Milana
I didn’t come back to the States for nothing. The asshole is really dead. And that by my brother’s hand.
My whole body is still in a chokehold because of the photos this morning, nauseous with what they mean for me, but now, relief courses through my veins: Dimitri is dead.
As the fucker deserved.
I sit down with Papa, hardly being able to stand right now, and take his limp hand in mine with trembling fingers. He’s asleep, or zoned out, totally unaware of the turmoil in my being. The turmoil in our world.
It’s a blessing. He’s seen enough. Suffered two strokes that left him like this, bedridden, half of him seemingly gone, the other half dying slowly.
And now, if my concocted plan for marriage with one of Gabriella Scalera’s brothers rolls out as I hope it will, I have very little time left with my father.
Speculation has run rife for months. Nothing was certain after the Fourth of July coup, and we’re heading for November.
Minutes ago, Ivan finally confessed that he killed Dimitri Mikhailov.
His best friend for decades. Our Papa’s other right-hand man, drafted from Russia by Ivan specifically to keep channels open with the motherland.
All this time, Dimitri was a traitor in our midst. Now his blood is soaked up in my Steinway’s hidden crevices and furrows, impossible to scrub away.
Any idiot would assume Dimitri is dead, but we’re the Bratva.
In our circles, a person—already long forgotten—sometimes resurfaces with the churn of time.
Often only as a hollowed-out body desperately keeping a soul trapped inside, barely alive, emaciated, wrecked, purely to walk around as a warning.
There’s no proof but Ivan’s word, and I don’t expect him to dig up a grave and show me his best friend’s corpse, but to have this confirmation shifts the ground under me.
To find out if Dimitri is really dead was one of three reasons I came back to America—against all common sense, against every gut instinct ruling my head and heart.
I’m not sure how long Ivan can hold this card close, or how long Chertnikov, Dimitri’s puppet master, will lay low until he strikes again.
Chertnikov doesn’t give up easily, and his sights are set on our operations and trade routes for a much bigger undertaking I loathe to think about.
All I know is I need to get out of here, back to Russia then disappear forever, with this tidbit of information my trump card if I ever need it.
The second reason I came back is, if Dimitri weren’t dead, I would have killed him myself. A knife in the neck. Poison in his food. Hell, I would have run him over with my car until he was nothing but crushed bones and mauled meat and he wouldn’t have seen it coming.
But talk is cheap. Who am I fooling? I’m not made for this world with its brutality, games, secrets, and spies. I’ll never get my hands stained with blood, scar my soul with murder as Ivan seems to do without flinching. I haven’t been trained to be a walking weapon, to kill in cold blood.
If only I had been…but it’s too late now.
My precious hands know only how to fly over piano keys, and this is why Ivan doesn’t want me to go back to Russia.
If Chertnikov knows I’m in his territory, he will hunt me down, hold me hostage for a human exchange for his precious Dimitri, upping the pressure one finger at a time.
Or even worse, use me to make Ivan bow to his power and will once and for all.
And then what would become of Irisha and Katya?
The mere thought makes me drag in a strangled breath, and for a long time, I just sit in the quiet, forcing myself to calm down.
Chertnikov isn’t that desperate yet. Or…? What do I know about a man obsessed, who has been working on his masterplan for decades, me a negligible cog in his machine? Surely, he can pull off world domination without me.
But the photos… We’re so fucked.
The photos drone-dropped today freaked me out completely.
They are a message I’m still trying to decipher.
I could still live with the nude photos of me that arrived in the same fashion months ago, the ones Ivan got a hacker to scrub off the internet, but these ones of Masha?
With her good side on display walking down a street in Saint Petersburg?
They punched me in the gut. They aren’t a sick attempt at blackmailing me.
Concepts of shame and sex could be tightly twisted around a woman’s body, and men love using it against us.
No, Masha’s photos are a bone-chilling warning. They are on to her…on to us.
Nobody knows anything, but they could hazard a guess, just like Gabi had. Maybe if I hadn’t been in the room with her, having a complete meltdown, I could have staved her off and kept my secret, but women in the Bratva, like the Mafia, know how to read a room…and between the lines.
