Chapter Forty-three
Inna Grace
Of all the days on the calendar, my period chose New York. I sat on the toilet, doing the mental calculation, counting backward until I concluded it was real. My irregular cycle never once gave me the courtesy of a working warning system. No backache, no breast tenderness, no cravings. Nothing.
Once I fixed myself up, I went to find Dmitri in the sitting area. He looked up from his phone the moment I walked in. His eyes settled on my face as if he were trying to figure out why we had returned to the hotel suite after breakfast instead of continuing the day.
“We can go,” I said, adjusting the strap of my bag.
He crossed the room toward me, took my left hand, and ran his thumb slowly over the ring on my finger. I followed the movement with my eyes. That ring had sat there for so long that I barely noticed it anymore, and Dmitri never paid attention to it before.
“Don’t tell me you’re suddenly broke and want to sell it,” I said.
I didn’t like the seriousness on his face.
“Whatever you find out today shouldn’t make you forget who you are,” he said, the words carrying the weight of preparation more than reassurance.
“That’s frightening. Should I be worried?”
“Yes,” he said plainly. “Keep in mind that you are my wife.”
“I’m not going anywhere now.” I took a step back.
He turned toward the door. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
“You just threatened me with a warning, and now you want me to follow you? That’s not how trust works.”
He opened the door and waited. After a few seconds, he looked back at me. “Your mother is waiting.”
The words landed slowly at first, then made sense all at once. He said my mother was waiting. I heard that very clearly.
“What?” I asked.
“You’ll ask her your questions.” He gestured for me to come with him. I didn’t move. “Come on.”
I swallowed hard. The heaviness settling in my chest wasn’t grief exactly, but it wasn’t joy either. It sat somewhere in between, dense and difficult to name.
“The person we’re going to meet is my mother?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
What Dmitri didn’t understand was that one word carried ten years of silence inside it. Ten years of a wound I learned to carry quietly because talking about it changed nothing.
I looked away from him, anywhere except his eyes, because I would not cry in front of him. Not now. Not before I even understood what I was walking into.
I didn’t know if I was ready for this. I didn’t know if this ruined my day, saved it, or split open what I’d sealed shut so long ago that reopening it would be its own kind of damage.
My mother was waiting.
Which meant Dmitri arranged this before we even came to New York.
I looked back at him. He watched me without rushing me, without filling the silence the way most people would. I adjusted the strap of my bag again, took one breath, then let it out slowly. “You could have told me.”
“You would have prepared a wall,” he said.
I had nothing to say to that because he was right, which was one of the most irritating things about him on a very long list of irritations.
I walked toward the door.
Was I ready?
My mind answered by building scenarios faster than I could stop them, cycling through blurred memories of a woman I hadn’t seen in almost ten years.
The larger part of me wanted to turn around and forget this entire thing.
The smaller part, the quieter one buried underneath everything else, only wanted confirmation that she was alive.
I sat in the car with my bag resting on my lap while my mind ran through every way this could go.
There were a few reasons mothers leave. They died, found another family, or got sick and decided that disappearing was kinder than forcing their children to watch them fall apart. Over the years, I went through every version until I couldn’t think of anything else.
Was she always in New York? Were we the ones who left? Did something break between her and my father badly enough to split us apart while she stayed behind? The questions kept piling up until the car finally stopped, and I looked up.
A club.
The driver opened the door, but I stayed where I was, staring at the building. We were at the back entrance of a club.
So this was where my mother was waiting.
Dmitri’s hand settled on my thigh and squeezed once. “She knows you’re coming,” he said. “What she tells you is yours to decide what to do with. Whatever you find out changes things. But you’re wearing my ring.”
I looked at him. He kept moving my life around without asking whether I was ready for any of it. That angered me more than anything else.
“Do you enjoy this?” I asked. “Dragging me into things without preparing me first. Does that give you some kind of satisfaction?”
“That’s how life works. Let’s go.”
