Chapter 14
Yelena
The breakfast tray waited beside my laptop.
Eggs. Toast. Coffee. A bowl of cut fruit so bright it looked almost unreal, like it had been plucked from an oil painting.
Sal had arranged it on the library table before I came downstairs. No speech. No note saying eat this or else. No “remember what happened yesterday”. Just a linen napkin, a glass of water, and my work waiting beside it.
Angela sat across from me with her computer open. Pietro occupied the window, coffee in hand, watching the trees beyond the lake.
I took a bite of toast before opening the first file.
It felt good. Domestic. Like truly was part of this new family.
A good feeling, and it dawned on me that it was actually something I craved.
My relationship with my other brothers—Arkady and Daniil—had been good when we were kids.
The three of us, and Kiryl to a lesser degree, had been close.
Playing together, arguing a little, doing what siblings do.
They were sweet in their own way, protective and kind, but as we’d grown, and the demands of my father had roughened them up, that feeling of family had disappeared.
Here, in the quiet companionship of the lake house, I felt the love and acceptance that had been missing from my life for so long.
“Morning, Lena. You ready to start? I’m hoping we can get going with organizing the fund this morning. We need trustees outside the Caruso and Scordato structure,” Angela said. “Otherwise Halberd can characterize it as a disguised transfer.”
“Three trustees,” I said. “One employment attorney. One accountant. One community representative.”
“Who do you think we choose?”
“A restaurant worker. Not a manager.” I swallowed another bite of egg because Sal was now standing in the doorway with his arms folded. He did not look pleased or displeased. He only watched. “They need somebody who understands what missing one paycheck actually does.”
Angela’s eyes softened. “Good. Yes. That makes perfect sense.”
The work came easily after that.
Mezza Notte’s employees received continuity grants. The guard’s medical account received funds through an independent insurer. Suppliers got paid through clean accounts before Gianni’s freeze could turn one burned restaurant into five smaller disasters.
I wrote the authorization language myself.
Then I opened the fleet’s access controls.
Gianni had used my legitimate companies the way men like him used everything else: as a polished face over rot. He had assumed I would remain useful and silent. He had assumed that being put in my name meant it belonged to him.
I revoked his routing privileges one by one.
His offices lost access to the clean fleet accounts. His approved vendors went into review. His shipping authorizations required a live confirmation from me.
The final prompt appeared on-screen.
CONFIRM SUSPENSION OF EXTERNAL ADMINISTRATOR ACCESS?
My finger hovered.
Sal placed a strawberry on the edge of my plate. I looked at him.
“Now?” I said. “A strawberry . . . now?”
“Eat it,” he said.
“I am about to sever Gianni’s hand from several million dollars.”
“And you can do it after one strawberry.”
I should have hated how much that steadied me. Instead, I ate it. Then I pressed confirm.
Angela let out a quiet breath.
“Done,” she said.
“No,” I replied. “Not done. But it’s begun. I worry about retaliation. This will cripple him.”
Pietro’s phone vibrated.
He looked down once. His face changed.
Sal noticed before I did. “What?”
“The sedan on the county road,” Pietro said. “We traced it.”
My stomach tightened.
“To whom?”
“Who do you think?” Pietro moved away from the window. “It belongs to a Sokolov union official. Trucking. Brooklyn contacts, Chicago presence.”
My mouth went dry.
“So they were watching us.”
“It may have been,” Pietro said. “We can’t prove they had eyes on the house itself. But they know enough to look near it.”
Sal’s jaw hardened.
The lake house had felt safe because it was quiet. Because Kiryl had slept upstairs. Because I had colored beside the fire and danced with Sal in a stupid empty arcade.
I looked toward the ceiling.
“My brother.”
“Don’t worry,” Sal said. “He will remain safe. As will we. But not here.”
The certainty in his voice should have comforted me. Instead, fear found its old shape.
“You’re moving us.”
“I’m sorry. But it has to be done. We need to shape up to take Gianni down. We’re nearly there, though.”
“So where will you take Kiryl and me?”
“Well . . . ” he trailed off, a grave look on his face.
“You’re going to separate us?” My pulse spiked.
Sal came closer. “You know it makes sense. It’s harder for them to track, makes protecting you both easier. Different routes. Different destinations.”
“No.” I stood so fast my chair struck the floor behind me. “Absolutely not. Kiryl stays with me.”
“Lena—”
“Please not again, I don’t want to be away from him, I—”
“It’s ok, Lena,” Kiryl said from the doorway.
I turned.
He wore a sweatshirt that was too large for him and carried a piece of toast in one hand. He looked young. Too young. But his pale eyes stayed on mine.
