Chapter 41
The door slams shut and suddenly, I’m alone before I realize he’s gone.
In two years of being Pakhan, I’ve heard and seen a lot of fucked-up shit, but this is something else.
I have a younger sister.
When I was a kid, I used to be jealous of Anastasia and Lev’s close sibling bond and wanted something similar. Impossible, given Mama was no longer around and Papa never brought another woman around—also to my dismay. Second to wanting a sibling, I hoped for a stepmother. Someone who could give me the motherly connection I never got to experience.
When Dimitri and I grew closer, he became like a big brother, and it was enough. We bonded due to our fathers’ relation and close roles within the Bratva. It got better when Dimitri and Ivan moved into the mansion and helped ease the depressive feeling that arose when seeing Anastasia and Lev together because I finally had something similar. I stopped wanting a sibling because I had a family I chose—Dimitri, Anastasia, and Lev.
But now I have one. Kind of. A half-sibling with no ties to the Volkov family other than the traumatic past her mother suffered at the hands of my father. I have a sister simply because of Papa’s actions.
There’s not even a proper term for what Papa’s done to women.
To me.
To Zeno and Serafina’s mother.
To the strangers stolen from their families and forced to endure sickening acts all while he profited from them.
Bile rises from my throat. It keeps rising until?—
I bolt, streaking across the bedroom and into the bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time for something to come up. My stomach is painfully empty from lack of food, which in this instance, I’m thankful for. A few gags and I’m catching my breath, unsteadily climbing back to my feet.
When I stand, my gaze catches in the wall-sized mirror above the sink. My hair is a mess from the fight in my mansion, the flight here, and sleep last night. My pale skin is somehow shallower, sickly, which causes the dark marks, a result from stress, exhaustion, and smudged eyeliner, beneath my eyes to seem more vivid.
In the mirror’s reflection, I not only see my chaotic self; I see the solution: the shower behind me.
At this point, there’s nothing more Zeno can do to me, so I strip my clothing, which reeks of the past days’ events, and leave them in a pile by the door. The water, which I allow to warm for a moment before climbing in, pelts my back with a pressure that’d otherwise feel soothing, if I wasn’t so tense being in enemy territory.
My hair falls forward, a partially drenched curtain on either side of me, as I stare at the drain where water swirls before disappearing. If only getting to freedom was as easy.
As I stand, stare, and numb myself, I wonder where Zeno’s gone off to. Probably to see his sister— our sister. He brought her out of hiding to make me realize everything Papa did, and it worked. Papa destroyed a woman’s sanity and security, murdered a man and left a fourteen-year-old boy fatherless, all for a pointless age-old war that neither side needed to continue.
A laugh bubbles out of me. Not at the horrors these villa’s walls have witnessed decades past, but at myself. At this. At what my life’s become. My laughter is maniacal and, well, a bit unhinged, achieving Zeno’s goal to make me so.
Somewhere in this house is a girl who shares my blood. For better or for worse, whatever Zeno denies, that girl and I are blood-related half-siblings. And that’s…
It’s…yeah.
Papa. Why? Why, why, why?
My legs buckle until I’m leaning on the shower wall, and then sliding into a crouch beneath the spray until all my strength evaporates and my knees slam into the dark coloured tile.
It’s just…it’s so much. Too much. Too much to comprehend. Too much to accept. I took on a lot of Papa’s debts when becoming Pakhan, but this war is something I never could have guessed at. The reason behind it even less probable.
At some point, I go from kneeling beneath the spray to pressing against the door, only my feet beneath the water. I don’t know exactly when my knees draw up to my chest, or when my head bows forward until I’m curled in a tight ball: the ideal hiding position.
Hiding from Zeno. From life. From the past. And what’ll be my unknown future.
This is pathetic and so unlike the woman I’ve clawed my way up from the bottom to become. I spent months—hell, years —proving to Russia, the world, Papa’s long-gone soul, and myself that I can do the job. Can be who Papa should have allowed me to grow into. But right now, I’m not entirely sure I recognize myself.
