Chapter 2 #2
“Yes.” He grimaces. “He’s the one I made the deal with.
I’ve been working on an alliance with the Russians for years.
You know that. De Mello,” his lip curls at the name, "refused every one of their offers. He’s too greedy, he’d rather let dozens of our family die than give up a meager amount of income.
Now, after last night, I have the chance to make this alliance for good.
I can make it stick, and the others will listen to me as the acting Don. They won’t question it.”
“You're serious?” I exclaim in disbelief. “You're trading me? Like some sort of human chattel?”
“It’s not like that Eva, don’t be so dramatic. These sorts of arrangements are made all the time.”
“It is exactly like that! Using me as a bargaining chip. Why would Tolya want me anyway? He doesn’t even know me! And not just to some other Italian, to someone you’ve drilled into my mind is our enemy since childhood! How could you do this?!”
“You’re not a bargaining chip. This arrangement is as much for your benefit as for my own.”
“How so?”
“You will have the ultimate level of security once you're married to Tolya.” He glances over at me, his eyes urging me to understand, “You’ll be safe. Untouchable.”
Silence falls between us as I considered his words.
“Does this deal have anything to do with what happened last night?”
I cross my arms, a sudden chill raising the hairs there, heart racing in my chest as I pose the question. Not completely sure I want to know the answer.
His grip on the steering wheel tightens and he downshifts to make another erratic turn.
“Nico?” I press, studying him.
With a sigh he gives me a sideways look. The truth is there written across his face—calculated, strategic, matter-of-factly. Not a single sign of guilt.
So it was a setup.
He did it, he betrayed the Don. If anyone ever finds out the truth, we will both be dead.
Swallowing hard, I whisper, more to myself than anything, “You knew exactly where he’d be. You gave his location to Ivanovich.”
Still, he doesn’t respond. Eyes locked back on the road.
I turn away, looking out at the city as it flies past. My thoughts are spinning. The Don is dangerous, cruel and obsessive but he’s out of commission and it's all because my brother made a power play and came out on top.
“Why me?” I finally ask. “Why not offer him something else? Money, territory, anything but me!”
Again, he says nothing.
“You're not even going to tell me that much?” I plead.
“It had to be you. I had to make sure you would be safe, taken care of.”
My stomach drops, memories of the night of the dinner party racing through my mind, the feeling of the Don’s hand on my wrist. The weight of his body as he’d tried to pin me against the wall in his drunken stupor. His disgusting breath on my neck. The memory causes me to shiver.
“You knew.”
Again, Nico doesn’t answer.
“This isn’t going to sit well with him when he comes out of it,” I say, stating the obvious, “When he finds out what you’ve done he’ll be out for blood, Nico.”
But Nico only smiles at those words.
“By the time he is lucid enough to have any idea what has transpired, you will be married and I will have the Bratva in my pocket. Even the Don isn’t suicidal enough to start an all-out war with the Russians over one girl – even you, sister.”
“You’re sure about that?” I challenge.
“Absolutely.”
He pulls the car to a stop at a red light. The sunlight shining in through the window allows me to see the full expression on his face – not just ambition, but fear; not just strategy, but desperation.
“How much of this is about him? About what he’s done to me?” I ask softly.
His jaw flexes but still he gives no answer. But I don’t need one. I know my brother well enough to read him like a children's book. I can see the truth in the way he looks over at me, the cold fury hidden behind his eyes. He knows, and he's not going to stand by and let it happen again.
Exhaling heavily, my chest aching that he had been pushed to make such a decision on my account, I say, “You're doing this to get me away from him.”
He looks at me then, his eyes softening slightly, “I am doing this to protect my own. You. The Family. All of it.”
“And the answer to that is giving me to someone just as dangerous as the man you're getting me away from?”
The light turns green and his eyes move back to the road ahead as the car accelerates, shifting through the gears to get up to cruising speed once more.
“It’s not the same,” he says. “He isn’t the same.”
“Do you know that for certain?”
“What I know is that De Mello likes his girls young and stolen. He gets off on making money from using them and disposing of them. Tolya Ivanovich, on the other hand, has done everything possible since he came to power seventeen years ago to put an end to sex trafficking in Chicago.”
He glances over at me again, keeping one eye on the road, “If I do nothing, it won’t end well for you, or for me.”
Sinking back in my seat, I suddenly feel exhausted. I can’t help but admit that he's right. Maybe it is an escape after all.
Selfish as it is, part of me wants to go, wants out. Distance from this bloody, cruel world of power plays and death. If I marry Tolya it will mean safety, of sorts. It will mean the Don won’t be able to reach me. But it also means I’d be locked in this life forever.
I never asked for this. As a girl I dreamed of art school, of apartments far away in New York City. Being someone entirely different, far from here.
I remember telling Nico that I would never marry a mafia man. How he laughed at me and patted me affectionately on the head. He has always known what I’ve never been willing to accept, that I was born into this life and that it is the only thing I'm destined for.
“I never wanted this life,” I murmur, my voice soft.
Nico takes his hand from the gearshift, reaching over to squeeze my own. “I know.”
With a deep resounding sigh I accept the facts, I’m a game piece in a game of chess. This deal will give Nico the one thing he needs to win that game. Checkmate.
“I’ll do it. I’ll marry him.”