16. Chapter Sixteen #2
“Isn’t that inappropriate of you, Natalya? Talking about your father in that way?”
“It’s the truth. My father was a handsome man. Everyone knew it. Even though he was older than our mother, he was still handsome. A silver fox. That’s what people called him. But you… you’re not that. You’re not even half that.”
“Be quiet now, Natalya,” he grits out. My sisters and mom watch everything unfold without saying a word. My sisters are afraid but my mom knows I have a plan. That’s why she’s not speaking. She knows to let me handle this.
“And you seriously think you can be a father to me and my sisters like our father was? He was an amazing father. He made sure we were all seen in our own ways. He made sure we were all loved in our own ways. Can you say the same?”
“It’s not about love.”
“No, it’s about control with you,” I snap. “My family will never love you like they did Lev. My father was a great man and you are nothing compared to him.”
“Be quiet!” he screams, slamming his hands onto the table.
“I will not be quiet!” I scream right back. It feels good to do it. To let my pent-up worry and anger go. Mikhail has been taking it from me but Mikhail isn’t here now.
“Henry, get her to be quiet.”
Henry walks towards me. This is my chance.
I lock eyes with my mom and subtly nod my head.
When Henry passes beside her, she shoots out her foot, tripping him.
He stumbles forward and I shoot out of my chair, jamming the comb against his throat.
In a quick motion, I scrap it across his throat, drawing blood. Henry jerks to the side, startled.
In the commotion, I manage to grab the gun from his hands. Henry tries grabbing it back but he keeps clamping his hands onto his throat where blood is gushing from. I stabbed him with the comb hard. It’s one of the best feelings in the world.
With his gun in my hands, I shoot him in the leg, keeping him down. I don’t have it in me to take a life. Not yet anyway.
Henry lets out a scream as he crumples to the floor.
Denis stares at me in shock. Well, my entire family does too but he’s the one I care about the most right now.
We stare each other down.
“Shoot him,” Mom says. It makes me gasp. Can I kill my own uncle? To save my sisters, I have to try.
But when I raise the gun, Denis ducks under the table. I hear footsteps heading towards the dining room. The other guards.
“Run, Natalya,” Mom says. “Go.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“Yes, you can. Just go.”
I meet the eyes of my sisters but I linger the longest on Sasha.
She’s been disappointed by me time and time again and I cant let that happen any longer.
I give her a nod and run out of the dining room.
I head out the back door and run around the side of the house.
Since the other guards were drawn to my gunshot, none of them are waiting outside to stop me.
I keep running with everything I have in me until I’m at least a mile from the house. I look over my shoulder to make sure no one is following me but no one is. That doesn’t mean they won’t be after me soon.
I hurry to the nearest subway station. The gun in my hands will draw attention, that much I know, so I have no choice but to throw it away as I pass a trashcan. I can’t risk any police stopping me at the moment, even though the gun is a good deterrent against Denis’s guards.
I don’t let myself breathe until I’m on the subway and it’s moving. I have to get back to Mikhail’s house. My house. I’ll be safe there. I can tell his men what happened. They’ll save him.
It takes around forty minutes to reach my house, which is forty minutes I don’t have. The longer it takes for me to help Mikhail, the closer to death he gets.
I see the gates of my house and run for them. But before I can reach them, a car pulls up alongside me. Something in my gut tells me I need to be afraid.
The back window rolls down and before I can even think, I take off running. “Help!” I scream, hoping that Mikhail’s guards out front will be able to save me.
But when I reach the gates, I see that the guard always on duty is dead. A bullet hole to his head.
The car parks next to me.
“Get in, Natalya.” I don’t recognize the voice.
Steeling myself, I turn towards the car and look at the man in the backseat. Around Mikhail’s age with brown hair and even darker eyes, he would be handsome if I wasn’t so afraid.
“Who are you?” I whisper, hating how scared I sound. I managed to escape my uncle only to fall into the clutches of someone bad. Because even though I don’t know this man, I know he’s bad. My gut is screaming at me.
“I’m Nico Bernardi.”
So really bad.
“What do you want?”
“You. So get in the car. You can try to run but you know we’ll just chase and I’ll make it worse for you.”
I wish I hadn’t thrown my gun away. If I still had it, I could have shot Nico in the face and saved myself.
But I don’t have a gun.
With shaky fingers, I open the back door and get inside. It’s a large back space with two seats facing each other. I sit across from him.
Once the door shuts, his driver takes me away from my house. I was so close to freedom and now I’ve lost it all again.
“Why do you want me?” I ask. The more information I have, the better.
“Because I want to hurt Mikhail.” He pulls out a cigarette but doesn’t light it; only rests it between his lips.
“I figured kidnapping his lovely new wife would be the way to do that. So I came by his house and shot his guard and waited. But no one came out. Strange, right? I was about to leave when you came running down the sidewalk. Talk about destiny.”
