7
Don’t yank my chain
When I saw her cross the threshold of the bar last night, I couldn”t believe it.
I was playing a game with my men when she appeared. Her. My future wife. Yuri”s sister. The same one who had refused to dine with my father and me that night.
I gripped the cue tightly in my hands; I wasn”t going to go after her, I wanted to observe her and understand what she was doing there. So, instead of approaching Nikita, I waited for her to come to me.
I was convinced that she was already bored with her private bachelorette party and had come to the bar to meet the man she was going to marry.
What I didn”t expect was that, as I found out later, she had no fucking idea who I was and that her intention of visiting my haunt, my den, was to sleep with any of my guys the night before our wedding.
If she had achieved her goal, I would have become the laughingstock of the Angeli dall”inferno, and I was not going to tolerate it.
There was no love between us, that was undeniable, but I expected a minimum of respect from her part and I was going to teach her that I was not a puppet for her to do with as she pleased. No matter if she was Yuri’s sister.
Perhaps my physique had misled her.
I was always told I didn’t look like a ”businessman”more like someone who ran a bar, played in a band, or dealt coke.
My father hated the ink covering my body, the hoops in my ears, and the piercing that punctured the right wing of my nose. He said it wasn’t serious. But he also knew there was nothing he could do about it. It was my choice, my personal decision, and my own style.
We were no longer in the era where gangsters wore a tilted fedora on their heads, donned pinstripe suits, and decorated their face with a fine mustache on their upper lip.
Fashion had changed and it no longer mattered that I looked more like a biker than the son of the most dangerous capo of the Calabrian mafia. My way of dressing allowed me to infiltrate effortlessly among the underworld, making them feel more comfortable than if I wore a suit and tie. I saved those for serious meetings.
I considered myself a motorcycle enthusiast; I had been fascinated by them since I was a child. They were my hobby, my passion. In fact, I had a wide collection with several highly valued models. If I hadn”t been the son of Massimo Capuleto, I surely would have dedicated myself to mechanics, or owned a dealership for enthusiasts like me.
I felt happy with my hands full of grease or roaring down backroads on one of those beauties.
That”s how I met Yuri Korolev, by chance. His motorcycle wouldn”t start, and I offered to help him.
He was a freshman, and I was a junior. We met mid-semester, and the connection was instant. He was somewhat reserved but fun, the kind of guy you”d instinctively trust with your life, as I later found out.
He had brilliant ideas, a spark not everyone could see, and we got along perfectly.
There was only one issue between us: our last names.
We didn”t immediately realize who our parents were and the insurmountable difference it would pose for our friendship being the sons of who we were.
We shared the same campus but not the same major; he studied Chemistry, and I studied Business Administration. I was the heir, so I figured it was the smartest thing I could do to help with the family business, plus, I was always more into math than literature. I liked numbers and wanted to contribute my bit to grow the business. I”ve always had a competitive spirit.
From that day, we started greeting each other, realized we frequented the same cafe, shared similar musical tastes, and enjoyed each other”s company.
The friendship grew, and one day, a few weeks before the end of the semester, as we were having a beer in the cafe after the last class, one of his classmates called him by his last name, wanting to invite him to a party. I looked at him puzzled as soon as I heard it, because, even though he was Russian, I had heard it more than once.
”Korolev?” I asked. He smiled.
”You didn”t expect my name to be Giménez, did you?” he joked sarcastically.
I knew his background. Plus, his features, his accent, and his place of birth gave him away. What I didn”t know was whether that surname was as common as calling oneself Fernández in Spain or Rossi in Italy.
”What”s your father”s name?” I cautiously asked.
”In Russia, we tend to have the same names.”
”Yuri?” I pressed, relieved.
”No! Korolev, dummy. My father”s name is Vladimir.”
I turned pale. Okay, I wouldn”t jump to conclusions; maybe
Vladimir was also a popular name.
”What does your father do?” was my next question. Yuri seemed uncomfortable and several seconds passed before he gave me an answer.
”Business.”
”What kind of business?” I persisted.
”What is this? An interrogation? Or are you trying to see if I”m a good catch to ask for my hand? Because I warn you, I”m not into guys...”
I let out a laugh that almost propelled my beer through my nose.
”No, it”s not that, it”s just that I”ve realized we hardly ever talk about our families.” ?And it was true? ”I also like women, in case you didn”t notice the other night, especially blondes.” ?We had gone out partying and I hooked up with one? ”Don”t take it the wrong way, but as much as I like you, I would never sleep with you.”
”Good to know. Remind me not to introduce you to my sister then.”
”Your sister? I have one too, she”s a nightmare, though I love her.”
”Well, the truth is that I have three, but Nikita is my doppelg?nger as a wife.”
”Yuck!” I exclaimed. ”Does she have a mustache?”
At that moment, Yuri was pretending to let some fuzz grow under his nose. My friend clicked his tongue and looked offended.
”No, you are an idiot! He was referring to our personalities. Physically, she is exactly like my mother.” He took out his cell phone and showed me a photo in which he was with an impressive girl. I let out a whistle. Okay, she was only a teenager, but she had allure. She had a pretty face and a body that promised to mature into something precious and very desirable. ”Stop drooling, she”s a minor.”
”So, introduce me to your mother. Didn”t you say they were the same?” I joked, raising the bottle.
”My father would chop you up if you dared to touch either of them. And I would throw your remains to the pigs so they wouldn”t find a trace.”
”Uuuh, how creative! How old is she?”
”My mother?”
”No, your sister.”
”She just turned seventeen.”
”Ummm... That means that in a year...”
”In a year, nothing. If you mess with my sister, it would be like messing with me.”
”Does she also have a black and hairy asshole?” I laughed provocatively.
”I”m not going to talk to you about my sister”s ass.”
”Brilliant. Some things are better left unthought of,” I muttered inwardly, feeling annoyed.
”Nikita lives in Saint Petersburg and she has no intention of coming to Spain to meet you.”
”She”s doing well, because if she looked at me the same way you do when you think I don”t see you, I”ll tell you that by eighteen I”d have her moaning in my bed,” I replied jokingly.
”I”m not looking at you at all!” He exclaimed, offended. ”And if you ever put one of your dirty fingers on her, the next day she”d be dragging you to the altar by the balls.”
Yuri crumpled up a napkin and threw it at my face.
What irony. Who would have thought that that phrase would become a reality? That the night before, I was with her dear sister in the bar”s warehouse, and today, I was going to marry her.
The only difference between his prophecy and reality was that it wasn”t my friend pulling my balls, but my father.