11. Sonya
11
SONYA
T his time, when I ran again, I made sure not to stop until I’d put more distance between me and that restaurant. And the strip club where my not-so-one-night stand returned to my life.
Rain fell again. The fall of frigid drops seemed never-ending. While I cursed how soggy this spring was, it didn’t prevent me from getting a room at a seedy-looking, rundown hotel near Brooklyn.
With a lockable door and running water in an attached small bathroom, this room was an upgrade from my former lodgings, where I was stuck in captivity on that Ilyin property. A phone sat on the table, but I had no numbers or contacts to call. A mini fridge hummed under a crooked counter that doubled as a TV stand, but I had no food to put in there.
The cash I stole from the Petersons was all but depleted. In the two days that I stayed in this room, trying to catch a break and think out my next steps, I used it all up. The room wasn’t cheap. I had a strong hunch the clerk was gouging me on the price, but I couldn’t control that. Without an ID, without a credit card, without anything , I was stuck paying under the table for this dump.
All the protein and breakfast bars were gone. The apples too. Keeping one water bottle to refill saved me some money, but the water seemed brown when it ran from the faucet.
It’s not enough. I had to care for this new life growing in me. My baby—Ben’s baby—needed more nourishment.
Prenatal vitamins would have to wait. Whole meals would be coming eventually. Milk. Water. A balanced diet intended to foster a healthy infant. Those were the things that I needed right now. But they’d have to wait.
On the evening of another long, restless day, I suffered through a nagging tension headache and sluggishly paced through the room. Back and forth, I walked and aggravated my sore ankle. Moving was better than sitting, though. Staying upright helped with this nausea that I hoped was a sign of morning sickness—or rather, all-day-and-night sickness. If I was coming down with something, I wouldn’t be able to find help.
It seemed so stupid to be in the city but not go home, yet I now knew I had to do this carefully. I had to be deliberate about my return because it seemed I was clueless about whom to trust.
Why would Eva be near that Petrov woman? She wouldn’t willingly associate with the enemy, so I had to go with the assumption that she had been taken, or manipulated… or something.
How did that other woman recognize me? I’d been absent for eleven years. I had no idea who she was, and if she’d remembered me from before, I looked different now.
Rubbing my stomach as hunger pangs made me dizzy, I sighed. I am different now. I was an expectant mother, wrought with panic, paranoia, and trauma.
I couldn’t walk up to the Baranov house when no one would be there, and that was my biggest fear. If Eva was near that Petrov, maybe she had been moved elsewhere. My mother and father were gone. My uncle, too. For all I knew, the mansion I’d once called home could be vacant now or taken by rival families.
“Those bastards,” I growled as I rubbed my face. “Those fucking Ilyin bastards.” They’d deprived me of any news, any information, and I felt too nervous to reenter society being this ignorant and clueless. How could I know whom to trust or where to go now?
I’d trusted my body with Ben, but in hindsight, I felt so stupid to have wasted time on having sex with him again. It had happened so suddenly, but that was no excuse. Now wasn’t the time to let my desires rule me.
Still, as I left my room, I analyzed how that man had made me feel so good and comforted. While I was sheltered in captivity for too long, I doubted that the phenomenon that pulled me to him could be normal. I was a level-headed, survivalist kind of woman. Not a needy, clingy idiot.
Then again… I rolled my eyes at the possibility of my hormones wreaking havoc on me.
Okay. Fine. But that’s still no excuse.
I refused to waste any more time on sex or even thinking about the sexy man who was fond of playing games with me. He’d recognized me but acted like he didn’t, and that was too fishy, too suspicious for me to want to trust him at all, should I see him again.
Needing answers, I headed to a nearby diner that used to be owned by the Petrov family. The crappy hotel I was staying at was more or less on neutral ground. If anyone claimed that neighborhood, it’d be a gang or someone else, not Mafia. Then again, I doubted turf lines had remained exactly the same as what I remembered eleven years ago.
Regardless, I recognized this part of the city. With a hoodie as a way to hide my face, I hoped that entering this specific diner would bring me closer to a member of the Petrov family—another from a Mafia organization. I had to eavesdrop and listen in to get an idea of what had been happening lately. If my memory served me well, men liked to talk at bars, diners, and cafés like this, where they could relax and shoot the shit.
I wasn’t disappointed. Up at the counter, a few Petrov soldiers were eating a late meal, talking and laughing freely. They sat up on the stools, carrying on without a care, and I slid onto the booth seat near them while I busied myself with a single cup of coffee. It was all I could afford at this rate, and it would give me a prop to be here for the sake of listening in.
“If I see one of those fucking idiots again, I’ll kill them,” one man boasted.
I almost rolled my eyes. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah. It didn’t matter that I’d been gone for eleven years. Some things simply never changed. These soldiers were riled up and annoyed. The threats of killing others didn’t faze me. But I was disappointed that they were talking about another organization outside the Mafia circle. I wanted to know about my family, about what remained of the Baranovs so I could return to them and provide for my baby.
