Chapter 37 Ransome
RANSOME
I just got kicked out of my own house.
Cockblocked by my wife. Jesus Christ, what has my life come to?
I’m not going to lie. I went there in the hopes of ripping that dress off myself. Instead, I walked in to see Amara in her underwear, the dress like a shattered disco ball all over the floor.
I gotta be honest. It wasn’t a great dress. When I saw it on Jenica, I wasn’t thrilled. But Amara could make a burlap sack look good, so I let it slide.
And that’s not the point. The point is I still have blue balls as I drive towards my house—my other house—and I’m not looking forward to the conversation I know is coming.
Sure enough, I walk through the door and immediately hear it.
“Well, look who came home tonight instead of sneaking in at 5 A.M.”
Jenica is standing in the kitchen, still wearing the disco ball, a cocktail in hand.
“I’m not in the mood,” I tell her as I hang my coat up in the closet.
A closet overrun with furry coats and Birkin handbags.
Jesus Christ, this woman is high maintenance.
I just thank whatever God is crazy enough to listen to me that she’s still using Daddy’s credit cards and not putting more than a scuff in my account balance.
She spits out a patronizing laugh. “You’re never in the mood for anything. I didn’t assume today would be different. But I did assume that your baby mama called and you went running.”
I brace my hands on the counter in front of her with a granite stare.
I’m over this. I’m over her. “What exactly do you want from me? Because if it’s me, you knew that wasn’t on the table when we signed those papers.
You knew this was a contract to keep the city from going up in flames.
You have my house. You have cars and are waited on hand and foot by my hired help.
You have fancy dinners and parties and status and publicity. So what is it?”
Jenica sneers at me. “You really don’t get it, do you?
I don’t want you. I wouldn’t have married you in a million years if it’d been up to me.
And it’s obvious you don’t give a fuck. But my entire life hinges on this.
I have no place outside of the Bratva, and you make me feel like I have no place in it either.
But as long as we are married, you will not make a fool of me again. ”
“Me make a fool out of you?”
“Yes, Ransome. You made a fool out of me. You do it every time we’re in public together having a conversation and you’re just checked out. Or worse yet, you’re paying more attention to her than you are to me.”
“It’s always been about attention with you,” I tell her. “That’s the difference between you and Amara.”
Jenica slams her drink down on the counter, nearly breaking the glass.
“No. The difference between Amara and me is that I am Bratva. I am a Chadovich. I’m not just higher on the ladder; I was born there.
I deserve better than this. I deserve better than you.
But unfortunately, this is where I am stuck.
Stuck because the rules of the Bratva are ancient and I can’t just be a woman alone in our world.
I am owned by my father or I am owned by whoever he decides I’ll marry.
Love isn’t an option for me. But Amara… Amara can just walk into your life, woo you any way she sees fit, and get what she wants with the snap of her fingers and the pout of her lip.
I don’t want this any more than you do, but I would appreciate it if you could at least pretend to want to be with me when people are watching.
You’re not just making me look bad. You’re making yourself look bad, too. ”
I’m fuming. No one speaks to me like this. Literally no one.
But Jenica’s already walking out of the room.
A moment later, I hear a door slam. That’s two doors in my face. Two homes harboring women who’d rather see me dead than see me at all.
Awesome.
I change into a White Stripes t-shirt and a pair of ripped black jeans that have seen better days. I use them mainly for fucking around in the garage, and head out to do just that.
Unbeknownst to most people, I have black 1967 Chevy Chevelle SS. I’ve written off racing and the scene that comes with it entirely, but I could never write off cars. It’s in my blood, even if a bit of that blood hemorrhaged and dried up with Nik’s death.
Honestly, I avoid working on the car for that reason too. It doesn’t actually need work. It’s cherried out, pristine and running. At least it ran the last time I started it up.
That was the day he died. A race day. A race I wanted no part of, but when I heard he was participating, I hauled ass over to the track—too late. I pushed the Chevy to its limits and it still wasn’t fast enough.
I don’t blame the car. I don’t blame racing. I blame family feuds. I blame the Bratva.
I blame myself.
I polish the hood with a soft hand and a tight jaw. Because something Jenica said got to me. Crawled under my skin and immediately festered. And it had nothing to do with her selfish hissy fit or her jabs at Amara, though those things burned too.
The fact is, I never wanted this life either. I wasn’t originally built for it. I never wanted to be a pakhan or have anything to do with any of it, really. I used to be different in a lot of ways.
Nik was the wild one. Nik was the one with the temper and the leadership, even if he was my younger brother. I was quieter. I had an interest in mechanics. In the way things worked. That wasn’t pakhan material, and I was okay with that.
Until he died.
After that, I was angry. I took over the role that he was meant to fill, and with vengeance.
It’s not often that I come out here. That I pull the cover off the car.
That I allow myself to sit in it and drown in the memories it brings flooding in.
Because it makes me wonder where I’d be if Nik was still alive.
It makes me wonder how different everything would be.
And those thoughts are fucking consuming.
“Good morning, Mr. Rozanov.”
Amara’s words are cold as I walk into my office. No smile. No tantalizing stare. She’s also dressed uncomfortably professionally today. Gray slacks and a black turtleneck sweater. While it fits her form, it’s not exactly flattering in the way many of her clothes are.
“Good morning,” I echo, then realize I never do that.
I usually ignore her, as I did any of my assistants.
I’d take my coffee, make sure it was exactly as it should be, and move on to my schedule.
Once Amara and I were more… acquainted, I started responding with a kiss.
Right now, I think I might lose my lips if I tried that.
Amara says nothing as I round the desk and look out the window. That’s my ritual and she knows it. Usually there is banter between us, but not this morning.
