2. Sabina
2
Sabina
New York, NY
“Merry Christmas.”
I place the small red box with the big white satin ribbon on the glossy, dark wood table between me and my best friend, Nadia Taylor. We’re at Lumen , a new restaurant in New York’s Meat Packing District. It’s busy and lively, but we’re seated in a quiet booth rather than one of the long, communal tables. We’ve already eaten our appetizer—we shared burrata with basil oil and roasted cherry tomatoes—and our main course—I had the seared scallops and Nadia had the Miso-glazed black cod. We’re currently waiting for dessert. Matcha tiramisu.
Nadia studies me, her brown eyes shifting between my face and the box. “What’s this, Sabina?”
“It’s a little something sparkly,” I say. “I won’t be seeing you again until New Year’s Eve, so…just open it, would you?”
“So impatient,” she teases.
“You know me so well.”
“I do. I really do,” Nadia says as she picks up the box. Her nails are long, painted matte black.
Other than the fact that we’re both short, we’re opposites in looks. My dark hair is straight and sleek to my shoulders, my makeup natural, my clothing choices understated and elegant, neutrals for day wear, jewel tones for evening events. Nadia has long, platinum blond hair that’s parted in the middle and falls in loose waves down her back. She’s wearing smoky, dark eyeshadow, smudgy black eyeliner and, as always, she’s opted for a pinkish-nude shade on her full lips. The luxe/grunge look suits her to perfection. She’s all of five-foot-two, her body slim and athletic, but there’s something about her that screams, Don’t mess with me.
She smiles a little as she slowly unties the ribbon on the box. “I know I’m going to love it, whatever it is. You have utterly flawless taste.”
I grin. “This is true.”
She opens the gift and lets out a very uncharacteristic squeal, one in complete opposition to her edgy-elegance vibe. “It’s the bracelet.”
“Yes,” I agree. “It is a bracelet.”
“No, not just a bracelet. The bracelet.”
The Cartier Juste un Clou bracelet. It’s designed to resemble a bent nail, a perfect balance of luxury and rebellion, and that’s why I love it. Why Nadia loves it. Though, lately, I’ve been feeling like my rebellion’s been locked in a cage.
“It’s just like yours,” she says.
I hold up my wrist to prove her point. “We’re twinsies.”
Almost. Both bracelets glitter with diamonds, but mine is rose gold while hers is white gold, to complement the cool undertones of her porcelain skin.
Her eyes are literally shining with happy tears as she takes it from the box and fastens it onto her wrist. “You know how much I love this thing.”
“Not half as much as I love you, Nads.”
“Ditto, you jerk.” She stands up and grabs me in a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“You’re so very welcome.” I’m beaming as she takes a seat again.
The espressos arrive and I take a sip as she gazes down at her new bracelet with admiration.
I’m glad she’s not questioning the price tag. Nadia paid her own way through college to get her art degree. Her parents didn’t give her a dime. She never let me help, not with cash, anyway. But neither of us ever mentioned the groceries that would appear on her shelves, or the clothes I bought that somehow ended up being the wrong vibe or the wrong color for me once I got them home. I insisted she was doing me a favor by taking them off my hands.
I watch as a tiny frown forms between her brows and her brown eyes shoot to mine.
“What’s the catch?” she asks.
“Catch?” I repeat.
“I’m sensing something from you. An…ulterior motive?”
I shift in my seat, a bit uncomfortably now. “Can’t a girl give her best friend a little arm candy to celebrate the festive season?”
“Yes, of course. And thank you again. So much. But…again, that sense…” Nadia taps her right temple. “You know I’m psychic.”
Well. I know Nadia thinks she’s psychic, which is absolutely adorable. The girl watches far too many Long Island Medium reruns for her own good.
“Read the card,” I suggest. “Which is what most people do before they unwrap a gift, but I’m fine with you mixing it up.”
“Oh, the card. Sorry.” She reaches for the tiny envelope and pulls the crisp white card from inside.
Merry Christmas, to the best accessorized maid-of-honor in history!
Nadia blinks.
“Maid of honor,” she says out loud, her tone flat and wary.
I nod. “Well?”
“Well…?”
“Damn, you’re making me work for this, Nadia. I’m asking you to be my maid of honor.” I wait, and then clear my throat. “For my wedding.”
“Your wedding to Roberto.”
