Chapter 8
RAISA
Eliot was out cold. I watched to make sure both of the Rivera Italians were dead. Well and truly dead, not just lying there to pop back up and attack again. Neither had a pulse. I checked, pressing my fingers to their necks. Just touching a dead body sent shivers through me.
This wasn’t the first time I’d seen a corpse.
Somehow, despite my best efforts of cutting ties with my Mafia past, it wouldn’t be the last, either.
These two men who found me and targeted me as a weak link to the Dubinin Family had to be disposed of, but it wouldn’t be me trying to take care of that cleanup.
I had no means to hide a body. I had no nefarious contacts to call for assistance.
No friends or allies. Nothing and no one in terms of resources to rely on.
It was just me. And Lev.
He can’t see this.
He can’t even be near this.
Unlike me, he was softer and more innocent, not growing up in a crime family like I had.
Sparing him the cruelties of being a participant in such a group was one of the biggest motivations to have such a nomadic lifestyle and be on the move so much.
If I could shelter him and prevent him from facing the worst of this life, then I would.
But that time was up.
With these two Italian mobsters showing up to get me like this, it was obvious my best efforts had failed. We had been found. Our safety and privacy had been violated and compromised. From this moment on, since these two Riveras broke in here to be killed by my hands, nowhere would be safe again.
If it wasn’t another Rivera coming next, someone else would.
My aliases wouldn’t save me and my son. Moving around and working crummy jobs just to be paid in cash and stay off the radar wouldn’t get us near peace.
It broke my heart and pissed me off to the bottom of my soul, but it was time.
It was time to go home and insist on help from the one man who should’ve stuck with us all along.
Ivan Dubinin, ready or not, you will help me keep our son safe.
He had the resources. He had the wealth, the power, the influence, and the authority. All because he was born into the Dubinin name, Ivan was skilled and had the means to protect Lev.
I doubted he cared about my life. Asking him to extend his protection to include me seemed like a long shot.
He’d made it perfectly clear when he explained he had been cheating on me with Serena Rose, that actress who’d slept with everyone and anyone, that he didn’t love me. That he didn’t want me in his life.
He could discard me and walk away from me, but with this new violence in my home, I’d be damned if he discarded our son and walked away from him.
I stepped back from the bodies once I’d dragged them to the kitchen.
My prints would be everywhere, but there was no time to stress about that.
Lev and I had lived here long enough that it would be impossible to remove all traces of us here.
But that wasn’t an issue. Whenever these two men were found, Lev and I would be across the ocean, far from letting this danger touch us any longer.
“But first…” I winced as I looked at Eliot’s still relaxed body sprawled on the floor.
He was breathing fine. His pulse was strong.
I was no expert in concussions, but I was sure that he’d wake up any second now.
And when he did, I had to spin the narrative such that he wouldn’t insist on calling for the police or trying to be a hero.
Monica could help her husband with this hit on the head he’d taken.
I had to get him out of here. Letting him wake up here would pose too many questions too soon.
Lingering here wasn’t something I could afford to do right now.
I had to grab the emergency bags I always had packed for me and Lev.
Then I had to hurry to pick him up from school and leave for New York.
We had to hustle to escape this location to seek out the one man I swore I’d never have to see again after how he’d broken my heart.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed hold of Eliot.
Hoisting him up with my hands in his armpits was slow going.
He weighed a lot, and it was dead weight as he slept on.
But once I managed to pull him out of the house and across the lawn, miraculously without anyone in the neighborhood noticing, I knew it was doable.
Fortunately, the trees offered adequate coverage to block me.
And it was an additional fortune that his back door was unlocked.
I struggled and grunted, straining to pull him inside his house.
No one else was home, also a blessing. After I let him rest on the floor, I backed up to bolt.
He began to stir just as I stepped away, calling sluggishly for his wife, and I took that last chance to run and avoid explaining anything.
Back in the house, I checked that the dead men were still dead.
Of course, they were. I took their guns for the sake of being protected, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to fly with them.
In a mad dash, I hurried through the house to grab anything Lev and I might need.
We never collected an abundance of material things, but like any other child, he had several toys he’d insist upon always keeping with him.
Gathering his things and sticking them into my bag didn’t take long.
This deep sense of urgency pushed me to rush.
Once I was ready to depart, I called for a ride to get me at the opposite corner from the direction of the Rafaels’ house. Whatever it took to avoid Eliot seeing me.
I stood in the shade, comforted with the weight of one of the guns on me, hiding in my waistband at my back.
I’d done it.
For years, I’d been doing it all.
Raising Lev. Keeping him safe. It wasn’t fair that I had to be confronted with the truth that I just couldn’t do it all on my own in the end. I was only one person, and the man we had to go find would have plenty more resources than I ever could.
Still, it was a defeat in a sense.
When I ran off after Ivan showed me how disloyal he’d been to me, I intended to never look back. To raise my son and live a life away from crime.
