Chapter 9 - Adrian
“I don’t want to put you in a position where you know too much,” I sigh, frustrated that she’s asking me to do this.
My brothers and I spent our whole lives protecting our sisters from this world.
Now Athena’s asking me to tell her things that I would never have wanted them to know.
So why would I want her to know? I have a chance to keep her safe from knowing.
“I think we’re already passed that point,” she snaps at me. “I know enough to get myself into trouble, but not enough to get myself out of it. Or to protect myself.”
I shake my head, setting the bowl of food down on the coffee table. I’m starving, but now my agitation is getting the better of me.
“Athena, the things I know aren’t things you want to know. Maybe one day I’ll tell you the basics, but overall, I want to protect you from that—from everything. It’s not a world you want to be a part of.”
She glares at me; her eyes narrowed like daggers shooting toward me.
“I’m not ok with that. I’m not going to wait for one day when you feel like telling me the truth.
I want to know now! Besides, don’t be naive.
I am already a part of this world, whether I chose it or not.
Maybe my father chose for me? Maybe you did.
I don’t know. Either way, I’m here.” She’s getting angrier and more impatient. But I can’t back down on this.
I’m about to fight back when we both hear the front door opening.
“Hello?” a voice calls out. My entire body goes tense. Shit. Not now.
There are only a very small handful of people on this planet who have free access to my home.
I groan deeply. The timing could not have been worse.
“We’re in here, Anka,” I call out, rubbing my hands over my face and sitting down to pick up my food again.
All of my siblings have access. It’s just in case something happens and they need a safe place to hide out.
Or they need to get to me. But right now, I’m regretting it and wishing she’d called first.
I glance at Athena, suddenly realizing my family has no idea who she is.
Ok, this is fine, we’re just two people having lunch. That’s all there is to see here.
“Who is Anka?” Athena mouths in a whisper with her brows knotted and panic on her face.
Anka walks in, looking like she’s about to reign hell fire down on me. “Why didn’t you tell me about the attack at the warehouse?” she blurts out. “And you got shot!”
I stand up. Athena stands up too. Athena is looking between Anka and me as though I’ve been hiding more than my Bratva connections.
But it gets worse.
Behind Anka, my brothers walk in, all here to check in on me.
I should be grateful, but now isn't a good time. The living room is suddenly packed. Matvei, Sasha, and Trifon are already pouring themselves a drink. Avda and Vilen stand nearby with Kirill; their eyes are on Athena. The noise level has tripled as everyone speaks at once.
I ignore the rest of them and focus on the person standing closest to Athena. One thing at a time.
“Anka, this is Athena. Athena, this is Anka, my sister,” I say. Athena’s eyes glimmer with relief for a second.
Behind her, Raya and Sofie arrive too. Damn. The whole crowd is here.
I glance around the room, realizing how overwhelming this must be for Athena.
“Athena, these are my brothers and sisters, all of them apparently.” There is no point in rattling off names to her now. No one could remember that many so quickly.
They start saying hello and introducing themselves, but I can see that they’re all perplexed about who she is.
“Are you keeping secret girlfriends?” Kirill leans close and whispers in my ear, knocking my arm with his shoulder.
“Athena is my wife,” I say loud enough for everyone to hear. May as well just get it out there.
The entire room goes silent, and everyone’s eyes are on me. Then on Athena. Athena looks panicked all over again.
“Athena, your wife?” My sister blurts out, emphasizing the word wife.
Anka’s eyes are wide with shock. Our relationship has only just started to heal after all the shit from the past, and I don’t want to mess that up.
She will be so mad that I kept this from her, so I need to handle the situation carefully.
“Adrian, what in the world is going on?” she demands.
“Yes, Athena, my wife,” I smile, speaking gently and trying to make it sound like it’s not a big deal. I pull Athena close to my side because she looks like she’s about to have a heart attack with so many eyes on her.
“Hi,” she says nervously. “Are you maybe hungry? I made way too much spaghetti.” A grin spreads over my face. This girl knows how to pull a crowd together. Offering food? What a brilliant idea.
The innocence of her question disarms Anka, and she lets out a soft sigh.
“Spaghetti?” she repeats, shaking her head and smiling. “Um, sure, but I really do want to know how this happened. When it happened… who…I mean…” she sighs again.
“Let’s eat something,” I say, grabbing the chance to change the subject and redirect. “Who else is hungry?”
Thank goodness Athena made enough to feed an army. I have the feeling she was nervous cooking, and lucky for us, it worked in our favor.
“I’ll get some plates,” Raya says. “I’ll grab the cutlery and set the table,” Sofie joins in.
Soon, the whole family is moving back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room to set up an early lunch.
By the time they’re done, someone has made a salad, someone has grabbed a few bottles of wine, and the dining room table is a warm bubble of conversation.
My stomach is flipping over with hunger.
Athena is sitting very close to me, still nervous around everyone.
For the duration of dinner, Anka lets up on her interrogation, and we have a relaxed afternoon. Athena begins to enjoy the back-and-forth banter with everyone, which thankfully makes her feel welcome. My sisters seem to take a liking to her quite quickly and easily find things in common.
It’s actually fun.
It’s relaxing, unexpected, and a nice break from the chaos of yesterday.
After lunch, the table gets cleared in a matter of minutes because everyone joins in to help again.