“That is my fiancé’s name, yes.” Why am I feeling so nervous about this? “I was expecting a bit more enthusiasm, to be honest. A little jumping up and down. A little shouting with glee. An immediate and jovial hooray?”
Actually, I wasn’t. I knew Nadia would be a hard sell. She and Roberto have taken to each other like two feral cats circling, claws half-sheathed, just waiting for the other to strike.
Nadia bites her lip and slides the card back in the envelope. “I’m sorry, Sabina. Yes. Yes, of course I’ll be your maid of honor. I’d be…uh, honored. Seriously. You know I’d do anything in the world for you…”
I feel the same about her. Nadia and I have known each other since we were ten years old in the fifth grade. We started off as enemies, but after several adventures deserving to feature in a middle grade novel with millions of fans, we became best friends and that hasn’t changed in…wow, thirteen years now? Has it really been that long?
Nadia doesn’t continue.
“But…?” I prompt. “I feel a but coming on there.”
“No buts. Well, no big buts.” She snorts. “Big butts.” She sobers quickly. “This feels really awkward now, but I did want to talk to you. I’ve been drinking extra wine to get the courage to say what’s on my mind.”
“What do you need courage for?” I ask even though I know. She’s going to tell me to call things off. Or at least, postpone.
Again, she bites her lip. “It’s…about Roberto.”
“What about him?”
“How well do you really know him?”
Immediately, I bristle. It seems to be my kneejerk reaction to anyone questioning my relationship with Roberto lately. My brothers did, especially Leo and Damian. And even my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Alina has asked some gentle questions. My other soon-to-be sister-in-law, Nicole just told me she’s there for me if I want to discuss anything…anything at all.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to find my calm.
“Obviously I know him well enough to want to marry him,” I reply slowly. “He’s perfect.”
“Perfect?” she repeats, her tone laced with skepticism.
The bristle returns, but I force myself to stay composed. “He’s handsome, tall. He has a good job.”
“Handsome and tall. Both good, no question about it. What does he do again?”
“He’s in banking,” I remind her. But she already knows this. She’d asked him what he did when they’d first met. His reply had been short, even curt.
Banking. I’m in banking.
A short answer to a short question. And the conversation had moved on from there.
Banking might not be exciting, but that’s what I like about it.
Banking is stable. Banking is safe. Banking doesn’t get you double-tapped, shot in the head and the heart while having dinner with your family. It doesn’t get a gun held to your head on the deck of your yacht while your family watches, horrified. It doesn’t put you on life support after you take a bullet to save the man you love.
My eyes start to burn at the thought of what my family has endured over the last year, and I swallow down a large mouthful of wine before a tear has a chance to escape.
“You don’t like him, do you?” I ask, and it comes out a bit more sharply than I intend.
“We’ve hung out like…six times in three years. I barely know him,” Nadia replies with a shrug. Then she straightens her shoulders and looks me right in the eyes. “And neither do you, Sabina.”
For fuck’s sake. Here we go.
“I know him very well,” I tell her, my voice tight. “I’ve known him for three years.”
She nods. “On-again, off-again for three years. And in those three years, you’ve met his parents once…at your engagement party. In three years, you’ve never been to his childhood home. In three years, you’ve mentioned hanging out with his friends exactly twice, and they were more work colleagues than friends.”
I can’t argue with her. She’s not wrong. Roberto says he prefers it when it’s just the two of us.
“For three years he’s spoken over you. Dismissed your opinions,” Nadia continues. “And on five of the six occasions we’ve gone out together, he’s behaved like an ass. He was rude to the barista that time we went for coffee and he refused to tip the waiter because of some imagined slight when we went out for dinner at that Japanese place. He changes the subject if he isn’t the center of the conversation, and…”
“And?”
“And you never talk about how he is in bed.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Finally, I say, “Things like that are private.”
“Are they? How come they weren’t private when you lost your virginity to that guy in Daytona? Or private when you shared pretty much everything, in glow-in-the-dark detail, about Dick-for-brains?”
That was the nickname Nadia had given my high-school boyfriend after we’d broken up in senior year. Fucker hadn’t even taken me to prom.
I sigh. She’s not wrong. I’ve never been shy about sharing details with Nadia. And she’s never been shy about sharing them with me. Oh, not private private details. But a little squee of joy with a few juicy nuggets has never been off the table.
But there’s one detail I’ve never shared with her, one detail I’ve only ever shared with my therapist. Sometimes, my fantasies take…a dark turn.
