16. Alex #2
The warmth of our afterglow surrounds me, tempting me to let go of everything as I’m lulled into sleep.
But my mind isn’t ready. It’s still replaying the events of last night.
No matter how long I lie here, no matter how many times we make love, my father will still be dead.
I will still have to deal with the fallout from that.
“What happens now?” she whispers suddenly.
“Hmm?”
She turns her head up to me. “It’s tomorrow, Alex. What happens now?”
I take a breath. I don’t know that I’m ready to talk about what happens next in any regard, but I start practically.
“A Pakhan has died,” I say. “If no one challenges me, I’ll be expected to step up and take his place.
After I handle his affairs, figure out where he was financially and who gets what.
I’ll have to find his will. I know he’s kept one.
Then I’ll need to turn to the brotherhood.
I’ll have to gather everyone together. The other brigadiers, the boeviks, the sixes—”
“That’s not what I mean,” she says just as softly. “Well, it’s not all that I mean. What happens next for us?”
“Me and you?”
She nods. “And Rikki and Yeva. They’re your family and… and like it or not, I am too. We need to plan his funeral.”
I take a deep breath. “His isn’t the only funeral we’ll need to plan. We lost a lot of men… including Gedeon and probably all of, if not most, of his boeviks. Rikki’s handling things with his wife. He’ll probably come to me with her wishes for his burial.”
She doesn’t say anything to that, so I go on.
“I don’t know how much you’ve been exposed to, but this is the life, Nona. We’re in the worst of it. This is about as bad as it can get save the entire brotherhood being wiped out. It’s shitty, but it is what it is. Sometimes, people die. And sometimes, those people are our leaders.”
“It wasn’t just ‘people’,” she says. “It was your brothers, your father. I don’t understand how you can be so… calm.”
“I’m not calm,” I say plainly. And it’s true. There’s a storm swirling behind the cool rhythm of my heart. Pretty soon, it’s going to demand to be fed. “Before this whole thing is done, I’m going to want blood for what was taken from us. But that can wait for now.”
She doesn’t say anything. She just nuzzles close to me. I’m welcoming the warmth of her skin against mine.
“This isn’t new for me,” I tell her. “I’ve lost more brothers to this shit than I can count. You know, I even lost my mother to it.”
“Your mother… was killed?”
“Yeah. I was a young man when it happened. Twenty-two, I think. Rikki was about six months from his twenty-first birthday. My father had just given me my first command, while Rikki was three or four years into his role as Dad’s enforcer.
My mother was around eight months along with Yeva and… she wasn’t doing well.”
I feel her shift a little as I talk. Her leg twists up with mine under the covers.
“She was on bedrest,” I continue. “The pregnancy was high risk. Mom… she was older when she got pregnant with Yeva. They called it a geriatric pregnancy even though she was just in her forties. I guess that’s what they call it if you get pregnant past the age of thirty.
Anyway, one Saturday, we were all out of the house, working as can happen sometimes.
I was with my father as he was striking up an arms deal with an Israeli group that had just come to town. ”
She lifts her head and looks at me curiously.
“They were wiped out about a year later by the Tigres, this Puerto Rican gang that used to control the Bronx back then. At the time, though, they were good for the arms trade in Manhattan.”
“Hmm,” she says. “That’s just another day for you, it sounds like.”
“So it was. On our way back home, though, Dad tries to call the house and no one picks up. My mom always had a phone by her. Always. When she didn’t answer, he knew something was wrong.”
I have to pause. I don’t like reliving the moment that we found her, and it’s not been very often that I’ve done it.
I take a breath and power through. “Dad had enemies. It’s a hazard of the job.
If you’re any kind of good at your job as a Pakhan, there’s always going to be somebody out there who wants a piece of you.
On the day that we were meeting with that Israeli guy, making an arms deal like any other day…
one of my father’s enemies found out that he had a pregnant wife who was alone for a few hours. ”
She leans her head up so that she’s looking at me, deep sympathy in her eyes. “Oh, my God.”
“We got there as they were beating her,” I say. “I chased them off, but not before putting a bullet through the balls of one of them. It didn’t matter, though. It was too late. She was still alive, but just barely. Yeva… She had to be cut out of her.”
Her eyes get large and watery, like she’s going to weep for me. She doesn’t. She just shakes her head and says, “I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was twenty-three years ago,” I say a little softer than I expect to. “It’s just to say that I’ve been here before. Death isn’t exactly new to me.”
She stares at me for a long time, then she lifts herself up and kisses me. It’s long and sensual, her lips gentle as she presses them to mine. I wrap her up in my arms and I roll over onto her, the sweet taste of her lips giving me enough life to go for another round.
The sound of my phone buzzing gets my attention. At first, I ignore it, determined to follow through…
Then I realize that I have to answer it. Right now is the most crucial time and I’ve spent enough time in the arms of a beautiful woman.
I stop kissing her, leaning my forehead to hers. Before I can speak, she says, “You should answer it. It might be Rikki or Yeva.”
It’s not, but she’s right in that I can’t ignore the call. I roll off her and leave the warmth of the bed, padding around to my discarded pants on the floor. The light from my phone shines through the fabric of the back pocket. When I fish it out, I see that it’s Kostya.
“Yes?” I say when I answer.
“Sorry to disturb you,” he says, “but I thought you ought to know… Last night’s attack? The Irkutsks are claiming responsibility.”