Chapter 49
forty-nine
The day fades into a shady night, the cold breeze wrapping around me, seeping into the wool of my coat and the thick hide of my boots. I need a break from the confines of the bunker. The walls are beginning to close in on me, each new layer of information pushing them that much closer.
I suspected on numerous occasions since Libby’s funeral, but it wasn’t until Mark showed me undeniable proof that it sank in.
How could she keep such a thing a secret?
Fuck.
It drives me bat shit crazy thinking of my sister feeling that she needed to keep such an important thing to herself. The revelation would have shattered her world. I know because when I learned of my true parentage, it did the same to me.
Libby was there for me when I learned the truth.
She was alone when she discovered hers.
Dante Romano is the twin’s biological father.
Had Elias known? Is that why he so easily sold Kenzi?
Kenzi.
Just thinking her name causes the grip on my sore and battered heart to tighten painfully. It feels as if someone has wrapped a tourniquet around it and just keeps tightening and tightening. Sooner or later, it will explode under the tortuous pressure until nothing remains but the cold, dark abyss.
“Gonna freeze my balls off out here,” Vas mumbles, stepping through the open doorway that separates the tunnel system from the forest that surrounds them.
“You didn’t have to follow me out here.”
“Pfft,” Vasily snorts through his nose. “I didn’t follow you,” he insists. “I love being out here in the cold. Reminds me of Russia. So nice… and cold. Freezing.”
“I get it.” I deadpan. “It’s cold.”
Vasily shivers dramatically. “So cold.”
I can’t help but smile at his attempt to cheer me up, but it doesn’t lighten my soul like it normally would. There is too much weighing it down. So many secrets.
“Do you think he knows?”
Vas doesn’t have to ask who I am talking about; he was in the same room as me when Mark dropped the bomb.
“I would be surprised if he didn’t at least suspect,” Vas admits.
“All this time and I never suspected that anyone other than Elias was their father,” I breathe. I think back to everything I can remember about the twins from the first time I come to live with them. If Elias knew, he hid it well.
“No more secrets,” I whisper to him, the bleak, silent dawn of the early morning wind carrying my words like a promise. “I mean it, Vas. I’m done with it all.”
Vas hesitates, his face contorting painfully. “There are things I won’t betray, Ava.”
I scoff. “Like where Dima is?”
Vas lets out a frustrated sigh and looks heavenward as if praying for patience. “He’s on an assignment. I told you that.”
“An assignment that you can’t tell me about.” I point out. “Your Pakhan.”
“I made a promise to…”
“A dead man.” I don’t let him finish. “You made a promise to a man who is now rotting six feet under and as much as I admire your loyalty, I need to know what goes on in my operation.”
Vas smirks. “This has nothing to do with the Bratva. It’s a personal thing.”
“Then why can’t I know about it?”
Vas shrugs. “There’s no need for you to.”
“Just so you know,” I tell him. “I’m picturing your sudden demise in ultra 4k right now.”
“Whatever helps.”
His nonchalance is going to get him a bat to the back of the head. Or pushed off a cliff.
“What about Leon?”
“With the Cosa Nostra,” he replies simply.
“You didn’t think to tell me one of my men is working with my former uncle?”
“I said Cosa Nostra.”
What the fuck? “Yeah.” The look I shoot him is somewhere between ‘duh, you dumbass’ and disbelief. “You do remember Dante is the head of the Cosa Nostra in Seattle.”
Vas snorts in amusement. “He wishes. Dante is the head of the American Mafia, not the Cosa Nostra.”
Huh?
“They’re the same thing.”
Vas’s forehead raises, he quirks an eyebrow at me. “No, they are not.”
“Yes.” I nearly stomp my foot in protest. “They are.”
Vas chuckles and runs his hand through his mussed hair. His manbun fell out at some point and now it hangs just below his shoulders in beachy waves most women would kill to have.
“Cosa Nostra is the Sicilian mafia,” he says. “They operate in the U.S. directly from Sicily. Most of the members aren’t U.S. citizens and travel back and forth operating on both grounds.”
When I say nothing, he keeps going.
“The American Mafia are the descendants of the Cosa Nostra,” he continues. “They no longer have direct ties back to Sicily and operate on an independent base. American Italians, basically.”
Well, shit.
“You still have a lot to learn, Ava,” Vas smirks. “You may have grown up with Elias and heard his bits and pieces of the business, but that doesn’t mean you know this world.”
“Why is Leon with the Cosa Nostra?”
His smirk disappears, replaced by a dangerously handsome Cheshire grin. “Can’t tell you that.”
I really stomp my foot now, my arms crossing against my chest as I stare up at the six-foot Russian with a petulant frown that would rival any toddlers. If there is a competition, first place prize will be mine.
“I’m your boss.”
Vas shrugs. “True.”
“You can’t keep secrets from me about my own men.”
Vas’s mouth tugs downward as if he is thinking about what I tell him.
“You don’t need to know about it.”
“Vasily!” God, I sound like a toddler who hasn’t been given her morning snack.
Vas smiles, the expression lighting up his eyes as he stares down at me. Suddenly, he pats the top of my head softly and winks.
“You’re just so adorable when you get worked up.”
“Ugh!” I groan in frustration, swiping at his hand. “Stop that.”
Vas laughs, the sound easing the tension of the night.
I love that about them. The men who stood with Matthias for years and offered unconditional loyalty.
They never come across a situation where they can’t laugh or find some form of merriment.
Even at the expense of their own humiliation. But mostly at others.
“Sorry.” The look on his face tells me he is anything but.
“Sorry enough to tell me about Dima and Leon?”
“Nope.” He pops the word dramatically before he turns to stroll back inside.
“Dammit, Vasily.” I growl as I follow him, the sound of his laughter echoing off the tunnel walls warming the bitter cold that has begins to set in.