Chapter 42
Forty-Two
NATASHA
It’s the makeup that’s messing with me. Sending me back to that dark place where I’m afraid of everything and everyone, including my own shadow.
A week has passed since the incident after the concert, and on the outside it looks like we’re just going about our normal lives.
I met with the designer at the penthouse.
Julian continues to work. The guys are pretending that they don’t know who attacked us that night and have sent out feelers to get intel.
But on the inside, we’ve been planning.
And every night, Julian has tried to talk me out of this.
“We can come up with a different way, angelos mou.” He rests his forehead against mine, holding me so close. “I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“It’s easier this way. And it’s my own way of looking him in the eyes so he understands that he didn’t win. He didn’t beat me.”
He’s not convinced that he should allow this, but Julian also loves me, and despite wanting to protect me, he respects my need for closure. To do this piece of it myself.
But now I’m standing here in our bathroom, in our sanctuary, staring in the mirror, and my stomach rolls.
My right eye is black and purple with yellow around the edges, and I have a bruise on my jawline as well. My wrist is in my brace again.
“Wow, this is pretty good if I do say so myself,” Scarlett says as she steps back to take in her handiwork.
She and Lulu came over this morning to help me get ready and for moral support. I had no idea that Scarlett was so great with makeup and costumes, but she’s fantastic. I don’t even look like myself right now.
“I would do a split lip,” she says, moving her head back and forth like she’s contemplating it, “but I worry about it coming off on a glass, if you drank something.”
“Let’s keep it simple,” I agree. “Okay, now clothes.”
We decide on simple jeans and a white T-shirt and sneakers. And then I’m ready to go.
Julian won’t be with me, but he and the other men will be nearby. They’ll have eyes and ears on me because I’m wearing a wire, and I have the tiniest earpiece in so I can hear Julian’s voice.
“Test,” he says into my ear, and I grin.
“I can hear you, husband.”
“Aww, is he talking to you?” Lulu asks as she walks with us to the front door.
“Yeah. He’s nervous.”
“Of course I’m nervous. My wife is walking into the fucking lion’s den.”
I grin and then hug my friends before I climb into the back of the Range Rover and take a deep, shaky breath.
I can’t hear what’s happening with the rest of the operation.
Only Julian, and only when he opens that line of communication.
My man is damn good with electronics, and he set this whole thing into motion.
The eyes and ears, the strategy, everything.
Luckily, I was able to tell him where in the restaurant my father prefers to sit, and he could build everything around that.
The ride into town is quiet, and I keep wringing my hands in my lap.
“The makeup is good,” Danny says, watching me in the rearview mirror. “The boss won’t like it, but it’s good.”
“It’s pretty realistic,” I agree with a nod and nibble on my naked bottom lip. I’m not wearing any makeup at all aside from the stuff to make it look like Julian uses me as a punching bag. “How are you feeling, Danny?”
“Never better.”
My guard’s arm was just grazed, but still, a gunshot wound is a gunshot wound. He refused to take any time off, and he’s hardly left my side since that night.
I know that Danny will be with me for a very long time. I trust him implicitly, second only to Julian.
“I don’t have any reason to be nervous,” I mutter, but I know that’s not true. My father is unpredictable on a good day. If I say even one thing that pisses him off, he could pull his gun and shoot me in the face.
I wouldn’t put it past him.
“If you don’t want to do this, say the word, and it all stops now,” Julian says in my ear.
“I’m fine,” I reply and do my best to believe it.
This is going to work.
Danny finds a parking space at the shopping center, and then he and my new guard, Elio, walk with me to the restaurant.
“You’ve got this,” Danny says quietly, so only I can hear. “You’re not the girl he thinks you are. Just follow the plan. We’re all right here. I won’t let anything happen to you, Boss Lady.”
I nod. I want to smile up at him, but I don’t want to break character.
“Thank you,” I reply.
“I love you,” Julian says into my ear. “If anything feels off, use your hand gesture, and we’ll take him out.”
“I love you too,” I murmur before I look up at Danny. “I’ll be out shortly.”
He nods, and the two guards stand just inside the restaurant while I’m shown to my father’s table. He’s nothing if not a man of habit, sitting at the table I knew he would be. He’s not alone today. Because of course he’s not. He has his second, Viktor, with him, and they’re sitting side by side.
Viktor always gave me the creeps. He’s got to be close to sixty, and he never takes his eyes off my tits. Even when I was sixteen, he leered at me.
Gross.
Papa’s eyebrow climbs when he sees my face. He doesn’t stand to greet me this time, he just waits silently as I slip into the chair across from him.
I’m meek. Timid. My hands shake because I’m nervous, but I know that he’ll think it’s because I’m afraid of him.
“Daughter,” he says tightly. “To what do we owe this lunch?”
I clear my throat and look around, as if I’m making sure no one can overhear our conversation.
“You’re doing so great,” Julian whispers in my ear.
“I-I needed to see you,” I say quietly, not meeting his eyes. “Because you were right, Papa.”
My father leans back in his chair, his hands loosening from their fists. He’s already starting to drop his guard.
“And what was I right about, Natasha?”
“Everything,” it’s said on a whisper. “He’s not a good man.”
I look up at him and see that he’s sneering at the bruises on my face.
“He hits me, and I caught him . . . doing things with our housekeeper.”
Papa snorts and Viktor flat out laughs.
But Julian growls in my ear, and it bolsters my confidence.
“Papa, please can I come home?”
“No, a deal is a deal, Natasha. You’re his problem now. His mouth to feed. I told you before that you’re not welcome back in my house.”
“I should have listened to you.” I bite my lower lip and let the tears fall.
I can’t usually produce tears on command, but right now, I feel for the young girl who endured so much at the hands of this devil.
So much pain and fear. How my mother would laugh when he hit me.
How they wouldn’t care if I fell and hurt myself.
I brush a tear aside just as Julian speaks low in my ear.
“The compound is compromised. Communications are down, and the operation is underway. You’ve stalled him long enough, Angel.”
“Yes, you should have. I know what’s best. I always fucking know what’s best. If you’d just done what you were told, you’d be out of that house by now and back with us.”
“That would be a shame.”
I square my shoulders and look up at my father, dead in the eye. A muscle in his cheek twitches.
“Do you understand what it is to be beaten every day of your life?”
Papa rolls his eyes, and Viktor shakes his head, as if I’m a young girl who never learns her lessons.
But I’ve learned more than they’ll ever know.
They tried to shape me into the proper Mafia wife, but instead, I’m a goddamn Mafia queen.
I’ve taken abuse from this man, the one who’s supposed to love me, my entire life, and it ends today.
I’m the one about to take him down, and he’s going to listen to every fucking word I have to say.
Because I know that Julian and my new family would never let these men hurt me.
“Do you, Papa? To be tormented. Taunted. Every day. You didn’t let me have friends. You didn’t let me do anything except study, play the piano, and wither away in that godforsaken, gaudy, over-the-top eyesore that you call a house.”
“I. Will. End. You,” Papa says, and I lift my hand, put my pointer finger in the air, and the next thing I know, Viktor falls to the ground with a gunshot wound between the eyes.
“No, you won’t.”