Anka, Raya, Sofie, and Athena end up staying in the kitchen to clean up a little. I think Athena is happy to join them to escape the massive group for a little while.
We’re standing in the living room. Trifon is tossing fresh logs into the fire, and everyone is settling down with a drink. I don’t feel like sitting anymore. My side hurts, and standing feels better.
The whisky should help, though. I might take a few more painkillers later.
Matvei and Kirill don’t waste any time getting to the point.
“Ok, what the hell has been going on, man? The warehouse got attacked—we came here to check on you and find out you’re married. No more dancing around the truth. Just spit it out,” Matvei demands.
I shift position, shoving my free hand into my pocket as I swirl the golden liquid in my glass over the ice blocks.
“Yeah. Yesterday, the operation attack came out of nowhere. Athena and I were at the warehouse because I was showing her some security footage. I’ll get to that in a second…
” I add when I see Kirill’s expression knot tighter.
“The attack group was small, but big enough to do enough damage that we lost two men. And many were injured, including myself.”
“Where did you get shot?” Matvei asks.
I pull up the side of my shirt to show them the bandage. “Athena pulled the bullet out for me. It’s taped together pretty tight. Feels ok.”
“Athena helped? Does she have experience?” Kirill asks.
“No, poor girl was in total shock. Her hands were shaking, and she looked green in the face. But she did a good job.”
“Alright, get to the rest of the story then. Operation attacks… we can deal with that. Nothing new. You being married?” Vilen says impatiently.
“Ricardo Mendelez was someone who worked at the warehouse until recently,” I start.
“I’ve heard that name. I’m pretty sure I had a conversation with him while there once or twice. But ok, what does he have to do with it?” Matvei says.
“Ricardo is Athena’s father. We caught him on camera stealing from one of our shipments after it had been packed.
It would have been a fucking nightmare if the order had arrived short on the other side, but lucky Antonio was on the ball, as usual, and fixed it before it became a bigger problem. However, I had to deal with Ricardo.”
“Of course,” Matvei nods.
“I went to his residence myself. I was going to take the guy out, make an example of him. But the rat of a man…” I scoff, shaking my head when I remember how Athena looked so shocked that night.
“Right in the middle of our interactions, his daughter arrives at his place to cook him dinner. She walks into the situation, me with my gun pointed at the guy, the guy begging for his life. And you know what that asshole does? He grabs her, manages to grab his own gun, and points it at his daughter’s head. Not mine. His own daughter.”
There are a few groans of disapproval from around the room.
“It could have been an act?” Matvei challenges.
“Sure, at the time I had no way of knowing. But I’d say I am pretty good at reading people, and that girl went straight into shock. Her father was heartlessly using her as a shield; there was no way I was going to shoot the guy in front of his daughter…” I sigh, pushing my hand through my hair.
“Ok, so you were a bit stuck.”
“Yeah. And even more pissed off with Ricardo for doing that to his own family. I made a quick decision to get her out of there. My concern was that a larger mafia group was controlling him, and they would take advantage of my reluctance to hurt the girl once they found out. So, I decided it was better to take her with me and figure out the rest later. I told him his debt to me was clear if I could have her. A fair deal. He wouldn’t be able to come after her again or send anyone else after her.
She would be, in all contractual senses, mine. ”
“So, you married her,” Matvei nods, understanding how things played out.
“Yeah. To keep her safe. She’s innocent in all this.
What he did has nothing to do with her. I saw it the first day I met her and every day since has only stood to reconfirm that for me.
” I speak firmly, making sure my brothers know she is in no way to blame for her father’s actions.
I will protect her from everyone, including them.
“And Ricardo?” Kirill asks. “Where’s the old man?”
“Still playing around the city as if nothing happened. Saw him gambling in a shit hole bar the other day, not a fucking care in the world about where his daughter is. The thing is, I took Athena there because she was still in denial and constantly fighting with me to defend her father, saying it was a misunderstanding. But between seeing him there and seeing the video footage of him stealing from the warehouse, and, of course, what happened that night I took her… it all came together and broke her denial down. It actually sort of broke her down, and it was difficult to watch, but I think she sees the truth now.”
The guys mutter a bit, and a few more questions go back and forth until Vilen asks, “Did you do a history check on her father?”
“I did,” I nod. “We ran a facial recognition scan over our internal security footage, and every video with his face in it was reviewed. The guy has been stealing for a while. He’s been messing with the warehouse, taking things, not only products…
equipment, machine parts, anything he could sell for a buck. ”
“Shit. A sneaky fucker, hey. The guy’s got balls,” Vilan says with distaste.
“What are you going to do about him?” Matvei asks.
“Honestly, I don’t know yet. It was only just coming together now. I was more focused on getting Athena to see the truth before I made any decisions. But I’m going to have to deal with the guy.”
“And do you think he has anything to do with the warehouse attack?” Vilan asks.
I shake my head. “He’s not that smart. And I had one of my guys tailing him for the past week. He’s talking to scum, hanging out with scum. I haven’t connected him to any of the bigger families. Not yet anyway.”
“Keep watching him. You never know,” Matvei says.
“For sure.”
We hear laughter from the kitchen.
“What are they up to in there?” Avda muses.
“I hope they’re making those hot chocolate bombs they usually make,” Sasha grins.