Chapter 21 - Iosif
My phone lights up my nightstand, ringing shrilly. Blearily, I look around myself. This isn’t my bedroom. It’s Janella’s.
“What’s wrong?” I answer, sliding out of bed without jostling Janella, sheets pooled at her waist.
I can’t think about what it means that I fell asleep beside her tonight.
“It’s Nadya.” Trifon sounds exhausted and furious. I’ve been the reason for that voice before. I know what it means—that he’s struggling not to monumentally lose his shit. “She slipped security and got caught in crossfire tonight. At an underground racing thing.”
My heart lurches to a standstill in my chest. “Fuck. How bad?”
“A bullet grazed her shoulder. Another got her thigh. Yulia is patching her up right now, but I can’t look at her right now, Iosif. Reason with her. You two speak the same language, and I, apparently, can’t fucking get through to her.”
Breath punches out of my lungs. She’s okay, she’s okay, she’s okay.
“I’ll try,” I scoff, “to not take offense to that.”
“Whatever. I need her somewhere safe for a few days.”
“Bring her here. I’ll have the guest room ready,” I offer, though I’m sure it’s why my brother called.
He’s in a bitch of a mood, but he isn’t wrong.
Nadya and I do speak the same language. A part of me thinks the underground racing thing sounds like a fucking blast. I don’t say that to Trifon tonight.
Trifon sighs heavily, and it isn’t one of relief. “You’ve got Janella.”
“Yeah, thanks for the reminder,” I chuckle. “Nadya loves her. The company will keep her from going stir-crazy within the first six hours.”
“Can anyone stop Nadya from that?”
“We’re a good team,” I say, and find the words true.
I look back at the woman in the bed behind me. Her hair still holds the ringlets from her fancy updo earlier. Her mouth is puckered into a pout in her sleep. I fight the urge to kiss her awake. I wore her out enough tonight.
With a quick thanks, the line goes dead.
I dress swiftly, but it isn’t enough to avoid my wife from stirring. She blinks up at me sleepily, turning to her side. It exposes her bare front to me, and my fingers twitch to touch her.
“Iosif?” she mumbles, her voice scratchy from sleep. She can barely keep her eyes open. “Is everything okay?”
I promised her. I promised that we wouldn’t hide things from each other anymore.
Sinking to the edge of her bed, I drag the sheets up her body, covering her. “My daredevil sister got shot at tonight. She’s okay,” I tack on when she snaps upright, alarm widening her eyes. “I told Trifon to send Nadya here to lay low for a few days. You good with that?”
“Of course,” she says, waving me off, as if asking is ridiculous. “We’ll be the premium recovery facility.”
She says it with such adamance, a smile fights its way to the surface. Unable to help it, I press a quick, soft kiss to her sweet lips.
“Thank you, kukolka.”
***
“I can walk,” Nadya protests as soon as the elevator doors spit them out. Trifon ignores her, not meeting her gaze.
I’d say I’m surprised Trifon himself carries her out the elevator doors, but I’m not. That’s my brother. He’s pissed, and it’s present in every line on his face. Still, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for us.
The same goes for Yulia, who trails behind them, her medical bag in hand and worry all over her soft features.
Janella jumps up from the couch where we’d been nursing cups of tea, she believes can cure almost anything.
“Hey guys,” she greets, and helps Trifon settle her onto the couch.
Intuitively, despite the concern flashing in her eyes, she manages to hold her tone even.
One look at her confirms that she’s fully switched over to caretaker mode.
“A little birdie told me we get to have you for a few days. Yay!”
“I’m not a birdie,” I quip, rolling my eyes fondly.
My sister looks up at Janella, then me. “You could be,” Nadya decides.
Janella looks at me with a smug smile. Meanwhile, her fingers gently stroke through Nadya’s hair. “How about some tea and company?”
“Ugh, you’re so wholesome.” Nadya squeezes her hand and beams up at her. It’s almost enough to miss how, when she moves, her face crumples in pain. “Tea’s good. If I can have some cake, too. Yulia has me doped up on the good stuff.”
Janella squeezes back before she’s on her feet, making a beeline for the kitchen. I don’t know if we have cake, but I wouldn’t put it past her to bake one if we don’t. I watch her slip an arm around Yulia’s and pull her along, murmuring, “Coffee for you?”
Trifon sidles up beside me, and we watch our girls fuss over our baby sister.
“Miron and Leo are already sweeping all her usual spots,” he debriefs gruffly.
“Val’s calling in favors with his contacts on the street, trying to figure out what the fuck happened.
They weren’t aiming fire at any of the other racers. ”
I force my voice low. “Retaliation?”
“Could be the Genovese still pissed about the warehouse.” His fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “I knew we wouldn’t always be able to keep the girls out of the crosshairs. But, fuck, I thought we’d have more time.”
“What can I do?”
“Just keep Nadya safe, for now.” He glances over his shoulder at where Yulia and Janella are tucked around Nadya, adjusting her pillows and feeding her cake. She’d been the same way with Leonid. His smile is grim. “And be careful. If they’re targeting family…”
Fear slicks my veins with frost.
I can read between the lines of what Trifon is saying. If they know about the youngest Yuri, she’s as fair game as Yulia and Gela have been in the past.
Viktor Zakharov’s face—and the way he’d looked at Janella tonight, like a coiled snake about to spring—haunts me.
“I know.”
***
Yulia really did give Nadya the good stuff. By the time she and Trifon have left for the family estate, Nadya’s already conked out in bed. Janella insists on staying with her through the night, no matter how much I try to tell her she doesn’t have to.