I shiver. “How did you find our house?”
“It took some digging into but my men eventually found it.”
“Why me?”
“Like I said. I’m going to use you to hurt Mikhail. If I can’t draw him out, then I figured if I steal you, he’ll come running.”
“That’s assuming he cares for me.”
He tilts his head. “Does he not? All I’ve heard people talking about is how obsessed Mikhail is with his wife. So, I just assumed he did care for you. Am I wrong?”
I duck my head. My uncle was one thing. He didn’t scare me as much as he probably should have. But Nico is on a whole other level. He screams power in a way Denis doesn’t. I’m not sure I’m making it out of this that easy.
Nico chuckles. “I take it I’m not wrong. He’ll come running to save you. And then I can finally kill him.”
It dawns on me that Nico doesn’t know what Cillian has done. If he did, he’d be right there with Cillian, torturing my husband. I have knowledge which is power of it’s own sorts.
“You don’t know, do you?” I ask, forcing myself to look him in the eye.
Nico goes still before his lips twitch. “Know what? What game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing any game. But I know something that you don’t know and it’s funny. You’re a scary Mafia man and I’m just a mafia wife but I have knowledge that you don’t.”
“I can get it out of you.” His threat is perfectly clear. I try not to show my own fear as that will ruin everything.
“You don’t need to hurt me for me to talk. I will tell you what I know. But first, let me ask you, do you want to kill Mikhail yourself?”
“Yes.”
“And you would be upset if someone else did it?”
He narrows his eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Please answer my question. I need to know.”
“Oh, you need to know?” He leans back in his seat, spreading his legs wide, taking up space to intimidate me. “Then why should I tell you? I’m the one in charge here. Not you.”
“But it would be easier just to talk to me instead of torturing me to get the information. So talk to me.” A crazy idea is brewing in my mine but it’s the only one I have to work with.
“Fine. I’ll bite. Yes, I would be upset if someone else killed him. We’ve been at war for months. Hell, years, even, and he keeps slipping through my fingers. I would love to be the one to end him.”
“So, if I told you that someone else had him right now and wanted to kill him, you would be upset?”
He frowns. “Well, I wouldn’t be fucking happy about it.”
“You made a deal with Cillian Kennedy, didn’t you?”
His frown slowly turns into a smile. “What is this about?”
“You made a deal with him, yes?”
“Yes. And we kept it a secret until we could turn the tables on Mikhail.”
“Right. But your plan didn’t succeed, did it? Mikhail got away.”
“He did,” he grumbles, fixing his jacket.
“You and Cillian agreed to work together to bring Mikhail down, is that right?”
“Where is this going?”
“Tell me. Please.”
He sighs, looking like he wants to be anywhere else right now but here in this car with me. “Yes. We said we’d work together.”
“Does Cillian know you planned to kidnap me to lure Mikhail out?”
“Cillian doesn’t need to know everything I get up to.”
“So, you’re double crossing him. You’re going to take Mikhail down yourself without his help.”
“Sure. If you want to call it that, then sure.”
“Why? Isn’t Cillian your ally? Why screw him like that?”
“Because that’s business, Natalya. Mafia men can’t be trusted. We scheme and we plan and we backstab.”
“Right.” Now’s the time. “So, if I told you that Cillian had Mikhail right now, how would that make you feel?”
Nico goes eerily still before he scoffs. “I would say you’re lying just to save yourself though I don’t see how that would work.”
“I’m not lying,” I say, forcing myself to look him in the eye. Don’t show weakness. “Cillian attacked me and Mikhail. He took my husband. He left me behind because he didn’t have any need for me. He has Mikhail right now, Nico. I’m not lying.”
He looks into my eyes, searching them for a long time, before he huffs. “You’re right. You’re not lying, are you?”
“I’m not. Cillian is backstabbing you. He’s trying to kill Mikhail himself without you. He probably wants the credit for taking my husband down. That will give him power. Maybe even more power than you possess.”
“Cillian is just a fucking Irish mobster. He’s not the Mafia like I am.”
“So remind him of that. Find him and you’ll find my husband. And then you can kill Mikhail while you’re at it.”
“You’re leading me straight to your husband? Why?”
“Because you’re all I have. Save my husband so you can kill him.” And I’m hoping in the process, I can find a way to save Mikhail and myself. It’s a risky plan but it’s all I have.
Nico considers my words. “I’m intrigued. And pissed. Cillian doesn’t get to kill Mikhail.”
“So find him. Both of them.”
He raps on the ceiling of the car and the visor between the backseat and the front moves down. “Sam, I need you to let my men know. We’re on the hunt for Cillian Kennedy. Find out where he took Mikhail Novikoff.”
“Yes, sir.” The visor goes back up.
“So, you’ll do it?” I ask. “You’ll save my husband?”
“Yes, I’ll save your husband. I’ll save him so I can kill him myself.”