Like, dark .
That’s something I’d never share with Roberto either. It’s one more way that he’s safe.
“Wait.” Nadia stares at me, then her eyes widen before they narrow. She leans closer. “You’re not sleeping with him, are you? Oh my god. Don’t tell me you’re a born-again virgin.”
“Shh,” I hiss, then look up as the waiter arrives. “Oh, good, our dessert is here. Forget the calories and enjoy every bit of this, Nads.”
I take a forkful of the tiramisu and put it in my mouth. It sits heavily on my tongue, like a tasteless piece of lead. I know it’s delicious. I sense it’s delicious. But now I’m too damn distracted by this conversation to enjoy it.
Damn it.
I don’t know why talking about Roberto is getting to me. I feel like I’m being grilled, and I can see the skepticism in her eyes.
The thing is, she’s right. About everything. Roberto does talk over me, dismiss my opinions, center himself in every conversation. Sometimes, I have to grit my teeth to keep from snapping at him.
So why am I marrying him?
Because boring is safe. But more than that, it’s because of Papa.
Nadia hasn’t touched her dessert. “You didn’t answer my question,” she says.
“Not that it’s anyone’s business,” I say after a long pause. “But I told him I want to wait until our honeymoon.”
“Sabina!” she roars.
“Nadia!” I roar back.
“Would you buy a car without a test drive?” she demands.
“I don’t know what you want me to say right now.”
“Okay. Tell me this much…are you in love with him?”
That question. It hangs in the air like a proverbial lead balloon. On fire. And smelling very bad.
“I…” I begin. “I care for him.”
And as soon as I say the words, I know they’re the wrong answer. Her lips purse with judgement. I head her off before she can explode.
“Okay, I get your concern,” I grit out. “I really do. But you need to understand something. I don’t want to be madly in love with someone. I don’t want someone so gorgeous that my knees get weak whenever I see him. I don’t want to be begging him for sex or wondering who else he’s screwing. I want to be fully in control of my emotions.”
Because that night three years ago, I wasn’t in control, and I’ve been living with the memories of that ever since. I never told Nadia about that night. Only Papa knew. And now, only I know.
Nadia holds up her hands, palms forward. “Okay,” she says softly. “I get wanting to be in control. Let’s say that I accept the fact that you don’t want to be madly in love. But…shouldn’t the guy you marry be your best friend? Someone you can talk to? Someone who really sees you for you?”
My thoughts spin back to the Halloween party, to the hours I spent with a stranger, talking, laughing, a man I wouldn’t even recognize if we were standing right next to each other because I never saw his face. A man who really listened to me. Who got me. Who saw me.
I picture him, the stranger in the Batman costume, sitting in the shadows like he owned the darkness itself. The way the sharp lines of his jaw caught the light, his lips full but firm, the kind of lips that were sculpted for temptation. He hadn’t just worn the suit; he was the suit—imposing, magnetic, dangerous.
And his kiss… God, his kiss. It wasn’t just a kiss—it was a claiming. He’d kissed me like he’d been starving for me his entire life… and like he’d hate himself for it afterward. His lips had been firm, demanding, coaxing out a response I’d thought buried deep inside me. The taste of him—dark and intoxicating—was burned into my memory, something I’d never be able to forget no matter how much I wanted to.
He'd kissed me like I was both his salvation and his sin, his redemption and his ruin, like I wasn’t a Mafia princess in a gilded cage but a woman who made his world burn.
I shake my head. Why am I thinking about him again?
Because Nadia’s questions opened the box I keep that precious memory locked away in, allowed that wisp of bittersweet regret to drift free.
“It’s not too late,” Nadia says softly, reaching over and resting her hand on mine. “You can call it off. This can’t be what you want, a loveless marriage with a pompous ass who only wants your money.”
“Gee, don’t pull any punches, Nads,” I say sourly, though in truth she isn’t saying anything I haven’t already thought, haven’t spent hours agonizing over when I lie sleepless in my bed.
She just looks at me with those big brown eyes, seeing right into my heart.
“Tell me why you’re staying with him,” she says. “And I know it isn’t because you love him.”
“Roberto told me that Papa gave him his permission to marry me just before he died. If he gave his blessing, then—” To my dismay, my eyes have welled with hot tears that fall before I have a chance to stop them. I grab a linen napkin and dab at them gently, so it doesn’t ruin my makeup. “I loved Papa. I will always love him. And I know he only wanted the best for me.”
