Chapter 65
Unfortunately for Vanessa, I know where she lives.
Unfortunately for me, my wife guessed what my next steps would be and positioned a small force of soldiers at the edge of her property.
I park the rental car on the side of the road and slip out from the front seat, hands loose by my sides so they see I’m not armed. Though, if they wanted to check, they’d find a gun tucked into my jeans.
In one pocket, I have the diamond ring I bought her. Nero called me suicidal. I claimed to be making a point. She didn’t kill me, so it’s a start.
None of the men lift a weapon toward me, which makes me wonder what Vanessa’s exact orders were. The centremost soldier steps forward. “Boss figured you’d come here. Return to your own country before we toss you out.”
I keep a few paces between us, lingering where the grass meets the gravel. “I’m only here to talk.”
“Leave, Mancini.”
“Not until she hears me out.” Again. But this guy doesn’t need to know it’d be a second attempt.
I don’t know at what point yesterday I decided to make the trip. In the middle of dealing with Serafina’s safety, my mind continued slipping toward a woman with a cruel smile and an even crueller demeanour. The determination to reveal what’s beneath her rigid fa?ade struck me.
Every word I said to her in the bar was the truth, although she believes it’s a lie and I wish it was. I don’t know what it means, or what I want it to, I just know something has to give. To change. To accept that at night, I dream of her, and during the day, I picture what she’s doing. That I wake up hard thinking about her, and go to sleep recalling the night I held her.
For days, I’ve convinced myself it’s only my desire to control Ursin’s legacy, but every hour passing, the fact slips further into fiction. That it’s less about revenge, and more about…well, her . That the union forcing us together is slowly transitioning into a formality giving me reason to continue talking to her.
The soldier frowns before tipping his head toward the walkie talkie strapped to his shoulder, his warning gaze keeping me in my spot. This can’t be this easy…No way my meager begging worked.
The soldier announces, “You’re in luck. Someone’s on their way.”
Someone. Not Vanessa. It’s a start.
Waiting involves a tense silence with the line of seven glowering at me as though breathing the same air will somehow taint them. Finally, another person approaches, and he’s someone I should have expected. Not her cousin, but the other Elite member, Lev Petrov.
He scowls at me with an expression nearly identical to the men around him, almost like it’s a skill taught within the Bratva’s training. “She’s not here.”
Since he hasn’t shot me yet, I allow myself to hope that one of her most trusted will give me the answer I seek, the same way his sister took one look at me standing on the bar’s front step, shook her head with a small grin, and led me inside, simply stating, “She’ll kill me for this, but at this point, you two need to figure your shit out so I’ll accept the risk.”
Like his sister, Lev gestures farther down the road. “Cemetery. Keep driving for another ten minutes. It’ll be on your right. Check the left far back corner. That’s where her father’s grave is.”
Not that I want to stick around for any longer and risk Vanessa taking off for somewhere else, but the urge to know has me blurting, “Why are you helping me?”
Lev shrugs. “I shouldn’t. For everything you’ve done, I should give the order to have you shot and end the drama your organization brings.” He glances down the road, a look of conflict. “The fact you’re still alive says a lot about her feelings. Whatever’s going on between you two is something, even if she’s fighting it. If I were you, Mancini, I wouldn’t fuck up the only chance you got.”
He turns and walks away, the line of men continuing to stare at me as I quickly climb back into the rental car and follow Lev’s directions.
My visits to cemeteries are limited to a lone trip each year on the anniversary of Padre’s death. They’re never lengthy, heartfelt trips, but a time where I update him on all things Cosa Nostra. It’s like having him to consult with, while also never being judged by my choices.
When reaching the expanse of green land decorated with greying stones in varying shades, I head for the back left corner, as per Lev’s instructions, until spotting the sole figure. The only living soul among an estate for the fallen.
Her dark hair blows with the light breeze. It’s the only part of her moving, as though she’s trying to become still enough to blend with the dead.
If she hears me approaching, she doesn’t turn, keeping her gaze on the two stones in front of her. Both are marble, one slightly more weather-worn. The female name on the older one catches my attention, presumably her mother’s.
I stop beside her and still she continues her stare down with Ursin’s stone. Seeing the physical absence of the man who did so much to my family should thrill me, but the pain etched on Vanessa’s face makes it harder to.
“You’re still here.” Her dead voice matches those around her.
“We’re not done.”
Vanessa tugs her windblown hair over her shoulder to use as a barrier. “You thought now was the best time to finish?”
“There’s never a good time with you.”
“Maybe it’s a sign. Go home. Sign the divorce papers. Move on.”
Our conversations go in circles, and this time, I’m determined to break it. I step in front of her, blocking her view of her parents’ final resting place. “If I don’t want to?”
Her jaw clicks into place. “How’d you know where to find me?”
“Lev.”
“Asshole,” she murmurs in an affectionate tone. “Fuck, what is with everyone today?” It’s a question more for herself. With a final headshake, she steps to the side. “Bet you’re pleased to witness this.”