Having to surrender and seek help now stung, but this wasn’t a time for pride to be an obstacle. Not when this was a life-or-death scenario pertaining to Lev.
As I waited for the car to pull up, I called the only number I had for Kalina again.
It really showed how alone I was in the world that I could try to get in touch with a distant cousin I hadn’t spoken to in years, but again, I wasn’t a quitter.
I’d keep trying to reach her just in case she’d be able to be an ally for me.
When she didn’t call back or text, I began to lose hope. Having her as a backup would mean the world to me. Because going back to New York and dealing with the Dubinins was scary enough.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the driver said when he showed up. “Running late today.”
I shrugged, not wanting to leave an impression on him such that he’d remember me at all. Being unidentifiable was the objective, always, until Ivan could lend some help.
What if he doesn’t?
I bit my lip as I got in the backseat, trying my best to focus on the present moment of escape. I told the driver the directions to the school, but as he drove there, I warred with the worry that I could show up in New York and Ivan would have no interest in helping me keep our son safe.
It’d been years.
He never even knew that I was pregnant.
He’d doubt that Lev was his.
Oh, God. I’m so fucked.
The more I envisioned what-ifs, the sicker and more nauseated I felt.
We pulled up to Lev’s school, and I asked the driver to wait while I collected my son.
Tension had me moving jerkily. Stress clouded my mind.
But I kept a cool demeanor as I told the front office I was here to get Lev for “an appointment”.
It was a lie, but it wasn’t like I could explain anything.
Our being here, as Petersons, was a lie to begin with.
Lev smiled and was happy to see me, but when he came outside and saw the car, he frowned. “Mama? What appointment do I have?”
I shook my head slightly, still scanning our surroundings. The weight of the gun reassured me, but I was still too damn tense to relax at all. “We need to run.”
He sobered instantly. This wasn’t the first time we’d relocated. Before, it had just been my fear that prompted me to move. Only today had something actually happened. Up until those Riveras, no one had compromised our safety.
It broke my heart that Lev knew. He clammed up, getting a numb, vacant look in his eyes like he did when he was really scared but thinking a mile a minute with anxiety inside.
But he didn’t protest. He knew the drill. I couldn’t explain anything right now and he’d know better than to ask. I’d let him know when it was safe to speak and make eye contact with anyone. For now, he got in the car without a word and we rode to the airport.
On the ride, I tried Kalina again to no avail. She wasn’t answering. Maybe it wasn’t even her number anymore. I couldn’t leave a voicemail in case it wasn’t her. Like this, I had no choice but to fly to New York and have help there.
I heaved in a deep breath as Lev and I entered the airport. I held his hand tightly, not daring to release him at all in this busy place.
Flights to New York were listed on the screens above us, but when I saw the line of our specific flight, dread kicked in and mixed with the anxiety that gripped me, much like it had to be doing to my son.
“New York?” he asked quietly.
I nodded.
“I thought you said we’d never go there.”
Well, never say never… I exhaled slowly. “I did say that. But things have changed.”
We had been found. We’d been targeted. I was falsely seen as a loose link to the Dubinins.
What hadn’t changed, though, was the status of my father potentially being a threat to our lives.
More than anything, I wished I could have a chance to truly know whether Konstantin Petrov was dead, like I’d heard from rumors years ago.
Without a word and still watching the crowds, I tried to imagine what the Italian faction of the Rivera group could be planning to do with me. Or Lev. Whatever they were up to was a direct challenge to my efforts at peace, to be a nobody and left alone to raise my child.
No, this is all I can do.
I couldn’t do this alone anymore with those Italians showing up like that.
After I disposed of the gun, dropping it into the garbage outside the terminals, Lev and I got into our seats on the plane.
Only after we took off into the air did he speak up. “Mama?”
I wanted to cry at the fear and worry in his inquisitive tone.
I shook my head, squeezing his little hand tighter.
“Not now,” I whispered. I owed him answers.
I would share so much more with him to explain why we were flying to New York, why I was bringing him to a crime lord and his nephew, why I hid the fact that his father has been alive all this time and just didn’t want us.
Coming back to Ivan was literally my last resort. It was such a huge surrender and defeat that I had to concentrate on calming myself for the whole flight over the ocean.
I had to have a clear head to face him at all. This wouldn’t be a casual encounter. This would be a deliberate visit.
Thinking ahead to how this could play out, so many more questions popped into my head.
I wondered how he’d changed.
What he looked like.
If he was still with Serena or if he’d moved on to someone else.
No. Stop. That so does not matter.
I had to catch myself from caring. I could not care about who he was with and what was happening in his life.
All I would demand was his protection because he’d lost my heart years ago and there was no way he could get it back. Ever again.
I swore on it as I watched Lev sleep, slumped against me as we headed “home”.
Lev was all that mattered.
Nothing else.
Not my heart, not my soul that called to Ivan’s.
The only priority I could cling to and focus on was the safety of my son.