4. Titus
TITUS
“You’re trouble, Mr. Malkin. Solid Gold Trouble.”
The memory of her saying that to me always makes me smile.
In this moment, I can almost hear Angela’s slight Southern drawl as she looks me up and down that first night.
I had found myself in a bar, who knows why.
All I remember is that I walked in through the door and the first thing I saw was her sitting at the bar.
Long golden curls down her back, the split in her dress showing off her long legs…
For whatever reason, she turned away from her date and looked my way.
The light caught the blue in her eyes and it was like I had been knocked over on my ass.
My time with Angela was the most complicated and perfect relationship I’ve ever had.
She was far too headstrong and a nightmare when she was angry.
She was also the most loving and caring woman I’ve ever experienced.
She came into my life with the intensity of a storm and the calm of its eye.
That first night I laid eyes on her, I didn’t stand a chance.
A woman like that can always spot trouble from a hundred yards.
Even in my expensive suit, flashing expensive jewelry, she spotted it right off.
With a single glance over her shoulder, I was made from the jump.
To this day, I’ve never been able to figure out how she knew it before I had a chance to speak to her.
Maybe it was how I looked. My hair was shorter then, with considerably less gray.
That’s what it was. That night had been my first full night out from my last stretch in prison.
My hair was cut really short, almost a buzz cut.
The first thing I’d done when I got behind bars a couple of years prior was get all my hair cut down to hardly nothing.
Good-looking men with long hair typically end up in the hole for fighting or as a hole for a meaner prisoner, and I just wanted to do my time and get out.
By the time I was out, I was looking forward to growing it again.
I was also looking forward to sleeping in a soft, comfortable bed. What I didn’t know was that it would be the first of many nights where insomnia would claim my evenings… so that night, I found myself in a bar. And that was where my life changed forever.
At the moment that this memory is floating around in my mind, I’m standing in the shade of the tree where she’s now taking her eternal rest. It’s been six years to the day since she died.
Every time I’ve come here to replace the flowers on her grave, I always get a little sadder than the time before.
The loneliness I feel without her just seems to be getting worse and worse.
Today, however, it’s a little different. I come bearing good news. I look up at the clear blue sky just as a cool breeze brushes my face. It’s a perfect day.
“Hey, honey,” I say to her gravestone. It sits mute, her name carved in stone underneath a little angel statue sitting on top.
“I’ve got news. The best news. The man who killed you is dead.
Finally.” I feel a little laugh bubble up from my chest. “Shot him down myself, just like I promised. He’s burning in Hell for what he did. ”
Nothing but the sound of the wind, but I imagine that wherever she is, she’s smiling.
Maybe even jumping up and down and clapping with joy.
It’s a better thing to imagine than what I know is probably the truth.
Angela wasn’t cut from the same cloth as me.
The act of taking matters into one’s own hands was not something that she believed.
In her mind, there was a system to adhere to and laws that needed to be obeyed.
She still believed in old-fashioned thoughts of upholding the very thing that’s had its foot on the necks of people since its inception.
The bald faced fact of it is that Angela hated it that I was Bratva as much as I hated it that she was the D.A.
But she loved me and I loved her and in the end, that’s all that mattered.
I sigh, resigning myself to the undeniable truth of her stance and say, “I know that this way of life wasn’t your cup of tea and it might’ve delighted you if I could have left it instead, but that’s just not what happened.
I hope you understand that when Marius decided to kill you, he accrued a debt to me.
A debt that had to be paid. That always has to be paid.
He couldn’t be allowed to walk around with his life after taking yours away. ”
I squat down in front of the grave, tracing her name with my fingers.
“Enough about him, though. I’m sure you’re more interested in our son.
Luka is fine,” I say. “More than fine. Growing like a weed. And he’s still got your eyes and your hair.
A headful of blond ringlets. Natalie’s been good about keeping it cut short.
I’m hopeless with that kind of thing, so I dread to think what it would look like without her help. ”
I pause as the elephant in the room enters my mind. The moment that she found out she was pregnant enters my mind. She asked to meet in our special place—a little garden in the outskirts of the city. I found her sitting on a bench right next to a row of begonias, tears in her eyes.