“I agree with that much,” Nadia places her hand over mine. “Mr. Russo loved the hell out of you. And he did want only the best for you. Which is why…”
I wait after she trails off. “Continue.”
For a moment, I think she won’t continue, but then Nadia raises her gaze directly to mine.
“You said, ‘ If he gave his blessing.’ That’s a big if .” She pauses, then says, “I don’t believe your father gave Roberto permission to do anything of the sort. I think…” She huffs a quick breath. “I think he lied to you, used your love for your father and your grief as a tool to make you say yes because when he came home with you for Christmas last year, he saw just how rich your family is and he wanted a piece of that pie. I’m sorry. Hate me if you want, but it’s what I believe. And you know what else I believe?”
I’m all for being truthful and blunt, but this is pushing it. I give her a warning glare. “What do you believe, Nadia?”
“I believe you’re lying to yourself. I believe you want to be madly, passionately, dangerously in love. But you’re afraid of losing someone like you lost your mom and then your dad.” Nadia twines her fingers with mine. “If you let yourself…if it happens for you, I know the light will come back into your eyes, you’ll stop playing safe—which is so not you, Sabina—and everything will start to make sense again.”
I’m quiet for so long that she lets go of my hand and picks at her dessert. I notice her hands are trembling. I know it took a lot of courage for her to say all of that to me. We’ve known each other forever and she can say anything to me, even the stuff that cuts deep, because I know she’s willing to be one hundred percent truthful and that truth comes from a place of deep and unshakeable love.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt like hell.
Especially when I know she’s fucking right.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. It’s…it’s none of my business.”
I let out a shaky sigh. “I hate you right now.”
“Understandable.”
“And I love the hell out of you for speaking your mind.”
She grimaces. “Good?”
“No, not good. You’ve just made my life way more complicated than it already was.”
“Does that mean you’re going to think about what I said?”
“I’ll think about it. And also, fuck you.” I take a sip of my espresso and offer her a little smile as I steer the conversation in a slightly different direction. “By the way, did I tell you I had another marriage proposal?”
Nadia raises a brow. “What? Who?”
“Nikolai Ivanov.”
Her eyes go wide. “What? You hate him. You called him a loathsome piece of shit, didn’t you?”
“I did. And he is.” I lean in conspiratorially. “Nikolai asked Leo for my hand in marriage in order to create an alliance between our families.”
Nadia’s jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? He asked your brother ? To create an alliance ? What year does he think this is? The thirteenth century? And when exactly did this happen?”
“At my engagement party,” I deadpan.
She gasps then bursts into laughter. “You’re fucking joking.”
I stare at her. “No joke.”
She shakes her head. “Oh, my god. The audacity.”
“Right?” I let out a bitter laugh. “And Leo’s met with him a couple of times since then.”
I can’t believe it, myself. My brother meeting with the son of the man who had our father murdered. The Ivanovs took Papa from me. From all of us. Leo refuses to talk to me about the war between our families. He brushes me off and says it’s being handled. And yet, months have gone by. Months . And Mikhail Ivanov still lives and breathes.
I want that motherfucker dead for what he did.
I want every Ivanov to pay for taking my father’s life.
But Nadia doesn’t know any of this. We don’t talk family business with anyone outside the family. So I don’t hold it against her when she quirks a brow and says, “If a guy like that offered me a ring, I’d at least take a minute to consider it.”
“He is a piece of shit,” I say, thinking of the way Nikolai has looked at me the few times we’ve run into each other, like he sees the woman I keep hidden away, like he knows all my secrets and is just waiting for the right moment to use them against me.
Like he wants to pin me against a wall and take everything I have to give.
Nadia laughs. “Maybe, but he’s gorgeous . From what I saw of him at your engagement party, I’m guessing he probably fucks like a stallion.”
I stare at her open-mouthed.
I refuse to say that I agree with her. He is gorgeous and his body is mouth-wateringly perfect and I’d be lying if I said I’d never imagined him in all sorts of positions doing all sorts of things. To me.
Dark things.
The kind of dark things I’ve only shared with my therapist.
But it doesn’t matter. That version of Nikolai-the-Stallion will remain locked away in with the rest of my forbidden fantasies, since there’s no way, ever, that they’ll become a reality.
Absolutely never.