Chapter 36 #2
She drums her fingers against her thigh, the way she does when her brain is working. “There’s a reason they haven’t made that final move. You better be ready for the fight of your life. Even with the families working together, it won’t be easy. Lucky for you, you have me.”
We strike in two days, and I’m betting everything on this plan to flush out the Ghost and end this once and for all. But I’m not naive. They’re a different breed of enemy, and underestimating them will get a whole bunch of people killed.
“I am lucky. Very fucking lucky.” I take the exit toward Rosa’s. “You hungry?”
“Starving, actually.”
“Good.”
Rosa’s is quiet this time of day, the lunch rush over and the dinner crowd not yet arrived. Her nephew Carlos is behind the counter when we walk in. He calls out a greeting before going back to restocking the cooler.
A hand on her lower back, I guide her toward the corner table we sat at during our first visit. That was less than two weeks ago, but it feels like a lifetime.
She slides into the booth and I take the seat across from her, watching her look around with open curiosity. The hand-painted murals on the walls, the mismatched furniture, the smell of cooked meats and spices hanging in the air.
“I think this is my new favorite restaurant,” she says. “I swear, I’ve dreamt of Rosa’s tacos.”
“She’ll be thrilled to hear that.”
As if talking about her summoned her, Rosa appears from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Kirill, mijo .” She leans down to kiss my cheek before turning to Dinara. In Spanish she says, “And you brought your pretty friend again.”
Dinara’s smile is wide and warm as she greets Rosa, and the older woman reaches out to squeeze her shoulder affectionately before her gaze drops to the emerald-cut diamond on Dinara’s left hand.
She looks at me, then back at the ring, then at me again. A smile spreads across her face, bright enough to power the whole block. “You got married?”
“Yesterday,” I confirm in Spanish. “It was a little unexpected.”
Rosa presses her hand to her heart, eyes shining. “I knew it. I told you, didn’t I? When you brought her here that first time, I said this girl is different. You’re in love, I can tell.”
Fuck. Am I in love?
Never been in love, never come close. But I know her voice loosens something tight in my chest, and her touch quiets the noise in my head.
Instead, I say, “She makes me happy.”
She turns to Dinara, launching into rapid Spanish about fate and soulmates and how some people are meant to find each other.
Dinara laughs, a little uncertain, looking at me to translate.
“She says the ring suits you. And you should come by and eat her food often.” And never leave.
“Muchas gracias,” Dinara replies in awkward Spanish.
Rosa pats her hand. “I’ll bring you something special. You need to eat. Too skinny, both of you.”
She disappears into the kitchen and Dinara looks at me with raised eyebrows. “She’s thrilled. A lot happier than your brothers were at our wedding.”
“Rosa’s been trying to marry me off since I was twenty-five.” I lean back in the booth, stretching my arm along the top of the seat. “She’s probably already planning a party.”
“Speaking of which,” she says, fidgeting with the napkin in front of her, folding and unfolding the corner, “I really liked meeting your sister. She’s so sweet.”
“Katya liked you too. I could tell.”
She swallows hard and looks away for a second. “I feel bad, though. She thinks we’re for real, that I could be like a sister to her.”
Dinara thinks this is all pretend. That what we have has an expiration date.
I used to think marriage was a cage, love was a weakness, attachment got you killed. But with her, it doesn’t feel like a noose tightening around my neck the way I always imagined.
I like calling her ‘my wife.’
I like seeing my mother’s ring on her hand.
I like the idea of her being mine in a way that has nothing to do with strategy or alliances. And I think it’s time she understands that.
I lean forward, holding her stare with an intensity I don’t bother hiding. “We’re as real as it gets, solnyshko.”
She stills, a soft flush staining her cheeks as she weighs the truth of my words. She’s starting to get it now.
Rosa returns with enough food to feed a small army, setting plates down with pride, especially when Dinara’s face lights up. She leaves us with strict instructions to eat while everything’s warm.
We eat in silence for a few minutes, and I wonder what she’s thinking. If she believes me. If she feels the same pull or if I’m alone in this.
Finally, she says, “It must have been hard for Katya, never having a mother. At least I had mine for a few years, enough to form memories.”
