Chapter Nine – Avda
”You really sure you want to do this?” Jo asked me, as I pulled the car to a halt outside her place. I took a deep breath and nodded.
”I’m really sure,” I promised her, gritting my teeth. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to do it. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t at least try to form a connection with my daughter.
Jo had finally relented earlier today, when she’d come into work to meet me – and had told me that she wanted to give me the chance to meet with Kyra.
”On the condition that you don’t tell her who you are,” she warned me. ”As far as she’s concerned, you’re just a friend of mine from work, nothing more. Is that clear?”
”That’s clear,” I promised her, holding my hands up. I didn’t care what rules she laid down, I didn’t care how harsh she wanted to get, as long as she was willing to give me a chance, that’s all I wanted.
I had been going crazy with curiosity since she had told me about Kyra and had been hitting her with endless questions about the little girl ever since. She was nearly six now, she had started school, she was obsessed with drawing and reading, and she loved to play basketball on the weekends with her friends.
It was so surreal, hearing her discuss her like that, but I could hear from the love in her voice just how much she doted on that little girl. It was obvious that she would have done pretty much anything for her. And, judging by the sound of it, she had – she”d been working since the day she found out she was pregnant, trying to get by and make enough money to support the two of them.
”What about your parents?” I had prompted her once. ”Don’t they want to know who the father is?”
She’d pulled a face and shook her head.
”No, they...they didn’t really want to be a part of things,” she’d admitted. ”When they found out that I didn’t even know who the father was, I think it changed their opinion of me...”
She’d trailed off, and I could see, written all over her face, just how much it hurt her to even recount it. It struck me how alone she must have been through all of this – alone, and yet knowing I was still out there somewhere in New Ruska, a father to her child.
”You could have tried to contact me,” I had told her. ”I would have done what I could to help-”
”I can do it on my own,” she replied, her resolve strengthening, tipping her head back slightly, and lifting her chin.
I grinned. I got the feeling she’d had to prove that a whole lot over her years as a mother. Kyra didn’t even know how lucky she was to have someone like that as a parent, someone so willing to fight to do what was right.
My family, like hers, were old-fashioned. They never had much time for my line of work – or pretty much anything else about the way I lived my life, either. The girls, the drinking, the partying – they had tried to talk me out of it, but I’d never listened to them.
I saw what traditionalism had done to my mother and my father – I saw how it had cut them off from the world, how they’d become wrapped up in their own bubble, scared to encounter anything outside of it, and I had sworn that was never going to me. They were uptight, Catholic, old-school – the kind of people who tried to force out every bid of individuality in me, because they knew it wouldn’t look good in front of their golf club friends.
It was why I had gotten into the Bratva in the first place because I was searching for a family who didn’t crush out those darker parts of me the way they wanted to. No, in this world, that part of me was encouraged.
Well, most of it, anyway.
There were parts of me that I hadn’t even let the people close to me see, the people I had worked for even for years. I knew there was no way I could let them know about them, not without changing their view of me. And there was no way I was going to put my reputation on the line for a couple of brief nights of...
”You okay?” Jo asked me, as she frowned at me from the other side of the car. I blinked and nodded.
”I’m fine,” I replied. ”Are you ready? Can we go in?”
”I guess so,” she agreed, drawing in a long breath. ”God, I’m nervous about this...”
”You don’t have to do it if you’re not sure,” I told her, not wanting to push her beyond what she could handle. But, instead, she shook her head.
”No, you’re right,” she told me. ”You deserve a chance to meet her. Come on – I”ll send the sitter home and then you can come up...”
She made her way out of the car and I drummed my fingers on the wheel as I waited for her to return. Fuck, I couldn’t believe I was really doing this. I had never imagined in my life that I would be meeting my five-year-old daughter like this. I had never imagined I would have a child that age in the first place, though I knew it shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise. With all the reckless encounters I’d had, it would have happened eventually...
And yet, it still hadn’t been enough for me to play it safe with her the other night, when we had been in my car together. The need had just been too much for me to make sense of, too much for me to deny, and I couldn’t hold myself back, no matter how hard I tried.
A few moments later, she appeared in the doorway again and offered me a warm smile.
”She’s ready to see you,” she told me. I felt everything in me tense for a second. Fuck – this was it, this was really, truly it. I could have slammed my foot down on the wheel and made a break for it, right here and now, but I forced myself to hold my nerve and climbed out to meet my daughter for the first time.
I followed Jo up the stairs, and couldn’t help but notice how cramped this place was – she had clearly had to settle for whatever she could afford, and I felt bad for her, knowing that it was somewhere so limited. But, as she’d told me, she didn’t have her family to rely on. She’d had to go this alone.
