a liquid that will eat away at his skin,” one of my guys said, proud of himself for getting it.
I cringed at the notion and at the look in his eyes. Was I getting soft? How could leadership have made me so? I rubbed my belly and then fisted my hand, sure that I had to maintain a cool head about this, had to enforce a rein that was fearful where only the strongest survived.
“Vladimir, you made your choice.”
“I didn’t!” he screamed, wiggling in the men’s arms as they dragged him back toward the steel bucket. “You saw my wife. I held her just last night. She wants kids, a family.”
“You ripped a daughter from a father and mother. You think those women you sell aren’t daughters, wives, mothers, those longing for a family too?”
“They’re addicts. They don’t have anywhere else to go. Most are grateful.” His eyes narrowed and he went limp in my men’s arms, causing them to loosen their grip. “One told me ‘thank you,’ Katalina. She would have got on her knees for me.”
“What?” I whispered, and my gut turned as a sick smile spread across his yellowed teeth.
“Screw it. I’m going to burn in there anyway. Let me say it like I mean, huh? She was a whore like you. All of them are. You’re vessels for us to use to make money. You belong in the damn truck with them.” He glanced at my belly. “Blood of the bratva or not, you need to be fucked into submission and that bastard of a baby needs to learn the way of the world too.”
He ripped his arms from the men and sprinted toward me. My security wasn’t what I thought they were. They ran with him and Maksim shot one and collided with the other, wrestling him to the ground. My body was on high alert, ready to defend what I loved but hadn’t met yet. My baby would see the light of day.
I was sure of it in those moments.
Vladimir went for my neck and I let him come, bracing for my chair tipping over before we sailed backward with his momentum. He expected me to flail and try to remove his hands, but I yanked him close by his shirt and wrapped my legs around his back. Up my skirt was a knife, and it would be so easy to grab, so easy to have it at his throat.
I wanted him to suffer, though, wanted him to feel the damage, the pain he’d inflicted on the dream I’d grown to love. The women in the busses were my daughters, my mother, me. They were who I was and who I would always be. The little girl in me screamed for torture and punishment.
My red-bottomed shoes had been custom made for blood. It took just the right angle, but the sharp blades sprang from the sides when I pounded the back of my shoe into his spine. I stretched my legs out and brought them down again hard.
The chortle from him and then the guttural scream satisfied the mother in me.
His hands flew from my neck to scrabble at his back, but by then, I’d latched on. My arm had wrapped around his neck too, and I clung tight as he stood up and tried to shake me off while I kept bringing my stilettos down on him.
“No, stop! Stop!”
“You’ll be dead when I do,” I whispered in his ear, and his face paled. “The last thing you’ll think of is my name, Vladimir, and how this whore fucked you. Fucked you into submission.”
My legs were wet with his blood now, the spattering and gushing making it clear to me why he’d fallen to his knees. I pulled us backward and he fell on top of me, mumbling curses in Russian. As his eyes glazed over, I knew what the end result would be and didn’t need to witness it.
I shoved him off. Silence stretched over the room. I didn’t spare him a second glance as I got up and righted my skirt. “Who’s cleaning?”
“I will, Katalina.” Another member of the bratva on my left said quietly. There were a few here that had let the show play out. I didn’t blame them for that. This was the queen making her mark to them. They had to know I could lead and defend myself.
Maksim had two dead bodies near him and was straightening his clothing too.
“Don’t save his body. Burn it and throw the rest in the river. Tell his family the manner of his death left no remains, and set up the wife with an account.” I walked to the door, and the only sound that could be heard was the shoes clicking across the floor. When I looked back, the blood stains were prominent on the cement, imprints of a mother fighting for her daughters.
“I’m so sick of this bratva thinking I’m a whore. Is this what you all want? Me to fuck you all into submission? Pick you off one by one and bleed the fear from you? Do you all want fear rather than mutual respect, friendship, love?”
“No, ma’am. I just think they’re all scared of change.” Maksim answered.
“They should be scared of death, of sacrificing their place in the family because of what they’re used to.”
Maksim nodded. “Many are under the impression God will save them once they do die.”
“God couldn’t save the innocent daughter in my stomach, let alone any of you. We’re all sinners. Born to the blood of our ancestors and we chose this place. My baby will not. She’ll be born with the blood of this bratva and the Armanelli blood flowing through her. She won’t be able to wash her hands of it, no matter how hard she tries. So you change what you can without relying on what you cannot.”
“Are you saying we can’t make God save us?” Maksim lifted a dark eyebrow.
“No, you can’t. And you can’t rely on an afterlife either. But you can change the life you have here. If you don’t work for change, you’ll never see it.”
“Katalina, we’re all trying to push change.” The man at my left murmured.
“How? You didn’t say a goddamn thing.”
“It wasn’t the right time. You can see that, can’t you?” He answered, like that was a good enough reason.
“Wasn’t it Martin Luther King who said that your silence becomes your betrayal?”
He stared long and hard at me. I let my words sink in. The moments ticked by. He could either stand with me loudly or fall back silently. “You’re right.”
“That I am,” I said and proceeded to walk through the door, ready to slam it shut behind me. “Tell your brothers that. And make sure they understand that Vladimir just secured his seat in hell. If anyone else wants to go with, I’m happy to send them.”