Tonio stood behind him, one broad hand resting lightly on Kiryl’s shoulder.
“Kiryl,” I began. “I’ll never forgive myself if you get hurt.”
“No.” He took a breath. “No, Lena. You don’t get to turn this into another thing you have to be responsible for.”
My throat closed.
He came into the room and set down his toast.
“You have spent my whole life making yourself responsible for me,” he said. His voice shook only once. “I didn’t know. I know now.”
“Kirya—”
“You kept Father from looking at me. You took the worst of everything. You made yourself useful so I could be soft.” His mouth twisted. “That was not fair. And I love you. But it was not fair.”
I could not speak.
“You have to let me be safe without standing next to me,” he said. “Just once.”
Tonio looked away. Pietro went still at the window.
Sal said nothing.
He did not need to. This was not his moment to manage.
My little brother reached for my hand.
“I’m going with Tonio,” he said. “To the Caruso ranch. We talked about it already as a contigenct plan. It has walls and guards and apparently too much food.”
“Never too much food,” Tonio said solemnly.
Kiryl almost smiled.
“And you,” he said to me, squeezing my fingers, “are going with Sal.”
“Where?”
Sal’s expression shifted. Not quite a smile. Something gentler.
“Somewhere warm,” he said. “You’ve suffered enough in other people’s winters.”
Idid not cry when Kiryl left. I waited until the SUV disappeared beyond the trees, because he deserved to look back once and see me standing upright.
Tonio, who was moving in a separate vehicle, had hugged me hard enough to crack something if I had been built less stubbornly.
“I’ll feed him,” he promised.
“You will not let him leave the property.”
“He is almost a man, he said. You should trust him to look after himself. Too much coddling will make him weak.”
“Tonio. I know you’re right but I . . . my father’s hardness ruined my other brothers. I don’t want Kiryl ruined, too.”
His grin faded. He kissed my forehead.
“I have him,” he said.
Kiryl had held me last.
“Try to enjoy wherever you go,” he whispered. “Think of it as a vacation.”
“Huh. A vacation. I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”
“No time like the present, sis.”
Then he got into the SUV.
Sal and I left forty minutes later. We headed to a small, private airfield. An aircraft waited for us, with no logos. There were no visible staff beyond the pilot and a woman who checked our documents without meeting my eyes. Sal became someone else in the paperwork. So did I.
Sal sat beside me in the dark cabin while the plane rose through cloud.
“So. Where are we going?” I asked.
“Sleep.”
“Hmmm, not a place I’m familiar with.”
“Really? You go there every night. And it is the first destination of our trip.”
I glared at him.
He took my hand and drew a blanket over my legs. He kissed my forehead and whispered, “Sleep, sweet one. Daddy’s here.”
The plane crossed night. I slept in pieces, waking to Sal’s shoulder beneath my cheek and the steady vibration of engines. When we landed, the air outside had changed.
It smelled wet. Green. Warm enough that my lungs did not hurt when I breathed.
We transferred to a small boat beneath a moonless sky. Stars shone like gems, so bright that I barely recognized them. The constellations slowly shifted in the sky, so many that I couldn’t take them in. So many that this didn’t really feel like planet Earth anymore.
Sal kept one hand at the center of my back as we crossed the dock. Not forcing. Guiding. The sea made soft black sounds against the hull.
“Still no answer?” I asked.
“No.”
“I could throw you overboard.”
“There’s no way you pick me up.”
“I don’t know—anger gives me a lot of strength.”
He laughed again, that low, pretty laugh, and kissed me slow, soft on the lips. “You’re never allowed to change, do you know that?”
The boat moved through darkness for what felt like an hour. Maybe two. I lost track. Sal sat beside me beneath a blanket, his arm around my shoulders, while the engine pushed us farther from every map I knew.
At some point, I fell asleep again.
When I woke, dawn had opened over the water.
I lifted my head from Sal’s shoulder.
An island rose ahead of us.
Green hills. White sand. Water so blue it looked invented. Palm trees leaned above a private dock. Beyond them stood a single villa built from pale stone, low and open to the sea, wrapped in flowering vines.
For several seconds, I could only stare.
The boat slowed.
“Sal.”
“Yes, little one?”
“What is this?”
“It’s called a cay. Like a kind of sandy island. Just for us.”
“You brought me to a private island?”
“Yes. We’re in the Bahamas. This is hidden a
“That seems excessive.”
“I am an excessive man.”
The villa drew closer. I saw a second, smaller house beyond the palms. Guards moved there, distant enough to be respectful. No guns showed at the dock. No one followed us toward the villa.
Sal watched my face.
“This is another relocation,” I said. “You dressed it up as a vacation.”