I remain silent, swaying on my heels as I watch her expression to figure out which response to give, but opting for the truth. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”
“I’d call you an idiot if you weren’t.” A smile ghosts over her face so quickly, I almost imagine it. “Unfortunately, there’s no body here.” She kicks the grass in front of Ursin’s stone. “His body is wherever the Famiglia put it. For months following his death, Ivan pleaded with Rossi to return him, but it never happened.”
“What did you want?”
She meets my eyes, and with that gaze, it’s like she acknowledges me for the first time since I got here. Then she blinks and that coldness, the one as chilly as the wind, returns.
“Then: I don’t know. Part of me couldn’t care less. Now: I still don’t.” She pauses, wrapping her arms around herself, her shoulders bowing inward. So used to only caring for herself and never letting another hold her. “It took months before I came here, and when I did, it was only to curse him and let him know I’d be claiming the Bratva without a husband. When I got home from Rome and found his journal…” Her expression pinches. “It didn’t redeem him, but it was insightful.” She sighs, long and pained, even a bit ashamed. “I found myself here three different instances in the past month.”
“You’re allowed to miss him.”
“He’s one of the worst kinds of humans on the planet. The love he had for his own mother, for mine, for…me…at one point doesn’t redeem him.” She pauses again, her swallow rough. “It was a book filled with pain. His own, since he was a product of his environment, of losing those he loved—as much as he could comprehend that emotion. He also wrote about kidnapping your mother and Serafina’s birth. There was no remorse. Just acknowledgement.”
My attention moves from his beautiful daughter to the focus of this conversation. He’s nothing but a stone, and not even that since his body isn’t beneath our feet. Still, I’d love to rip up the grass and destroy the place meant for his immortal soul.
Vanessa’s next murmured words instantly quell the flames. “I’m sorry, Zeno. I knew you weren’t lying. Hell, I saw the truth for myself in Serafina, but reading his depiction of it…of what he did to me. The journal was a tough dose of reality. That my papa deserved nothing less than what he got, and if I found the book before his death, I’d have done it myself. My first trip here was meant to be my final one. I don’t want to visit the grave of someone who’d caused so much horror, but I never managed to say the words.” She snorts, shaking her head. “Helps knowing his body’s probably chopped up somewhere. That I’m speaking only to dirt. To the other dead who don’t care about one man’s errors. Every time I come here, it’s to make it the last time, and yet, I continue visiting.”
“Grief’s funny that way,” I interject, my hands itching to reach out and hold her. Instead of doing something that’ll break the tentative peace, I turn toward the other grave marked with a Volkov surname. “Your mother?”
She nods, not bothering to glance at the second stone. “Yeah. After reading what he wrote, I wondered if she was still alive, what kind of man he’d have become?”
If Ursin had any affection for his wife, would he still have kidnapped Madre? Would Serafina have been born? If Padre and Madre split up, would Padre have been killed by him?
Would I have met Vanessa? If those events didn’t pass, I wouldn’t have been hunting Ursin’s family. My life would be much different, more peaceful, but I wouldn’t know Vanessa the way I do, and I wouldn’t have my sister.
Both are not options I’d ever accept.
“Theories we’ll never know,” I answer.
She falls silent as we both stand among the dead souls never met, in front of the parents of my unwilling wife. The mother who birthed the goddess beside me and the villain who shaped her. The Pakhan who tried to make her a piece in his own game, all to lose the entire board to her.
After a few minutes, I glance her way, finding her eyes shut, head tipped into the cool breeze. She looks utterly at peace, except I know this isn’t it. Not yet. Her father might be gone, Boris too, but there’s an anger, a tenseness still clenched around Vanessa’s heart that tells me she hasn’t found her peace yet.
Although it’ll end badly, I slip my hand alongside hers, fingers linking with her own.
Immediately, she flinches and yanks her hand from mine. Her lip curls and she pins me with a deadly glare that could raise any one of the dead around us. With a jerk of her head, she backs up.
“Like I said earlier, Zeno. Return to Rome.”
She walks away without a backwards glance, and again, I let her go, waiting until she’s out of sight before facing the gravestones. To the one marked with Ursin’s name, and the comical inscription it reads.
Ursin Volkov
Great Pakhan of the Bratva
Beloved Father, Honoured Husband, & Cherished Brother
“Always hoped we’d end up here, Volkov. Me, standing above you the same way you did my father. It’s too bad only your fractured soul lingers.”
Still, the sentiment remains, and I ball up a wad of spit and send it straight to the stone’s base.
“That isn’t for me, or for Madre or Serafina, or even Padre. That’s for Vanessa. You tried to break her, and it’s a shame you can’t see for yourself how you failed. You taught her to not trust anyone but I, Zeno Mancini, vow to teach her otherwise.”
To show her how another person’s affection isn’t something to run from.
Then I walk away as my words are stolen by the winds and taken from the cemetery and beyond, headed toward New York where his remains lie.