“I see you.”
I didn’t flinch as the young feminine voice reached my ears. Not looking away from my coffee as I idly stirred my spoon in the liquid, I tried to puzzle out who’d spoken.
“I said I can see you,” she repeated, haughtier.
Now that I was paying attention for someone to speak up, I tracked her location. Next to me, on the other side of a partition, was a young teenager. I slowly glanced at her, careful not to let any expressions show on my face.
“I see you listening in.” The girl who didn’t look mature enough to be considered an adolescent smirked at me. “You’re spying on them.” A tip of her chin toward the counter was all the indication she wanted to show me.
“Excuse me?” I asked, feigning confusion and innocence.
“You’ve been sitting here spying and listening to what those men say. I’m gonna tell my daddy that you’re spying.”
I licked my lips, peeved that this scrap of a spoiled child could try to threaten me. After all I’d gone through? After all I’d survived, I had to contend with her acting like this?
“You shouldn’t be so cruel,” I advised, keeping the heat out of my tone the best that I could. Even though she was young, she could quickly gather attention and cause trouble for me. She could stand up and tell others a stranger was spying here, and I’d be stuck.
She smiled devilishly at me.
“Women need each other’s help in this world,” I said, thinking back to Jenny’s compassion and selflessness. What a contrast she was to this punk.
The girl huffed. “In my world, I don’t need help. I’m a princess.”
“A Mafia princess?” I asked knowingly.
She tipped her chin up. “Yeah. And I’ll never need help. Like my daddy says, I’ll never want for anything.”
“Oh?” I didn’t care that my hood fell back a bit. I wanted to see her fully, and I wanted her to see me while I set her straight. Someone had to explain how things worked in our world. “Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I know,” the girl sassed.
“Then as one Mafia princess to another, take this advice freely.” I licked my dried lips then cleared my raw throat. “You’ll want for freedom.”
She furrowed her brow.
“You’ll be forced to marry a horrible man. You’ll be arranged in marriage to some asshole stranger. And you will never be able to make a choice of your own.”
“That’s…” She frowned and shook her head. “That’s not true. My daddy says I’ll always be his little girl.”
I shook my head. “You’re a pawn. Just like me, like all of us daughters in the Mafia, you are a thing to be used and sold and traded off.”
“I don’t…” She lowered her head more. As she seemed to absorb what I said, her spirits sank and her expression turned more troubled. “I thought that was just something people say to scare me into obedience.”
Yeah, obedience that your husband will expect one day.
I hated to give her such a blunt reality check, but she would do well to be informed sooner than later. “It’s true.”
“How do you know?” She scowled, getting defensive and doubtful.
“Because I’m a Mafia princess too.”
She studied me the best she could with my hood still partially on. “I don’t recognize you. You’re not from the Family.”
“Not this one.” I tapped my finger on the tabletop, indicating the Petrov-owned diner. “But the Baranovs.”
She lowered her gaze again, seeming puzzled instead of shocked. This girl was too young to be aware that one of the Baranovs had been taken so long ago. She couldn’t possibly understand my return to the city, and that was why I felt safe to divulge my name. If she were to tell her daddy that I was here, he probably wouldn’t believe her.
I watched her, letting her sit with this advice, but I disliked the pain I felt for her to accept the truth. All of us women suffered the same ugly fate.
Married off. Bred. And dismissed. That was how most Mafia families operated, but not the Baranovs.
Because being owned like that was no life.
Even though most of my family was gone, I refused to let Eva be trapped in a hopeless existence. And it wasn’t the life I wanted for the baby in my belly, either.
I huffed. “I wish I could’ve been around to act like a big sister to my sister,” I mumbled to her, knowing this spoiled girl wouldn’t care.
“Has she been forced away to a horrible man?” the girl asked.
“I haven’t been in the city lately, but I plan to make sure Eva will never be?—”
Her brows shot up. “Eva?”
Shit. I didn’t like that spark of recognition that showed on her face. I felt safe enough to tell her who I was because I doubted she’d understand the significance behind my presence. But she clearly had heard of Eva.
“Eva Baranov is already married,” the girl stated.
I frowned, instantly suspicious that she was messing with me.
“She chose her husband,” she added.
Eva’s already married? It was too far of a stretch of the imagination to believe it. “Eva Baranov is married?” I asked.
“Yeah, she?—”
One of the men turned from the counter, ordering her to come and leave with him. While she was replying to her father, I lowered my head, pulled the hoodie back up over my face, and slid out of my seat.
Too close. Too much attention. I had to get out before she pointed me out or tried to alert anyone there about a Baranov princess being in their presence.
Too many questions.
I’d gone there to learn something—anything—about my family’s situation that I was returning to.
All I’d discovered was that it was too late to save my sister from being a pawn for another man or family.
Eva was already married.
That girl claimed that Eva had chosen her husband, but until I could see my sister in the flesh, I had no way to guess whether she was trapped.