19. Roman
Roman
Mama,
Life has been good.
Not all good. Not all parts. But one thing in particular has been the best thing. I met someone.
Not the person I would have ever expected.
A person who probably deserves better than me, but still stays by me, anyway.
Things went wrong… so wrong.
When I’m hurt, I still think of you. I probably always will. It was a lot of pain, hours and hours ago. So much blood. You would have been worried, but now there is no pain.
I don’t think that I can do this anymore. What I’ve done for years. What I’ve been, for my whole life. Am I someone, without the Bratva? And if I’m not, does it matter, if I can’t let myself fall into what I know is real love?
I feel weightless, thinking of him.
It’s a new feeling.
His name is Tate. I call him Blondin… or sweet… or my beauty. He is all of those things.
I let him make me so crazy.
He makes me feel like a person, again. I haven’t felt like that since you were taken from me. Can you believe it, Mama? I still have a heart.
You would love him, too.
Always…
Your Romashka
Everything is foggy.
I wake up, I fall back to sleep. I dream of writing Mama letters, in my mind.
Then I dream of Tate, of Maks, then of Tate, again and again.
My limbs are so heavy, and my thoughts are fleeting.
Then, in the bright, blinding sunshine of midmorning, I finally open my eyes fully.
And I see blond.
Tate’s hair is framed in a halo of the sunshine coming in through the window behind him, and his arm is reaching out, resting on my arm on top of my bedsheets.
Another dream…
A beautiful one.
An angel.
He glances up at me, sitting up straight when he sees that I’m awake.
“Hi,” he says softly.
“Hello, beauty.”
His smile is so wide and brighter than that sun behind him. He looks like he wants to throw himself onto the bed with me, but he’s so aware of my wounded stomach that he moves gently instead, draping himself near my shoulder.
His warmth is like a blanket on my upper arm.
I nuzzle my head against his, pulling in long, slow breaths.
“Maks is here, too,” Tate says beneath my ear. “He’s getting us coffee and bagels right now, and God, fuck, you’re finally awake.”
His lips gently press against my neck in a slow, soft kiss. He moves upward, kissing my jaw, my cheek, and then finally my lips.
I can feel his breath on me.
“You taste like strawberry,” I murmur against him. “So good. Fuck, you taste sweet.”
“I’ve been mainlining hard candy from the vending machine. Here.”
He pulls one out and places it on my tongue, and the burst of sweetness wakes me up more.
I have no idea when the last time I ate was.
One little hard candy is like an elixir from the fucking gods.
I shift on the hospital bed a little, and suddenly my whole abdomen cries out in pain.
“Oh, fuck,” I mutter.
“The nurse said your painkillers might wear off a little before they come to give the next dose. They’re swapping you from one medicine to a different one.”
“You have been here, all this time?” I ask him.
“Of course. I had to be here.”
“You are too good to me.”
All at once, fragments of memory start to float back into my mind. The thoughts I was having while I was coming out of anesthesia were dreamlike, but they were very vivid.
And in some ways I felt like I had more clarity than ever before.
“Tate, I—”
The hospital door swings open and Maks appears, with a brown bag in one hand and a tray of coffee cups in the other.
He puts both of them down on the table immediately when he sees I’m awake.
“You are up,” he says, coming over to squeeze my shoulder.
I feel the familiar urge to push down what I was about to say.
But I’m not going to let it happen this time.
“Maks, you should hear this, too,” I say. “Listen. Both of you.”
“We’re here,” Tate says.
“I am getting out.”
Maks blinks at me.
Tate looks confused, and beautiful, all at once.
“Vy neser'yozno,” Maks whispers. You’re not serious.
“Yes,” I say. “I am getting out.”
“Out of what?” Tate asks.
“You know what this means, Roman?” Maks says.
“I do know.” I reach to grip Tate’s hand. “I am cutting ties with the Petrov Bratva. Including my father.”
“You would never do this,” Maks says. “When I…”
“When you asked me if I would, two years ago, I said it would never happen,” I tell Maks. “I know.”
It’s something I haven’t spoken about with Maks since it happened.
He came to me, two years ago, saying he wanted to get out.
I told him nothing could ever make me betray my father. My duty. Even when I hated him. Even when I’ve always wished I could have another life.
“It was my destiny, I was so certain,” I tell them. “I had to outlive my father, to finally gain power in the family, to change the way we do things. But I am no longer willing to wait that long. Waiting to live my life. Waiting for independence. I will take it now.”
“And you will never be able to speak to your family again. No dinners, no holidays, no contact,” Maks says.
“It is not an easy choice, but it is the right one. I will miss the cousins more than I can ever explain. But I cannot live this way. I can’t.”
“I am with you,” Maks says.
And I feel my heart beat faster in my chest.
“Roman,” Tate murmurs. “You don’t have to…”
“I want to. I don’t want any more walls between us, Tate. I want you so badly you could never know.”
For a moment I feel like I might cry, but then I’m smiling, wider and wider, smiling like he does when he can’t contain it.
I know what I am giving up.
My whole family.
My legacy.
Every person that loved my mom, that remembers her, that knew her, too. So many of my cousins are good people, trapped in a gilded cage that I have been for my whole life, too.
I won’t miss my father. But I will miss them.
And if they ever choose to get out, too, I will one day be able to see them again.
But…
I also know what I am gaining, if I cut ties.
Freedom, for the first time in my life.
True independence, terrifying and unfamiliar.
And him.
Tate fucking Landrey, a man that I am falling in love with, more and more every single time I am near him.
“I will spend the rest of my life protecting you,” I tell Tate. “If you drop me, I will still protect you. If you marry someone else, have kids, have some happy life without me, I will still be there, as your protection, any time you need. If any Maletti crosses your path, they will die.”
“Holy shit,” Maks says, looking down at his phone. “Speak of the fucking devils. I… holy fucking shit.”
“Tell me. Tell us,” I demand.
“Yegor is dead,” he says. “And he took the new Maletti Don with him. He was Lucian’s father’s best friend. Natalia, too, and two other Malettis—he eliminated them, Roman.”
“How do you know this?”
“Aleksander,” he says. “Yegor apparently sent him a message right before walking into his own fucking murder-suicide.”
Yegor was working with our cousin Aleksander in New York City earlier this year.
Another person I didn’t know if I could trust… and now I do.
The sound of heels clicking on the ground comes from the hallway, interrupting our shock.
In another moment, a frowning nurse pops her head into the room. She’s heavyset, looks very busy, and doesn’t even give us a nod as she walks up toward my bed.
“Come on, now,” she says, giving Tate a look to get out of her way. “Your boyfriend’s going to be in a whole lot of pain if you don’t let me give him his meds. Shoo.”
Tate steps to the side immediately.
The nurse isn’t friendly, but she is very good at her job. She switches over the little bag of my IV fluids expertly, then gives us an update on my status.
“You’ll be a bit sleepy here very soon, darlin’,” she tells me. “But by tomorrow morning you’ll be able to head home.”
“Home. I can’t fucking wait.”
Finally, the nurse cracks a smile. “You’re a trooper. And your cousin and boyfriend have been very attentive while you’ve been out.”
“Mmm,” I hum, already feeling the sedative effect kicking in. “My boyfriend. Imagine that. Was always fond of that English word. Boy-friend. You like that, Tate? Sweet. My sweet… she would love you so much, Blondin. Ya tak khochu spat...”
I am so, so sleepy.