“I…” I pressed my lips together. “She left us. She disappeared, and I spent years holding Cole together while he grew up without a mother, and you bring me to a club and tell me she’s waiting like this is just a dinner reservation.”
“What did you want instead?” he asked evenly. “For me to warn you first and spend three days watching you stop eating while your mind tears itself apart?”
“That’s my problem. Not yours.” The words snapped out sharper than I intended.
“You’re my wife. Let’s go.” He opened the door and stepped out.
I let out a short, bitter laugh. The audacity of this man had to exist at a cellular level. Dmitri moved through the world as if it belonged to him, and everyone else’s responsibility was simply keeping pace.
He came around the car and opened my door. I grabbed my bag and stepped out, then followed him inside. We took the stairs, and I stopped counting floors after three because my mind was occupied with things that mattered more than numbers.
My father’s disappearance hurt in a different way.
That pain came with fear and a problem I could attack with effort.
But when my mother left, she left behind questions with no answers.
She disappeared when Cole was barely days old.
He cried through nights, needing warmth, feeding, and a mother’s arms. I stayed awake through those nights learning what worked and what didn’t.
I figured it out because no one else would.
Did she think about him? Even once? Did she ever picture his face and feel anything heavy enough to cost her something?
The fifth floor opened into a hallway covered in black carpet, the kind of detail designed to create atmosphere on purpose. It sent a chill over my skin, but I kept walking.
I wasn’t ready, but I hoped she had something I could understand.
I didn’t need excuses or dramatic regret.
I just wanted the truth. A truth that made the shape of the last ten years make sense.
I wanted her to look at me as if I were still her daughter while she explained it.
Somewhere underneath all the anger, I hoped she missed us.
That was all I needed.
Just that.
Dmitri glanced at me, then pushed a door open without knocking. He held it there for a few seconds, standing at the entrance as if offering me one final chance to prepare before he walked in.
I stayed in the hallway for one breath, then another, before stepping through the door.
My eyes found her immediately, and the entire room rearranged itself around her.
Everything else disappeared. She sat at the far end of the table, facing the entrance where I stood.
Her hair was still short, dark with soft brown at the edges.
I cut mine to match hers after she disappeared, staring at myself in mirrors and pretending resemblance counted as closeness. She was my mother.
But there was something else, too. She glowed in the particular way people do after leaving poverty behind long enough to forget what it felt like.
The necklace matched the earrings. Her clothes, her posture, the calm confidence in the way she occupied space all assembled into a version of her I didn’t recognize.
She didn’t stand when I walked in. And standing there, I realized I had spent years imagining she would run to me. Not that I planned to run back or throw myself into her arms, but I expected instinct. Some visible proof that my presence still affected her.
Her face didn’t shift into a smile or even the smallest flicker of the expression people wear when they miss someone.
Dmitri stepped back toward me, blocking my view of her. His hand came to my face, and his thumb brushed gently across my cheek. “Tell me when you want to leave,” he said.
“Do we have time for this?” a male voice asked from inside the room. I was so focused on my mother that I hadn’t even noticed someone else was there.
I nodded once at Dmitri, and he took my hand, leading me toward the table. He pulled out the chair directly opposite my mother. I looked at the man seated beside her. He carried himself with entitlement. My first thought was that he was my mother’s new husband.
“Grace.” My mother used the name she gave me. “You’re grown up now,” she said without smiling.
“She must be the daughter,” the man beside her said, sounding more inconvenienced than interested.
The daughter.
The room suddenly felt short of air.
My mother exhaled and turned toward Dmitri. “I didn’t expect such an urgent meeting. This shouldn’t have happened.”
Every second I sat there cracked something I spent years holding together carefully.
“Who is he?” Dmitri directed his attention toward the man beside her.
The man scoffed. “I should ask who you are. This was supposed to be a family meeting.”
“Family.” Dmitri sat straighter in his chair, his fingers tapping slowly against the table. “Should we leave, or will he?” He directed the question at my mother.
She sighed again. “Let’s get this done. This is Diego, my uncle. He’ll take over the business.”
