45. Pasha
45
“Well, well! What are you doing here?” Makari claps my shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to be at home, enjoying marital bliss?”
“I need to work.”
“No, actually, you don’t. That’s why we’re here.”
“Yeah, well, now, I am, too.”
I know he means well, but I am in no mood for his jokes or games. Or anything other than scrubbing my mind clean of the things I overheard my mother say.
Better a premature weakling than a bastard child.
Mak catches onto my state of mind and sobers up. “Alright, then. If it’s work you want, it’s work you’ll get. Let’s get down to business. That shipment you ordered confirmed arrival for tomorrow…”
I follow him through the dock warehouse and try to focus on the details of the arrangements I ordered through him a few days ago, but I can’t concentrate to save my life.
… He always fears becoming his father. For so long, I’ve wanted to just tell him he shouldn’t fear it at all…
“Did we get clearance for the other two receiving docks?” I force myself to ask. To pretend I have my shit together, even if it only lasts a moment.
Mak nods. “No problems at either one, but I have a feeling the price is going to increase for future shipments.”
“Customs?”
“Bribes.”
“By how much?”
“A few hundred per piece,” he says with a shrug. “I could be wrong, though. It’s just the vibe I got when I confirmed the arrival times for tomorrow.”
“Figures.” I continue listening to him explain how inflation is driving numbers up, but our international connections agreed to a marginal percentage increase…
Arlo’s face catches my eye.
Or is it my face? A glimpse of what I’ll become, a few decades and a few heartbreaks down the road?
He’s talking to one of the dockmasters outside the office. He doesn’t see me, and that’s just as well. I’d rather he not notice the new way I’m looking at him, studying every tic and scar and feature.
Looking for proof that what my mother told Daphne is true.
“Yo, Pash.” Mak nudges my arm. “You good?”
“I, ah…” I need to be good. I need to focus on the smuggling and the numbers and keep a tight fist on all that entails.
But first, I need to clear my head.
“It sounds like you have everything under control,” I tell my brother. “Good work. I’ll catch up with you later.”
I do my best to walk—not run—across the pavement to the dockmaster’s office. I’m racking my brain to think of an excuse to dismiss the guy and drag Arlo in there for a talk, but the moment they both see me, I don’t need to say a word.
Arlo knows. I can see it in his eyes.
Mama must have called him.
“Steve, if you don’t mind, I need your office for a moment.”
The dockmaster nods. “Sure thing! I gotta go hit the head, anyway.”
Arlo inclines his head when he opens the door for me. I’d rather be the one taking the office and ushering him in, not the other way around.
But weirdly, at the same time, something in me feels okay with it.
He closes the door and locks it once we’re both inside. Then he just stands there, hands in his pockets, and looks at me.
I want to demand to know what the hell he’s been doing this whole time.
I want to order him to explain why I’m just hearing about this now.
I want…
Pull yourself together, man.
I clear my throat and swallow back all emotions other than irritation and distrust. It won’t do me any good to try to find answers that won’t change the past.
Like why he never came for me. For us.
Why he never saved us from my father.
“I overheard my mother talking with Daphne.” I hate how my voice sounds like it’s crumbling at the edges. Pull yourself together, you fucking pussy. Be a man. Be Bratva.
“I know.”
“So she called you.”
Arlo nods once. “She did.”
“So you know. That I…” I shake my head. “Is it true?”
“Yes.”
I was ready to go into a tirade about double-crossing me and not fucking around, but I was also expecting him to deny it or delay his answer or, fuck, something. Something to give me the chance to vent my frustrations. My betrayal.
I’m not prepared for this.
“You.” I narrow my eyes at him. “You… Explain.”
Explain to me where the hell you’ve been.
Explain to me why you abandoned her.
Why you abandoned us.
Why you abandoned me.
Arlo blows out a heavy puff of air. He runs a hand through this thick hair that—shit—looks an awful lot like mine. “Where do I even begin?”
“How about the part where you got my mother pregnant and then just left her there?”
