Chapter 20 Besiana
Besiana
Gray light weighs down everything as I walk up to my father’s house.
The building, the men guarding it, the windows watching from above.
I’m heavy too. As though someone replaced my blood with concrete and told me to run.
My father will be in his office. His favorite knife—a blade older than I am—will be on the desk, gleaming like a third eye.
I rehearse my lines with every step. “I won’t spy for you anymore,” I mutter under my breath.
“I’m out.” The betrayal crawls over my skin, his eyes on me already. But I have to do this.
I’m dressed perfectly. Every line precise. A new suit, sharp and dark. A new coat, luxurious and expensive. Italian. A designer favored by the Rosettis. There’s comfort in wearing them here, on enemy soil. If it all goes to hell, I’ll go down wrapped in a declaration of war.
A man in a dark suit opens the front door. He’s new, clean-shaven, and enthusiastic. “Good morning, Miss Dushku.” He stares like he’s memorizing me, in case he needs to report on what I’m wearing and how I look.
I smile without meaning it. “For now,” I say.
He steps aside.
Inside, the front hall stretches out before me, but I ignore the rooms and head directly for the back door. At this time of day, he’ll be in the garden. I used to take the early morning shift, reading my poetry in peace, and he would take coffee there afterward.
I move forward, fast and deliberate, my shoes crunching evenly over the gravel like I’ve got it all under control.
I pat Mami’s knife, which is hidden under my coat, although if this comes to blows, I won’t stand a chance against his army of men.
Adrian Dushku waits, a perfect statue against the gray November sky.
He’s standing near the concrete pond that serves as the garden’s centerpiece.
The water is too dark to be inviting. A gardener tends plants in the distance, and it looks like the perfect tranquil scene, but I know men in suits are watching us through camera lenses, ready to strike.
A few leaves that should have fallen still hang on to the trees. Their deep red almost looks like blood.
My father turns his full attention to me. His focus hits like a shot of cold air. I’m important enough to be the center of his universe, if only for a few minutes.
I stand there, ready to recite my lines, when I notice how he’s dressed. Open collar. No tie. It’s so unlike him. Even his sleeves are rolled up, like the very thought of effort makes him lazy.
I think of another time, when he wore a jacket over his pajamas, the only other time I’ve seen him out of a suit. The day that Mami died of her sudden ‘illness’. The day that changed my life.
I take a few steps closer. His pale gray eyes find me, then linger like they’re holding on to some important calculation. My lines dissolve in my head, but I can’t back down.
“Baba,” I say.
“Besiana.” He’s warmer than usual. His expression softens, all proud father. All mask. “The warehouse address was accurate.”
That’s as close as my father will ever get to thanking me, and I suppose I should be proud. But all I taste is ash, and I run my tongue across the inside of my teeth to get rid of the flavor.
“I came to talk about that,” I say, pleased my tone remains even, though my heart is racing.
“Do you have more information for me already?” His eyes narrow. “I still need the chemist or, at the very least, the formula for the drug. Every day that passes puts our family in more danger.”
“Danger?” I ask, a sarcastic edge to my words. “Danger of what?”
“Of losing to the Rosettis.”
I scoff. “Is that all? You told me my whole life that the Rosettis are ruthless and evil. But you’re worse than they’ve ever been. You’re willing to sacrifice your own family.”
His eyes narrow, the softness gone. “Watch your tone, girl.”
I straighten my shoulders, trying to appear stronger than I feel. But fear and determination rush through my veins, tripping over each other to take over. His gaze is crisp and cold, chipping away at my resolve. The wind shifts, and it smells like winter is coming. Like everything is about to die.
I scoff, and at the sound, his expression barely changes, but I see it. The faintest twitch at the corner of his eyes.
“I’m protecting you,” he says, sounding more apathetic than protective.
“I’ve done you the courtesy of keeping up this arrangement, diverting the blame of the warehouse attack to the Russians, even though it puts us all at risk.
” He pauses, and I hear the threat around the edges.
“But that courtesy doesn’t have to extend forever. ”
I’ve played this game for twenty-six years.
Being the good daughter. Being the spy. But if it’s a choice between following Mami or living my life as his tool, I know what I have to do.
He’s a chess player, and I’m done being the pawn in his game.
My lines come back in a rush, and I clutch onto them as though they might save me.
“I won’t spy for you anymore. I’m out.”
A flicker of something in his eyes. Too fast to know what. Then a patient smile, as though I’m just a child with some impossible request.
I’m ten years old. I want a puppy. I want to see my friends. I want anything that’s not this life.
