Chapter Twenty
In which we find the parties with cheap beer and lots of laughter are much better than the kind where people want to kill you.
Liria…
The insistent, irritating buzz of my phone wakes me up the next morning. Checking the time, I groan. Eleven am? I never sleep in like this. Usually, Alexsey's movements around the loft wake me up.
"Hello?" I flop back on my pillow, covering my eyes from the insistent sunshine.
"Hey girlie, I wanted to see how the party went." Caroline sounds so cheerful, like life is beautiful and not complex.
"I didn't realize…" I hesitate, accepting the reality that I'm not going back to sleep and nor should I. "Everyone there hated me."
"What?" Caroline is immediately offended on my behalf, which is one of her many fine qualities that I admire. "You're fucking adorable! Why do you think that?"
"I was never around the Krasniqi curse long enough to know how truly horrible my father is," I say.
"Well, I knew he was a disgusting human being.
Since I've moved here, though. I've heard stories.
He's done evil shit to nearly every crime family in the US and probably Europe.
Maybe he's a global blight, I don't know. "
"So how does this unsurprising discovery relate to the party last night? I thought this was like a coronation or something, you being a new Morozov bride and part of their Bratva." There's a crinkle of a wrapper and then a discreet crunch.
"Do you keep a case of Cheetos in your bedroom?"
"No," she lies through her mouth full of crunchy goodness. "Now stop avoiding the question."
"There was no outright rudeness." Liar. "But everyone would meet me, realize I was Liria Krasniqi, and they'd look at me differently.
Like I was a mess they'd stepped in on the sidewalk.
They were careful, of course, to not show it openly in front of any of the Morozovs.
No one wanted to talk to me after the initial introduction, and then, in the bathroom-"
I can't tell Caroline about Marc Canton. She has been known to laugh at his family and call them "Mafia Lite."
"What?" her voice sharpens. "What happened in the bathroom? Did the mean girls corner you? There's always fucking mean girls."
"No, nothing bad." You're such a liar. "I just realized that I'm the stand-in for my father. He's not here to hate and I am."
"I wish I'd been there with you," she says fiercely. "I would have punched that sneer right off their faces! Why didn't Alexsey do anything about it?"
Shrugging, I say, "Because no one was stupid enough to do it in front of him."
"It won't always be like this," she says with more optimism than confidence. "Everyone will realize how nauseatingly sweet you are and then you'll build a little crowd of your people." There is another quiet crunch or two. "I could come for a visit. Cheer you up?"
"Really?" I'm embarrassed at how fast I cling onto the suggestion. "You could? That would be wonderful."
"Would you mind if Idiot One and Idiot Two come with me?"
Idiots One and Two are Mikal and Bobby, her brothers and my cousins. Roan once said of them, "Well, they're not bright, but they're cheerful." This is essentially accurate.
"Really? I thought they hated everywhere that isn't Boston," I ask.
"I think they want to hit up your in-laws for a job. Their career as a lower-level crime family in Beantown is no longer enough for them," she says caustically.
"The Morozov Bratva has business interests in Boston, mostly I think moving massive amounts of legal cannabis out of the state and selling it where it is not legal," I muse.
"Maybe Dmitri would consider putting Bobby and Mikal in a position there.
I mean, they have tons of contacts, even if they've pissed most of them off. "
"It's settled," she says, squishing the Cheeto bag.
I hear the faint thump as it hits the garbage can.
Caroline was a star basketball player on our high school team.
"I'll be there tomorrow. We'll try out every vendor cart on 5th Avenue and eat until we can't hold our bloated selves upright.
Then, we hit a couple of Morozov nightclubs because I know they have a shit ton of them and we won't have to pay for drinks. "
"That sounds like one hell of a weekend," I'm laughing harder than her plans deserve, but it's such a relief to find anything entertaining again.
"Tell Roan I'm bringing the Idiots with me so he can emotionally prepare," Caroline continues.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" I say, a familiar sadness settling over me like a storm system. "Alexsey wouldn't let me keep Roan. They reassigned him to some undignified warehouse shit until they feel he can be trusted."
"Plus, it pulls away one of the few people you feel like you can trust," she says, furious again. "It helps Alexsey keep you isolated. He's such a dick."
"It wasn't his decision as much as an across-the-board thing," I say, feeling oddly uncomfortable with making him the bad guy. Why? Because he showed me one moment of kindness last night?