“I see.” Dmitri leaned back. “So you didn’t tell him who I am.” His eyes settled on her coldly. “But we’re here for my wife. You came the moment I mentioned Iker, so start by telling her who you are.”
Iker.
My chest tightened the second I heard that name.
“Not now. I’m arranging something.” My mother’s voice sharpened in a way I had never heard before. “Grace and Cole will not be dragged into this life.”
“They already are.” Dmitri’s tone stayed even. “She’s my wife, which I shouldn’t need to repeat.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, ” my mother said. “Whatever that marriage is, it needs to end.”
“Wife,” Diego laughed in the particular way people do when they want you to understand they consider you beneath them. “You expect us to call her your wife when you never sought permission from her family?”
Dmitri went quiet.
He never allowed people to speak to him that way, but the slow tapping of his fingers against the table didn’t look like patience. It looked dangerous.
“Darling,” he turned toward me. “Iker, the man who destroyed your family, is your grandfather. Your mother’s father. He runs a mafia organization in Mexico, which your mother now runs.” His eyes stayed on mine. “The reason—”
“Stop!” my mother snapped.
Dmitri never looked away from me. “Iker wants Cole to take over after him, so once he has Cole, he’ll kill you, your father and your mother.”
“Stop telling her that.” My mother’s voice cracked at the edges for the first time, the composure finally splitting. “Diego and I are working to remove my father. Once he’s gone, Diego takes over, and I step down and return to my family.”
“If Iker finds out this meeting happened, everything collapses,” Diego added. “This meeting should never have existed in the first place. Grace has grown up now. There’s no need to behave as if not seeing her mother for years is some tragedy.”
My fist tightened beneath the table.
“End the marriage with her. I’ll send them to another state.” My mother pressed both hands flat against the table now. “My father can’t know I met you here, so threatening me into seeing Grace was not a clever move. Once Diego takes over—”
The gunshot cut through the room before she finished.
I jerked away from the table, a scream ripping out of me. My mother shoved back from the table as well, her chair scraping across the floor. Diego’s body tipped forward, blood spreading across the table before dripping steadily onto the floor beneath him.
My hand flew to my mouth, and I turned to Dmitri. He looked down at the gun in his hand with mild interest.
“Looks like I complicated your plan,” Dmitri said.
“What have you done?” My mother’s voice barely made it out as a whisper.
“Was he truly your best option?” Dmitri turned the gun slightly in his hand, examining it. “Cole would run your small family business better than you.”
I gulped and looked at my mother. She dragged a hand through her hair. “I came here because I respect Konstantinov. But you don’t kill my uncle in front of me and lecture me about my operation.”
Mafia.
Mexican mafia.
My grandfather was Iker. Iker wanted Cole.
The words were in English. I understood English perfectly. But inside my head, they collided and rearranged themselves as they belonged to another language entirely.
Dmitri stood, slid the gun back into his waistband, and turned toward me. He held his hand out.
“Looks like you’ll need to reconsider your approach if you ever want to see Inna again,” he said to my mother without looking at her.
My legs shook when I stood. Dmitri’s hand closed around my waist, steadying me before I lost my balance.
“She is my daughter!” my mother shouted.
“And she is my wife,” Dmitri thundered. “Unfortunately, you admitted you came here because of Konstantinov and not because of her,” he scoffed.
“Before you decide to contact her again, think carefully. You don’t simply respect Konstantinov.
” His eyes finally shifted toward her. “You fear them. And Inna is a Konstantinov.”
Then he walked me out.
We stepped back into the same hallway I had entered, carrying questions and hope. Now I walked through it with Dmitri’s arm around me. The same hand that killed a man less than a minute ago.
What shook me more was that Iker was my grandfather, and my mother ran a mafia organization.
Mafia.
That was the word I had been searching for that could fit who Dmitri was. And I never thought of it. He wasn’t simply dangerous. He belonged to the Mafia.
I didn’t know how to cry about any of this or what shape this kind of grief was supposed to take. So I just kept walking.