“Now, hold on.” He lifts a finger. “I’m going to stop you right there before you start accusing me of things you know nothing about.”
“Then enlighten me.”
With another sigh, he slumps into one of the rickety chairs at the desk. “I never left her. Never. She was my whole world. She is my whole world. But…” He rubs an empty spot on his left ring finger almost subconsciously. “She was stolen from me. And there was nothing I could do about it.”
“That’s the part I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around.” It comes out in a snarl. I’m done putting up with excuses and bullshit. I get enough of that from the Senate. “You both talk like you—you—didn’t have a say in anything. But you were the heir to the Fedorov Family. You had all the power and influence you needed.”
“I didn’t want it.”
“What?”
He levels his gaze at me. “I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of it. And that’s why they took her from me.”
Now, I’m the one sinking into a chair, trying to absorb everything while my head keeps spinning in circles. I can’t help but scoff. “You’re telling me you didn’t want the Bratva? You didn’t want to be a pakhan?”
“I didn’t want that life for myself. For Asya.” His voice softens. “Or for you.”
I’m trying to think of a life outside the Bratva. Without the power, without the money… without the guns or federal agents or enemies lurking in the shadows.
Without the violence.
Without Kostya.
“So you tried to leave,” I say.
“I did. We both wanted out. I never aspired to fill my father’s shoes. I’ve never had the stomach for terrorizing innocent people, eviscerating my enemies, all the stuff that’s required of a man in that position. So when your mother and I decided we wanted to get married, we also decided we wanted to do so?—”
“As civilians.”
Again, he nods. “But my father wouldn’t hear it. He said Asya was a ‘distraction’ taking me away from my duties. My ‘destiny.’ So when my ‘friend’…” He says the word like it’s sour on his tongue. “—came to visit and showed an interest in Asya, all of our fathers saw the perfect opportunity to fix everyone’s problems.”
“Still. You could have fought.” I know in my heart, in my soul, there’s no way I would have ever allowed Kostya to take Daphne from me. I can’t buy this man’s excuses. Just because he’s serving me bullshit doesn’t mean I have to swallow. “You didn’t have to just roll over and take it.”
“You think I didn’t?” He barks a bitter laugh. “You think I just sat there silently while the love of my life was given to my psychotic best friend? Yes, I knew what he could be like,” he adds when he sees the look on my face. “Kostya and I practically grew up together. I gave my father hell for what he was doing. But I also learned what the inside of one of his cells looked like, all because of it. Locked me up long enough to make sure she was out of the country. Out of my reach.”
We brood in silence for a while. The weight of time, of everything lost between us… it’s overbearing.
It’s one thing to find out I don’t share blood with the man I’ve both hated and feared my entire life.
It’s another thing to find out there was a whole different life mapped out for me, once. A normal life.
By—and with—my actual father.
“Just so you know…” Arlo meets my gaze. “I took the first ticket to America when Kostya opened his doors for guests. I got here as fast as I could. And I made sure that, even though I wasn’t there for you like I wanted… even though I couldn’t be there for your birth like I should have been…”
He clears his throat and looks away.
“I still prayed the blessings over you. I still gave you your name.”
Fuck this. I’m done having this conversation. I don’t like the feelings building inside my chest and I sure as hell won’t be having any sort of moment with this man. This… my… father.
So I clap my hands on the armrests of the chair and shove myself to my feet. “I need to go check on some things.”
“Pasha.”
Arlo stands and reaches for me. But before he makes contact, he pulls his hand back and tucks it to his side. Like he’s remembering, accurately, that I’m not the kind of son he stuck around to raise.
“I want you to know… I never gave up. I forged alliances with Kostya and built up my family into international waters so I could have every excuse to come see you and your mother. I did it as long as I could, as often as I could, until I was forced into my own marriage with someone else.”
I frown. “I don’t remember you.” I would, if he really did visit us. I remember most of my father’s—no, Kostya’s—business partners even from my early childhood.
“I don’t expect you to. I had to keep my distance. Kostya would keep you close so he could brag about you to everyone, but Asya and I knew he suspected.”