Liquid streams from my eyes. Water dripping from my hair? I wipe beneath my eyes, fingers bringing black streaks of my makeup with them, and realize it’s not water falling but rather tears.
I’m crying. Crying, and this shower now feels warmer, like the walls are closing in, and it’s too much. They’ll slam into me, squish me, make me into nothing. My next inhale is a hard shudder instead of a smooth breath. The next three are the same, and at some point, my nails are clawing at my ankles, my legs, any part of my body they can reach. I think I’m having a breakdown. Or a panic attack. A something that I’ve never experienced before.
This makes no sense. I laugh again, but it’s more stilted between shallow breaths. I didn’t break down when witnessing Papa’s murder, or when I stood up in front of the Bratva’s heads and fired them all. So what makes now of all times so impactful?
“Volkov.”
For once, a name I wish I could burn right alongside my father’s corpse. A name linked to destruction and a family’s trauma. A name I can never live up to in the way Papa would want me to, because I’m not like him. Once, I coveted nothing more than to be recognized as a Volkov: to follow in his steps. Even Dimitri got to experience the freedoms associated with the name while I was stuck behind walls. The walls of my boarding school Papa sent me off to year after year. The walls of the mansion when I returned. The walls of a persona, built by him for specific purposes and desired outcomes.
“Volkov!”
Cool air rushes into my lungs as the shower door opens with a loud crack. Why is a shower door so noisy? Or is it because everything else is so muted that the single sound stands out? Either way, it’s a noise my mind latches onto, to ignore the figure stepping inside the shower, the water instantly soaking his clothing. The figure kneels, and rough, calloused hands jerk my face up. I try to fight, but my waning strength and growing exhaustion can’t, and I’m forced to stare into the d'yavol’s face. The devil with water-kissed eyelashes that make those impossible emerald eyes glisten more than normal.
When did my captor become so attractive? Was it before or after I lost my mind?
Water trickles from his eyelashes and lands on his cheeks, sliding down to the edge of his chin. My gaze follows every single droplet to remain grounded and not fall into madness within my enemy’s hold.
Not sure it’s working. If I wasn’t already mad, I wouldn’t be allowing him to touch me. To stroke his thumbs beneath my eyes and wash away the dark marks. To tug me onto his lap, like we’re some domesticated couple who cares about each other’s well-being.
“Mio Dio. You’re a mess, Vanessa.”
He holds such low standards for me. I wish that didn’t hurt as much as it does.
Forcing my mouth to form words and push sound from my throat, I murmur, “That’s why I’m in the shower.” My words feel distanced, like I’m hearing them spoken by somebody else.
He huffs, studying my face, and I wonder what he sees there. What I’m revealing. At this point, I’m pretty sure my mask is so well shattered. Pieces lie all around me, and I want nothing more to mend it, place it back on my face, and hide again.
After a moment, he either does or doesn’t find what he’s looking for, but releases my jaw, bringing my head to his shoulder. He’s holding me. Comforting me.
The fucked-up part: I don’t pull away.
As Zeno Mancini, my enemy, Capo of the Cosa Nostra, the man I share a half-sibling with, and whose organization is locked in an endless history of feuding, blood, and pain with my own, holds me, I don’t shy away. Instead, I accept his large hands rubbing up and down my bare arm, and the feeling of his hard chest, drenched shirt sticking to him, against my bare one.
Maybe I’m what he’s been calling me. What I vowed I’d never be.
Broken.
I’m clearly something for allowing this.
Zeno reaches up and grabs a soap bottle and loofah off the built-in shower shelf. He squeezes soap into it and begins washing my upper body. It’s strange to have someone else be doing this. To have his gentle touch stroke over my shoulders and down my arms. He reangles me slightly so my back is against his chest, and he mechanically washes my front, fingers brushing over my nipples.
“You’re getting wet,” is all I manage to say. “Your bandage.” Seems like forever ago he was getting bullet shards pulled from his body.