“Chilly in here,” I tell her.
“I don’t have control over the thermostat, sir,” she replies.
I’m not talking about the actual temperature.
I study her for a beat. After a long moment, she clicks her tongue. “Do you need anything else from me, Mr. Rozanov?”
I look down at my schedule and skim through it. It’s the usual clusterfuck of a day, and it’s whatever.
“No, I’m good for now. You’re dismissed, Miss Parker.”
I couldn’t tell you if it was the military shooing out the door or the formal name that makes irritation flash over her already annoyed face, but it’s very clear—the woman is not happy with me.
Make that two for two, because Jenica was a raging bitch this morning.
Usually the woman doesn’t wake up till about noon, but this morning she was raiding the pantry around 5 A.M. If I had to guess, she got drunk last night and needed some carbs to cure the hangover.
Either way, she was alive—allegedly—when I got up to work out, and she was less than happy to see me as well.
Amara is almost out the door when I stop her.
“Wait.”
She stops and slowly looks back over her shoulder, her voice icy enough to frost the windows. “Yes, Mr. Rozanov?”
“Lunch reservations at Blue Sushi?” I ask. There is only one person who requests that restaurant. Or any sushi restaurant for that matter.
“Yes, Mr. Rozanov,” she answers. “Your mother scheduled lunch with you.”
I nod once. “Thank you, Miss Parker,” I say, and she leaves.
Proklyatiye.
I am going to need an ice pick later. For but now, I am focused on lunch with my mom. It’s not often we get together without my dad around. I always look forward to it. But I also know that she usually only snags us a high top for two at Blue Sushi when she wants to talk about something.
Sure enough, she is waiting at the high top in the corner when I get there. She comes to her feet when I approach the table.
“Sorry I’m late,” I tell her.
“You’re not late. You’re on time,” she tells me with her usual no nonsense tone. My mom is a hard woman, but a kind woman.
We sit down. The waitress brings gyoza and edamame along with two waters to the table. We order an array of sushi and a couple drinks, and she cracks her chopsticks before getting right into it.
“How is married life going?”
She has never been one to beat around the bush.
“It’s fine. For an arranged marriage.”
She dunks a dumpling in the ponzu sauce before popping it in her mouth. “This is Bratva, syn. Marriage is an economic proposition.” Her ability to say that sentence with little to no emotion is either concerning or commendable. Maybe both.
“So you’re not in love with dad?” I ask with an equal tone. She’s even better at indifference than me, but that’s how I know it’s a learned art.
“Love and loyalty are interchangeable,” she says. “At least when choice isn’t a factor.” After that, she dabs her mouth with a napkin and looks up at me with softer eyes. “Now tell me about this baby.”
“There’s not much to tell.”
Our drinks are set in front of us, and I’m grateful for it. I stir my whiskey with the small, black straw before taking a sip.
“The fact that you’ve barely touched the food and have been waiting for the booze tells me that’s not true.”
I eat a dumpling just to get her to back off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?” she asks. “You’re having a son. That’s a big deal in the Bratva world.”
“Because the mother isn’t my wife.”
The waitress sets the boat of sushi down in front of us.
“No,” Mom considers. “The mother means more to you than your obligatory wife does.”
Did I mention she’s blunt? Jesus Christ.
“The way I feel doesn’t matter,” I tell her flatly, digging into a dragon roll just to give my hands and mouth something to do. This conversation is feeling a little obligatory too.
“That said, I know how Jenica feels.”
I stop chewing. That… is an interesting turn of the conversational wheel.
My mom dresses a piece of the spice tuna roll and goes on. “It’s not easy, being with someone you were told to be with. Hoping for the best but often feeling like their attention—all their attention—is everywhere but on you. If it weren’t for you kids… it would have been a very lonely life.”
Kids. Plural. The very mention of that feels like a ghost has settled into the room. It makes us both go quiet.
“I miss him,” she says, and it’s a bullet to my chest.
“I do too,” I admit. My voice is low and my throat is tight. I don’t let myself go here often. But if she’s going to bring him up, there’s not much I can say.
“I think about him every day,” she says. “Little things remind me of him. When I see people wearing Bills jerseys.”
“He did like football.” I almost smile. “Even though Dad said it was a waste of time.”
“Your father thinks anything not related to work is a waste of time. Like cars.”
That burns. It’s one thing to mention Nik. It’s another to mention Nik and cars.
“He shouldn’t have died,” I say before I realize I’m even saying it.
“It was terrible and reckless,” she says but I shake my head.
I set my chop sticks down because my appetite is suddenly gone. Not surprising.
“It wasn’t an accident. I really wish people would stop saying that.”
“Whatever happened, it’s in the past,” she says. “We cannot dwell on it.”
It makes me angry. Because for me, it’s not in the past. When a kid dies, a kid who never sought to hurt anyone, a kid with so much heart and ambition and life in his veins, the truth can’t just be buried with the body.
“Nik was supposed to be pakhan,” I say, and my mother looks at me. Her face is soft but her eyes are stern.
“What Nik was supposed to be then doesn’t change what you are supposed to be now,” she tells me.
Fuck. I could really do without the fortune cookie speak.
“What I’m supposed to be?” I echo.
“You are more of a born leader than you think, Ransome. I knew that from day one. You just have to follow the path in front of you and find that in yourself.”
“I’m following the path,” I say. “I am doing everything I am supposed to do. I am following all of the rules. So much so that I am bound to a woman I don’t love.”
“You are also bound to a woman you do love,” she says. “Even after the baby is born.”
“I don’t have the option of divorce,” I say.
“Maybe so.” She sets down her chopsticks. “But you don’t get to decide who your heart wants either.”