Excuses. That’s all this is: a load of fucking excuses to placate me into accepting him as my new father figure and probably a new member of the family. Makari and Sofiya already have bets placed on how long his proposal to Mama will be.
Fuck!
Mak. Sofi.
I don’t know what to tell them.
I don’t know if I can tell them.
“So… what do you want?” I, personally, want to get out of this overheated box and far the fuck away from the emotions strangling my throat. “Why… why now?”
Arlo shoves his hands back into his pockets and toes the old carpet. “I can’t change the past, Pasha. No matter how much I wish I could. But I want a future with your mother, my Asya. I want to spend the rest of my life living it with her like we always dreamed of doing. And… I don’t know. Maybe someday, get to know you better. As my son.” He clears his throat again and drags his eyes up to mine. They’re swimming with tears, I notice with shock. The tough old bastard is on the verge of letting them loose. “I had to wait, of course. Until my wife died, until Kostya died. From that point, it’s just been a matter of setting everything into place so I could be here and not have to worry.”
I hate that it makes sense. I hate that everything he’s said makes sense.
I hate all of this.
It’s late when I finally stumble back home, reeking of booze and mumbling incoherent shit about fathers and sons and duty. I only realize just how drunk I really am when I try to fit the key into the door lock and miss half a dozen times before it finally goes.
I collapse into bed half-clothed, still mumbling. It’s like hearing someone else’s voice come out of my mouth. I’m not sure where I stop and the rest of the world begins. All the lines are blurred.
Something nonsensical rises out of the chaos in my head.
I want another baby.
“Did you hear me?” I mumble into the back of Daphne’s neck as I slide into bed beside her. God, she’s so warm. And soft. I wrap her up in my arms and bury my face in her hair. “I want another baby.”
She hums in her half-asleep way and pats my hand. “Let’s get this one out of diapers, first.”
“I want so many babies. And unlike some people, I’m not gonna just… just… pump and dump.”
I feel her go still. “You talked with Arlo?”
“Fuck Arlo.”
Daphne rolls over to look at me. Her nose wrinkles. “Gah! Pasha! What, did you drink the whole bar?”
“I tried to.”
“I can tell.” She pulls me close and guides my head to her chest. “Come here. Talk to me.”
I don’t want to talk. I want to fuck. I want to bury myself in her and forget all about everything.
Unfortunately, I may have downed one too many shots of Frangelico and top shelf vodka and bourbon and… and…
Fuck, I can’t even remember. Whatever I could reach. Whatever went down the fastest.
“I hate fathers.” I hear the mumble roll from my mouth before I register actually saying it. “I had a father. He was terrible. Now, I have a new father… or is he old? Shit, I don’t know.”
“Arlo isn’t Kostya, though.”
“I know.”
“In many—well, actually, from what I hear, every way, Arlo is better. Which means you’re better. You don’t have to be afraid of being like Kostya anymore.”
“I know.”
She presses a kiss to the top of my head. “So what’s bothering you?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay. You just went out and drank a whole bar’s worth of alcohol over nothing. Mhm.”
I lift my head to look at her. It’s dark, so I can’t really see her that well. I’m not sure I could even if the lights were on. My vision went foggy somewhere between drinks three and nine.
“What about Mak? Sofi?”
Daphne cups my face in her soft hand. “What about them?”
“The fuck do I tell them? How do I tell them?”
“I’m not sure there’s anything to tell, my love.”
I scoff. “Oh, yeah, nothing at all. We have different fathers and I’m not even the true heir to the Chekhov line. Nothing noteworthy, eh?”
“Well, I mean…” She grows quiet for a moment. “How do you know you have different fathers?”
I freeze.
That never occurred to me.
Daphne guides me back down to her warm breasts and starts stroking my hair. I hug her to me, grateful for the only anchor in this world I trust right now.
“Get some sleep, my love.” She kisses my hair again. “And in the morning, maybe you can ask Mama about all those visits Arlo made when you were little.”
I’m so glad I’m drunk all to shit.
There’s no way I’d be falling asleep otherwise.