“I’m pregnant.”
It was a shock. We’d been careful up to that point, or at least I thought we had. We both knew what it would mean if a child came from our union. It would mean that we would have to make choices that neither of us wanted to make.
We talked for a long time on that bench. Weighing our options. We talked until we finally fell quiet as the sun started to set. We watched the sky change from blue to gold together, with her resting her head on my shoulder.
“What are we gonna do?” She’d whispered it. It wasn’t really a question, but rather a thought. What were we going to do?
We went back to her apartment and made love all evening. As the dawn started to light up the sky outside her window, she said words to me that I’ll never forget. “We’re in trouble… aren’t we?”
“I’m not letting you or this baby go. Do you understand that?” She looked up at me from the crook of my arm, her blue eyes watering with tears.
“I’m sorry. If anyone finds out—”
“I know the law. Your bosses can’t ask who the baby’s father is and they can’t fire you for being pregnant.”
She lifted her head and stared at me with those eyes. “And the brotherhood? What happens once they find out?”
I sighed. “You are going to have to decide, then. Either we do this or we don’t.”
Final words that I’ve lived to regret. Making her decide, making her choose… I should have made the choice for her.
It wasn’t enough. Or at least I thought it wasn’t. A week later, she split up with me and I assumed…
That’s all in the wind, though.
“They still don’t know.” I say that to her grave.
“No one except Natalie and Ignat. I won’t lie to you, though.
The older he gets, the harder of a time he’s going to have with it being a secret.
I’ve been trying to think of ways to introduce him to the Bratva.
I mean, it’s not uncommon for men like me to have illegitimate children or take on wards.
I could always introduce him as the product of a random hookup, but…
I can’t be sure that someone won’t eventually link you to him.
And besides all that, I don’t ever want to deny you.
It’s not anyone’s fault that he’s our son and I’m not ashamed of our relationship. ”
I hear the sound of a car approaching and I glance over my shoulder. Coming down the lane, roughly a hundred steps away, is a silver Mercedes. I recognize it. It’s Ignat’s car.
I turn back to her. “If I can think of a way to do it, I will,” I tell her.
“If there were some way I could let the Bratva know about Luka, bring him into the fold properly, I’ll find it.
You might not want for him to become what I am, but honestly…
it’s safer than being out in the world and just knowing about the life.
Especially if anyone discovers who his parents are.
Forgiveness isn’t exactly a thing with Bratva. ”
I stand up as the sound of soft footprints approaches. “But don’t you worry. I’ll make a way for Luka, Angie. Don’t you worry.”
I smell Ignat’s cologne before I see him. He says, “I thought I’d find you here today.”
I glance at him as he stands by my side. “Have I become that predictable?”
“Only to me,” he says. “But then, any good sovietnik knows the movements of his Pakhan.”
“Hmm,” I say. “Suppose I should be thankful for that. Leaves no chance for any of my enemies to kidnap me.”
He scoffs. “As if they would dare try. You know, with the elimination of the Penza, the Arkhangelskaya are set to become the most powerful Bratva on the East Coast.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.” He pauses as he clasps his hands together. “You’ve been very busy these past six years. Angela would be proud.”
That almost makes me laugh. I give him a skeptical glance and say, “She would, in fact, not be proud at all. As you might recall, she hated that I was Bratva.”
He shrugs in acceptance of that assessment. “I always found that odd. Your falling in love with a woman who was as far away from being one of us as a person could get has always struck me as bizarre.”
“In more ways than one, I suppose,” I say. “She had it in her head that this was a mode of employment.”
“Being Bratva isn’t a job,” he says, his voice darkening. “It’s who you are. Who we all are.”
“She never understood that,” I say in response. I pull out a pack of gum from my inner jacket. The new habit I picked up to keep away the urge of smoking since I quit. “But then, she never had time to understand it.”
“You think she would have eventually warmed up to this life?”