“She’s my family, too,” is all she says before she shuts the door in my face.
As if that is the beginning and end of things.
Historically, it has been for me. I’m used to it. My family is my world.
I just never thought about, let alone planned for, a partner who’d feel this way about them too.
Now that I have it, how the fuck am I meant to live without it?
Janella makes it impossible to find out.
Dawn breaks after a sleepless night, and morning bleeds into a hazy afternoon. That’s all the time it takes my sister to catch a second wind, if the way her voice carries down the hallway is anything to go by.
“I’m telling you,” Nadya insists.
“Quit moving so much,” Janella chides.
The two of them are sprawled out on the couch, with some ridiculous reality TV show playing on the screen. The woman won’t ditch the café to stay in bed with me, but she’s happy to do it to lounge with my baby sister. Air thins in my lungs over it.
“I’m fine.” Nadya waves her off. She catches sight of me in the corner and points. “You! Tell her I’m fine. She’s fussing.”
“Fussing is her thing.” I grin, too amused to rescue her. “Besides, you got shot at. Twice. I’d say that qualifies as anything but fine.”
Nadya cheerfully flips me off. “One of those was just a graze. You’re all being dramatic.”
“Would you say that if I’d been the one to get shot at?”
Nadya’s eyes narrow to slits, unamused. “Cheap shot, bro.”
Still, she subsides and picks up the cup of tea Janella holds out to her.
The exchange looks familiar. It takes me about three seconds to understand why.
This is how Janella is—she anticipates a need and fulfills it before the other person ever has to ask.
She’d done the same with Leonid when his ankle got fucked.
She does it with me after a rough night.
You’re staring, I realize when Janella squirms, eyes meeting mine filled with questions.
I don’t know what answers I’ve got.
“I’m going to let the two of you catch up,” my wife announces, standing and dropping a kiss on top of Nadya’s head. “I know what a rare treat it is for Iosif to be home like this. You two use it. I’m going to go hop in the shower. There are crumbs in my bra.”
“But you—” she shakes her head at Nadya, scolding affectionately, “have to stay still. Yulia said you can’t afford to tear your stitches.”
Nadya rolls her eyes just like I always do. “I’ll behave!” she exclaims.
“Bullshit,” Janella and I laugh in unison.
When she brushes past me, her hand catches mine for a brief moment in time. Her thumb strokes my wrist, and it sends my pulse galloping. She doesn’t say a word. My head turns on its own, just to watch her disappear down the hallway.
“I see what Leo means,” Nadya says as soon as my ass hits the couch cushions. Her mouth quirks into a sly curve.
“What,” I grunt.
“You’re in love. And I mean, head-over-heels, hold a boombox over your head outside her window in love with that girl.”
“Boombox?” I snort. “You weren’t even alive in the 80s, Nads.”
“Ah, but you remember them.” She elbows me in the side, earning a glare. “I’m just catering to your timeline.”
I gently tug on her braid. “How high are you?”
“Not high enough,” she sighs. All she does is shift in her spot, and she winces. All levity drains from her features. “Fuck. Ugh. I fucked up.”
“Yeah,” I agree, never anything but honest with her. “You did.”
Her brows knit together in a frown. I don’t know what’s going through her head, but I know I have to give her a minute. Without a word, I steal her tea and sip at it. Nadya picks at the stitching on her blanket.
“Sometimes,” she says finally, “it’s like a fever takes hold of me. There’s a buzzing beneath my skin, and I have to get it out, or I’ll lose it. I’ll explode or something. You know?”
I know. More than anyone else in our family, I understand.
“Look, you know I don’t agree with Trif. He’s dreaming if he thinks he can keep you from ever crossing the road. You know he only does it because he loves you.” I shoot her a significant look. “But it’s cruel of you not to look both ways before you do, Nads.”
“I’m pretty sure this advice makes you a hypocrite,” Nadya says, her brow arching.
“I’m not trying to be one,” I tell her candidly. “This is empathy, not judgement. I lost count of the number of times in my life I’ve been ready to run off a cliff, flipping off the fucking universe. That rush, that high? I know why you live for it. It’s just not worth dying over.”
Nadya’s features melt. “No one’s dying.”
“You could have. Another inch and it could’ve been your femoral artery.” I hate to tell her, hate the way it makes her frown deepen, and her gaze drop back down to the blanket. But sometimes people need a wake-up call.
“You’re different,” she accuses.
Am I? “I’m changing,” I admit. “I don’t want to some days. But the thrill isn’t the same. It doesn’t feel as worth it when it hurts the people I love.”
“Janella?”
I shrug. “Her, sure. But would Leo have fucked his ankle if I hadn’t made him climb up those crates? Would you have been shot if we hadn’t pissed off the Genovese? Would Zakharov have looked at Janella like she was a chew toy last night? I don’t know. But having to wonder fucking sucks.”
To my surprise, Nadya smiles, exhausted but knowing. “See. Love.”
Denying it feels a lot like lying. “Never thought you’d see the day, huh?”
Nadya’s head drops to my shoulder. I can feel her head shake.
“I did, actually,” she says, grabbing the remote and increasing the volume a few points.
“I knew it when Trif brought Yulia home. And the first time you held Zinaida. When Val and Gela are wrapped up in their bubble, I think your idea of who you are isn’t always who you actually are. ”
My lips press together, then give. “Yulia should’ve checked you for head injuries.”
“She will,” Nadya quips without missing a beat. “Right after she diagnoses you with dumb bitchitis.”