Chertnikov’s Bratva are all men, wanting women only to serve their needs. The patriarchy to the core. They never think women could have the wit or strength to have an agenda and agency, or play our own game in the shadows thrown by the pieces on their chessboard.
I need to outsmart them somehow, and it starts here.
I let go of Papa’s hand and swipe on my phone like I do every half-hour, open the map app, and find Masha’s location.
She hasn’t moved again, her little dot still glowing green on the same spot since yesterday.
She’s still over two hours east of Saint Petersburg.
I know the place. I spent many summers there with my mom, so long ago now the memories should have faded, but some memories are forged in steel, making bridges of time.
Masha, me, the lake, and endless sunshine days where the future promised to be pure gold.
We were so naive, so unaware of our roles in the Bratva and the futures to come. Nowadays, Masha hardly leaves her apartment. She messaged to let me know she’s going to see her mom at her parents’ hunting lodge on the lake, and it was a relief to see she’s made it all the way in one piece.
There’s only one problem: Masha’s mom has been dead these past seven years. The lodge abandoned and probably derelict. What the hell is she even doing there?
Papa stirs, and I reach for him. His hand squeezes mine.
I squeeze back, but there’s nothing more.
The silence of the sickroom stretches. The nurse’s quiet presence where she sits, trying to be unobtrusive while I visit Papa, suddenly becomes too much.
I stand, less shaky on my legs now, calmed down after the shocking revelations of this morning.
It’s time to show face and check in with Ivan’s new nanny—for now.
His plans for her are much bigger, and she’s slow to catch on sometimes.
Sweet and innocent little bird. I hope Gabriella made work of my plans to get out of this compound for good.
She doesn’t know it, but she’s become my last resort.
If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’ll do.
“I’m going, Papa, but I’ll be back later,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss his temple.
My stay is coming to a close, I feel it in my gut.
Ivan’s little bird will deliver because she understands what’s at stake.
Maybe I was an idiot to trust Gabriella with my secret, but I’m not blind.
Gabriella Scalera has secrets of her own, and I’ve teased out one of them already: she speaks Russian.
There will be more.
Time will tell.
“I’ll come again,” I say to the nurse as I try not to tear up while leaving the room.
The house is quiet. Almost eerily so as I make my way to the kitchen. Ivan’s daughters, Irisha and Katya, must be down for a nap. I’ll give this to Gabriella: as nanny, she’s perfect with the girls.
Ivan is, without a doubt, tumbling into love with her.
Maybe because he plans to make her his wife.
Maybe because she really is perfect for him.
I know my brother. I’ve seen him give his all with his first marriage but only suffering with his then-wife.
He deserves a home full of love and children’s laughter.
And this is the third reason why I had to come home. I had to come say goodbye. To Ivan, to Irisha and Katya, to Papa. To Yuri, who is like an uncle to me.
As I walk into the kitchen, I spot Yuri at the dining room table, working as usual, keeping half an eye on Gabriella where she’s unpacking some groceries.
It hurts to know I’m hurting him, with my outbursts, my drunken behavior.
It’s really embarrassing, but I’m desperate…
a desperation Gabriella now understands.
When I came back from Russia because Ivan pleaded for me to come home, I never expected him to close the compound’s gates and refuse for me to leave again.
He even cut all my finances and blocked me from doing any transactions in Russia.
It’s a mess I didn’t anticipate. I’m so used to traveling between the US and the motherland, I didn’t for a single second consider my brother wouldn’t let me return to Saint Petersburg.
Soon, Masha will run out of money, and then we’re really fucked. She hasn’t been able to work for years. The money I earn from my piano recordings on music streaming apps is just a drop in the bucket and it all goes to her.
I try to be chirpy as I sidle up to Gabriella where she’s preparing ingredients.
“Can I help?” I ask, and she meets my gaze. “Last night’s dinner was so good, I can definitely learn a thing or two here.”
“Sure. The veal Saltimbocca recipe is in my head, but it’s easy enough.”
Everything seems easy for her. I hope my plan to escape with her help also comes without any obstacles.
“What’s new?” I whisper.
“Nothing new,” she says back softly.
But in her gaze, I read that she’s set things in motion. She spoke to her brothers, begging them to help me get out of this cage by any means, even if it implies marriage to a stranger.
Now it’s just a matter of time and maybe money—both things I don’t have.