A familiar sadness rises in my throat. “It was hard for all of us. But Katya got the worst of it.” I wrap my hands around my drink, condensation cool against my palms. “Tell me about your mother. What was she like?”
She picks at the edge of her taco wrapper, rolling a corner between her fingers.
“She was special, I think. She had this smoky voice. Even when she was just singing around the apartment, doing dishes or folding laundry, it stopped you in your tracks. She wanted to be a professional singer before she met my father. Jazz, folk music, anything with soul.” Her lips curve into a small, sad smile.
“She loved being near water. Rivers, fountains, even the rain. I wish I had more memories of her, but they’re mostly fragments.
Or moments in time. I only know she made me feel loved. ”
She pauses, staring at a spot on the table. “If she’s still alive, however slim that chance, I don’t think she’s the same person who used to sing to me and brush my hair and tell me stories about dragons and princesses who saved themselves. That woman is gone.”
I reach across and rest my hand over hers, stilling her restless fingers.
“Your turn. What about your mother? You must remember more than I do.”
I reach for my drink, taking time to find the next words.
“She was the opposite of my father,” I say slowly.
“Loud where he was silent. Warm where he was cold. She touched people when she talked to them, always had a hand on your shoulder or running through your hair. He believes showing affection to your children makes them soft, but she couldn’t help herself.
She’d kiss our foreheads before bed, even when I was too old for it.
I didn’t care. Hell, what I’d give to feel her arms around me one more time.
Everything was different when she was around. ”
Her thumb strokes over my knuckles, gentle and grounding.
“I think she was lonely,” I admit. “Married to a man who was never home, raising kids in a world that saw women as decorations at best and liabilities at worst. She smiled a lot, but looking back, I don’t think she was happy.
Just good at pretending.” I drag my thumb across the seam of my lips.
“After she died, my father erased her. Within a week, everything was gone. The colors, the photographs, her furniture.” I meet her eyes.
“I thought it was because he couldn’t stand the reminder of the wife he lost, but I’m not so sure.
Maybe it wasn’t grief at all. Maybe something else. ”
“Better lives than the ones they got,” she says softly. “They both deserved better.”
“They did. My father wasn’t exactly father-of-the-year material before, and after my mother died…” My hands curl into fists on the table. “Let’s just say he was barely around, so my brothers and I did what we could.”
Under the table, her knee bumps mine and stays. “That’s a lot of responsibility for a teenager.”
“I’ve been looking out for her my whole life, and I’ll continue to. That’s what started all of this. There’s no way in hell I’m letting my father marry Katya off to Elio Valenti.”
“Is it Elio you object to, or an arranged marriage in general?”
“Both.” I lean back in the booth, dragging a hand through my hair.
“Elio and I went to Saint Augustine’s together.
It’s where the families send the sons they’re grooming to take over.
We weren’t friends, exactly, but we ran in the same circles.
Back then, Elio was with this girl, Mara Castellano.
Her father worked for the Valentis, ran a mid-level crew in Staten Island, nothing major.
She was kind of quiet and shy and sweet.
The last girl you’d picture Elio with, especially when he was all swagger and ego.
Our final semester senior year, she disappears.
Gone. No one hears from her ever again. Word is she got knocked up by Elio and wanted to keep the baby.
The mafia didn’t like the idea of a bastard heir, so rather than deal with the fallout, Elio killed her. ”
Her eyes go wide, taco abandoned on her plate. “Holy shit. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how true it is anymore,” I admit, picking at the label on my drink.
“Elio’s no white knight, but he’s not the world’s biggest shitbag either.
” I shrug. “But it’s not about that. Katya missed out on so much of her life being sick, and this is her time to live.
To play music, go to Juilliard, make friends like a fucking normal person.
” Bitterness bleeds into my voice. “My father cares about bratva alliances, nothing else.”
“I take it you and your father don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“Understatement of the year.” I ball up the napkin and toss it onto my plate. “But he’s pakhan and I’m sure you know how this world works. I have to play his game until I inherit the crown.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but before she can get a word out, the front window explodes inward.