“No,” he says like he’s correcting a small mistake. He glances at my coat, an eyebrow raised, then back to my face. “What are you thinking, showing up wearing Italian?”
“I’m thinking I don’t need you.” I lift my chin.
“Are you?” He crosses his arms.
I don’t blink. “You’re done using me.”
He stares, eyes narrowing. Calculating. It’s worse than if he were angry. A loud crack echoes, like a gunshot, and my heart lurches. I turn fast. The head of security is standing by the entrance. His focus is trained on me, expressionless, his arms folded across his chest.
Adrian shrugs. It’s a slow, deliberate thing, and I hate it. “And Domenico Rosetti is using you instead?” He sounds amused, like he’s just a regular father, asking about my boyfriend. “Or do you think he loves you?”
“Don’t,” I say, but the edge in my voice slips out with the word. My hands are cold. My feet too.
“Did you forget what happened to your mother?” he asks with barely any emotion. “Or do you just not care?”
My stomach knots, and a small, sharp breath escapes my mouth.
I think of Mami. Of that day. The coat over the pajamas.
The doctor leaving with cash in his pocket.
I was nine years old, but even then I knew.
I knew my mother’s gentle nature was a liability, and I know now that the same fate could be waiting for me.
I’m her daughter, after all. Just as soft where it counts.
If Baba has his way, I’ll go to the same grave, no matter how hard I pretend.
I clench my fists. “Don’t bring Mami into this.”
“But don’t you know, you’re supposed to learn from your mother?” He says it like some great joke, smiling wide.
“You always told me she died of an illness,” I shoot back.
His smile sharpens. “And you, clever girl, never believed me.” He sits down and crosses one leg over the other, flicking off a speck of dust like he didn’t just threaten to bury another family member. “You wouldn’t want your precious husband to catch the same… illness.”
My fingernails bite into my palms, and I glance up at the head of security. Can I plunge Mami’s dagger into my father’s chest before his suit-wearing ape reaches us? A desperate, ridiculous idea.
Dom’s face flashes in front of me. The way he looks at me like I’m not a pawn. I won’t let my father do this to him. I won’t let my family ruin me.
Could we run? Could we survive?
Baba is watching me, and I know what that means. He’s already planned for that. Already taken it into account. My father is many things, but never unprepared.
I loosen my fists. A different strategy, then. One last try.
“Why?” I ask, and my voice is a whisper. The ghost of a girl I used to be. “Why did you kill Mami?”
Adrian holds my gaze for a long time. Long enough that my heartbeat grows too loud in my ears. “She tried to leave. Tried to take you and Dritan and leave me. Betrayal,” he says, “has a way of catching up to you.”
I can’t breathe right. Can’t think right. I pull out my phone, my only lifeline, thumb shaking as I type a message to Domenico. Come get me. Come quick.
I shove the phone back in my pocket. Pretend I’m composed, controlled, and in charge.
“And Dritan?” I ask. I need to know what happened to my brother.
Baba leans back and spreads his arms wide along the back of the stone bench. “Terrible accident,” he says, then he winks. He. Winks.
I’m sweating under my coat, the thought too hot for my skin. I was just a girl when I lost them both. The perfect age to learn my lessons.
“What happened to them,” I say, “won’t happen to Dom.”
He laughs, and the sound grates like steel against glass. “We’ll see, Besiana.”
I hear his voice, but I’m somewhere else.
Some other day. I see him with his jacket over his pajamas, feel him standing over me, Mami’s knife in his hand.
You’re my daughter, he said. His voice still cool, and the blade pressed against my face.
That makes you strong. A perfect, perfect girl.
Then he tossed the blade onto my pillow, inches from my head, and walked away.
I put my hand to my cheek, like the scars are fresh.
Adrian stands still, watching me remember, and doesn’t say a word.
Cold. Deliberate. Deadly.
“You’re scared,” he says, soft enough that only I hear.
There’s a new desperation in me, and I hate it. I am strong enough to walk away from this life. Aren’t I?
“No,” I spit out, my hands trembling inside my coat pocket.
“You should be.” His voice is soft like a father’s, and it makes me want to cry.
“I should go.”
He smiles. It’s slow and dangerous. I feel like a deer in a wolf’s mouth.
I try to hold my head high, but my hands won’t stop shaking.
“You should never have come, Besiana. There are consequences to every choice. Leaving. Arriving. Betraying your own flesh and blood.”
He nods at his head of security, who stands like a shadow by the double doors. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Every step across the gravel sounds like the crack of my own bones. My fingers close around the hilt of my dagger.