"This is bullshit! It's bad enough that your father threw you in as the sacrificial lamb." Oh, yeah, she's on a roll. "Now you're being punished for being a Krasniqi on both sides, the rest of the crime families and your asshat of a husband?"
The storm front is pressing down on me, the curse of being a Krasniqi, my husband hating me, Marc Canton telling me he's going to kill me.
If he feels this way, how many other people in the crime world want to kill me because they can't get at my father?
Pressing my knuckles hard against my chest, I try to force my heart to slow down.
My pulse feels like it's beating in my throat, choking me.
"I've got to go, girlie," I manage, trying to hear over my thundering heartbeat. "Call me before you take off, okay? Love you."
I hang up on her, mid-sentence. My bones feel too loose to support me and I slide off the bed, folding my arms and legs up against my torso. I'm in a box. Contained. "Breathe," I whisper. "Exhale. Nice and slow. Breathe…"
It's clear now, my father's plan. He's fucking Satan. Luan's dead. He forces me into a high-profile marriage so everyone's focused hatred lands on me. Now, he gets to die in peace and quiet while I pay for his legacy.
"Breathe… exhale… breathe…"
***
"I think you should make an appearance."
Roan's phone call came at the perfect time. I had pulled out of my panic attack but I need something new to think about or I'll spiral again.
"An appearance where?" I ask.
"There's a gathering at one of Morozov's bars tonight, seediest one imaginable," he says dryly. "Everyone with an Albanian surname will be stopping by. Since you're the figurehead, I think it would help them to see you."
"Oh, good," I say bitterly. "More people who want to kill me."
"What does that mean?" Roan's voice is sharp.
Walking over to my window, I watch people walk past the loft. A mom and two kids who have a key to the private park. She lets them in and they race screeching to the swings. That's nice, I haven't seen anyone enjoy the park yet, and it's so pretty.
"Liria? What did you mean by that?"
"Father is… wherever he is, living his best life until the cancer finally eats him up.
He knew that shoving me into this marriage would put me in the spotlight, giving his enemies a fresh new target.
" I press my forehead against the window, watching the two kids swing as their mom collapses on a bench, stretching her legs.
Would I live long enough to have children?
"Has someone threatened you, kenge e vogel?"
Tears eagerly flood my eyes. Roan hasn't called me 'little song' since I was a teenager. "You old softy, you."
"Don't change the subject." His voice is like ice, which means he's furious. Roan burns cold, especially when he's feeling murderous.
"No," I lie. It's not going to do any good to tell him about Marc Canton. If Roan killed an important Morozov partner, banishing him from the Bratva would be the best outcome. A bullet in his head would be more likely.
Marc probably didn't mean it. He was angry, grieving his father.
"It's just… the reception at the party last night wasn't good. I knew how hated Dritan Krasniqi was, hell, I hate him. You hate him. I just didn't realize it would transfer to me."
Roan is silent, which means he's planning a horrible death for someone, or he knows I'm not telling him the full story.
"Come tonight," he sighs. "Have a drink, speak in your awkward Albanian, with your execrable grammar.
Be around people who are united in their hatred of the Kyre of the Krasniqi Fare.
" His voice softens slightly. "And who do not hate you. "
I chuckle wetly, "That actually sounds great. Thank you."
Alexsey is not of the same opinion. "I don't agree." Having gotten home, he's pulling a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, still in his black suit and a blue silk tie the color of his eyes. He only dresses up for high-profile meetings. Not that he'll give me any details.
"What does that mean?" I ask, shaking my head when he holds up the bottle in a silent offer.
"We're trying to integrate some of the Krasniqi people. You clustering them all back up looks like there's been no progress." He downs a shot and pours another.
"Isolating them without any support isn't going to make the process any smoother," I argue. The fact that Alexsey is still talking to me is progress. Maybe last night signaled a thaw? Still, he's standing on one side of the island, me on the other with a shining expanse of wood between us.
He loosens his tie with his right hand, staring at me thoughtfully. "All right. I'm going with you."
Unfortunately, he was serious. We were in the back seat of the Bentley in less than an hour.
"Why are you coming again?" I ask.
"Seeing us together is a message." Alexsey says. "Unified."
"A blending of our two great families together?" I ask sardonically.
"Exactly, Miss Johnson."
"Very well, Beauford."