And I respected the hell out of her for that.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside, and I peered around this place; the living room opened out onto the kitchen, and the fridge was covered with children’s drawings, all bright colors and messily scribbling outside the lines. And, as my gaze traveled around the room, it finally fell on her for the first time.
Kyra. My daughter.
Fuck. Okay. She turned and glanced over her shoulder at me, meeting my gaze for a second, completely unaware of who I was to her.
”Kyra, this is a friend of mine, Avda,” Jo told her, and she waved at me.
”Hey,” she greeted me, and then, she turned back to the drawing she had been working on before I had arrived. I couldn’t stop staring at her, the dark hair that came from Jo, those blue eyes that were clearly mine. She had no idea that her father was standing in the room with her right now, none at all, and it was more than a little bit of a headfuck, knowing how big this moment was.
”Sorry, she can get kind of shy with new people,” Jo explained to me as she made her way into the kitchen. ”Can I get you a coffee?”
”Sure,” I muttered, still staring at her. She stole another glance at me, and those eyes seemed to burn themselves into my memory at once. The same blue that looked back at me every time I glanced into the mirror. It was beyond strange seeing them on someone else, let alone a little girl, a total innocent who had no idea where those eyes had come from – the kind of person who had given them to her.
Jo handed me a coffee and I stepped into the kitchen with her, giving Kyra a little space.
”This is so strange,” I murmured to her, as I lifted the coffee to my lips. I felt like my head was reeling, a total mess as I tried to make sense of this.
”It’s okay, it was always going to be,” she pointed out gently. ”I knew it was always going to be weird, having you around for the first time, but she doesn’t know anything. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
”I know, but...” I trailed off, glancing around at Kyra again. I stopped myself in my tracks. No, this wasn’t about me – this was about her. I wanted to know what kind of girl she was. I didn’t know if Jo was going to give me the chance to see her again after this, and if this was going to be the only chance I had to see her, then I wanted to make the most of it.
”So what kind of stuff does she like?” I asked softly, as I eyed the drawing she was doing.
”Well, she’s obsessed with basketball right now,” Jo replied. As soon as those words came out of her mouth, Kyra’s ears seemed to perk up, and she turned to face us.
”Basketball?” she asked brightly, and she got to her feet and came over to Jo, wrapping her arms around her legs. ”Are we going to play?”
”Oh, honey, I think it’s a little late for that,” Jo laughed, ruffling her hair. ”Maybe tomorrow, huh?”
Kyra pouted. Before I could stop myself, an offer had passed my lips.
”I could take her,” I suggested. ”Is there a court near here?”
Jo stared at me, surprised.
”You don’t have to do that-”
”I know I don’t have to,” I replied. ”I want to.”
”Can we, Mom?” Kyra asked, squeezing onto Jo’s legs. Jo looked down at her, sighed, and seemed to sense that there was no way she was going to be able to get out of this.
”The court is just a couple of blocks away,” she replied. ”It’d probably do her good, to blow off some steam...”
We headed down there together, and Kyra chattered to me all the way about how much she loved basketball – it was clear from the way she spoke about it that she had a serious passion, and I asked a few questions here and there, prompting her to fill me in on everything she could. I had so much of her life to catch up on, I hardly knew where to start – but basketball would be, at least, something we could share.
”Now, I’m not very good,” I warned Kyra. ”You think you can show me some moves...?”
Jo watched as the two of us played – Kyra was still a little clumsy, but she managed to get a few baskets, with my help. She laughed as she shot the ball past me, over my head, and I cheered for her – Jo clapped, and Kyra ran over to her to give her a celebratory hug.
I watched the two of them together, mother and daughter, and something twinged in my stomach – something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but something insistent. Something that told me I couldn’t mess this up. Not with either of them. I had gotten this close to them now, and I wasn’t going to do anything to cause any problems.
And if that meant hiding parts of myself, if that meant concealing those parts of me that I knew might have scared Jo off – I would do it. Not just the Bratva side, though she already knew about that, but the...the part of me that felt desire for people other than women. I knew how people saw men like us, I knew how my family had talked about the men they had known who’d had the temerity to desire anything beyond the standard of two kids and a wife, and I couldn’t risk the same thing happening with her.
I couldn’t let what went on inside my head stain this relationship she had with her daughter, I couldn’t let the memories of my past get in the way of what was right in front of me. If I was going to convince Jo to let me be a part of Kyra’s life, I had to present the best face possible to her. And that meant hiding the parts of me I couldn’t risk her knowing about.
The parts of me that were full of a desire I refused to let anyone else see.