“Price of ensuring you don’t drown yourself. This definitely isn’t what I expected to find you doing.”
“Experiencing a breakdown in the enemy’s shower.” I’m finding comfort in this conversation, in the banter that reminds me of so many of our previous interactions. “Yeah, me neither.”
“Don’t say that,” he murmurs, his hands caressing over my hips. “You’re not having a breakdown.”
I do a stupid thing and tip my head backwards to look at him upside down. “Then what would you describe this?”
“Fishing for a compliment, Volkov?” He smirks, but replies, “I’d say, you learned a really big fact about your life and your mind is processing.”
“This must thrill you then. Finding me processing .”
“It should thrill me,” he utters low, almost like he’s talking to himself.
He pauses to retrieve more soap, and that’s when I notice the bottle’s label. It’s his soap. Which, why wouldn’t it be, considering whose shower I’m inside? He’s washing me with his soap, which means I’m going to smell like him.
Not sure how I feel about that one.
“It should thrill me,” he repeats, “but I’m finding that isn’t the case.”
Just like your touch shouldn’t thrill me, but it does.
Yet, my eyes flutter shut and a sigh decompresses my spine. I’m completely limp against him and not a tiny bit tense, which is stupid. Papa, Dimitri, even Anastasia, they’d all disown me if they saw this. My actions aren’t those of a Pakhan in enemy territory. I should be plotting and battling my way to freedom. But for this single moment in time, it’s nice not to act like a Pakhan. Words I can’t believe went through my mind.
His hands pass over my thighs, dipping between them, and I slowly spread them. Another out-of-body experience I mentally berate myself for but don’t stop.
Zeno makes a low noise, which I feel over the nape of my neck. And just when I think his touch might explore more places, and I wonder if my distraught mind will remember to push him away, Zeno removes his hands and nudges me off his lap.
He helps me stand, his eyes staring over my shoulder rather than my face. His expression seems cooler than before, and the ice evaporates amidst the water’s temperature.
“Glad you’re back to the land of the present.” He turns for the shower’s door handle. “Finish up in here. I’ll get you fresh clothes.”
He’s gone before I can thank him. Gone before I can finish rationalizing why he was in here.
Because I was breaking down. Or processing, as he called it.
I brush my hands over my face, wiping away my temporary insanity, as though that’ll be an easy feat and move beneath the shower’s spray again. To remain in the present, I recite all the important details I’ve learned while shampooing my hair.
Papa raped and impregnated a woman, who happens to be Zeno’s mom. That makes the child, Serafina, my half-sister. Papa’s not a good person, which is no new fact, and Zeno’s family is understandably seeking retribution.
The more I repeat them, the less shocking they become. The more I’ll be able to function. Now knowing why I’m Zeno’s target explains some of what’s happening here. He’s claimed he won’t be killing me, and by now, my Elite should be getting closer to arriving.
Everything’s fine. Manageable. Now that I’ve “processed,” I’ll never be as vulnerable as Zeno just found me. It was a one-off, similar to the few anxious moments I had in my own shower at home during the initial few months of leadership.
I finish up, suddenly more eager than ever to get out of his space. Hell, eager to get out of Italy altogether. I got my answers so there’s nothing I need more than freedom and to return home.
And Zeno? Just this morning, I was prepared to end his life once my army arrives. This time, when I shoot the gun, I won’t miss and it’ll guarantee this feud with the Cosa Nostra ends. But now…now that thought feels wrong.
Like I’d be no different than Papa if I followed through.
Maybe my breakdown isn’t over; it’d explain these irrational thoughts. Zeno tricked me with the intention to murder me, so shitty family history or not, there’s no reason to keep him alive. Feeling sorry about actions done to his mother can’t save his soul, not when it’s my own is also on the line.
As I bundle up in a fluffy towel hanging on a nearby rack, I question if my thoughts and actions will cooperate, or if they too will find themselves at war come the time when Zeno is pleading for mercy.