TWENTY-THREE
Nastasya
I thought I was okay until just now. I’d managed to accept that Caroline was dead and that my life would never be what it once was—or so I thought. All it took was a reality check from the man who understands me better than most, and the fragility of my mindset was thrust into the light.
I’m not okay.
I might have accepted the truth for what it is, but I sure as hell haven’t come to terms with what it means.
I’ve resisted Papa for years, angered that he keeps me out of the family business. But why? Ask me a month ago, and I would have told you the inequality of the situation tore a hole in my heart. But perhaps it was the desire to know the forbidden, the pull of the unknown?
Now that I see the other side, I’m not so sure it was worth the grief. I had a chance to live an ignorant life. Sheltered? Sure. But it was also the closest the daughter of a pakhan would ever come to a mainstream existence.
I glance at Benito as he drives, drinking in the hard set of his brow and how his jaw shifts from side to side, as though he attempts to unhinge the tension that keeps his broad shoulders rigid behind the wheel.
He never had the luxury of playing pretend amongst the general populous like I have. He’s never held down a “real” job. Never filled his weekends with idle social occasions or spent evenings feeding his hobbies. He was marked to be who he is from the moment he was born. Groomed to be the man he is today from the moment he could comprehend what went on around him.
Even when we first met, he held himself with a maturity that surpassed his young years. The men around him shaped him—his brothers the same—without the careless abandon a childhood in the suburbs would have given him. There was no backyard football and no cruising on his bicycle with classmates until dark.
He wore a fucking suit to dinner.
He was goddamn nineteen.
This is all he knows, and as much as I hate to say it, I’ll need him to help me through this transition. I ride shotgun in his car while we head toward the event that’ll mark my ascension into the life I’m gifted.
I was born Bratva, but until now, I haven’t been Bratva.
There’s no blood on my hands. No lives were altered by the consequences of my actions. Well, none other than Caroline, and that was entirely out of my control. Or was it? What constitutes control? I didn’t pull the trigger, but I put her in the car. I made her a part of my life, knowing what dangers lurk around the corner.
Shit. Alessio was right. If I care about people, I’ll remove them from my life before somebody else does. And maybe I knew that, somewhere deep down where I try not to tread? After all, I’ve struggled to immerse myself back into my work since that night. Grief plays a part, yeah, but how much was my subconscious holding me back? If I’m honest, it just felt weird to engage with my employees after my best friend was murdered.
Caroline’s death not only highlighted my naivety but it shone a light on how I’ve played pretend up until now. Knowing it couldn’t last forever, I built a “normal” life. The only way I could have stayed doing what I have would be if I cut myself off from the family, and there’s only one way you remove the connection when you’re born Bratva: death.
The vehicle slows, and Benito’s headlights cast a bright arc over the facade of a small single-level dwelling. I welcome the distraction as I run my gaze across the residence. Chain-link hangs from the frame of the fence, crooked and with holes in places. The gate is missing entirely. I lean forward to put my shoes back on while Benito reverses the Defender into a parking space on the opposite side of the road, angle-parked for a presumably quick getaway.
Shit’s about to get real. I can feel my heartbeat through the seat at my back.
You okay?
Two words light up his smartphone between us.
Am I? I don’t know. What is okay? Is it okay to want this, to need this? Who’s to say?
“Is that where they live?”
No. It’s where they are today, though.
He stares out the windshield, brow hard as he studies the property.
There are houses on either side, but at least fifty feet between the buildings. Junk litters the space, car bodies are overgrown with weeds, and general household rubbish is left where it fell from overstuffed trash cans. The people around here don’t prioritize cleanliness, which means one of two things: they don’t care, or they don’t know any better. Maybe it’s both?
I scan the yard but fail to see any sign of the sedan from the night I was attacked.
“How many people are there aside from the two men?” I note a dog standing at the fence to the left, keen eyes on us while waiting for Benito and me to make our next move. “Are you worried about witnesses?”
People come and go from here all the time.
He needn’t say any more—I can imagine why.
The cops who work these streets are on our payroll.
So, the De Santis have protection from the law. A bribed blind eye. “How many others?” I ask again.
Benito sighs, rolling his head to face me before he answers.
I don’t know. I think there are three. At least one is at work.
I meet his calm gaze with wide eyes. “There are only two of us.” Yeah—well done, Stas. State the obvious. “How does that work?”
Leave it to me. You stay behind my shoulder.
I can’t breathe right. There’s a weight on my chest I can’t shift. Nothing physically there for me to remove. How do I take away something I can’t touch?
Do you know how to shoot?
My palms sweat, and strangely, my breathing eases, my pulse slowing. “I do.”
This is yours.
He taps out the message before leaning across me to reach beneath the glove compartment. The sound of Velcro tearing precedes his hand re-emerging with a sleek Glock against his palm.
I take the offered weapon and glance at Benito before testing the weight in my hand. He watches me while I familiarize myself with the handgun, his gaze flicking to the house every so often. I remove the magazine, check it’s loaded, and toggle the safety off and on. It’s remarkably similar to my gun at home, which is a relief.
You use it only when you need to.
He ducks his head to level our gazes, forcing the point home.
Stay behind my left shoulder and stay close.
Benito breaks away from the messages on his phone to retrieve a shiny pistol from the glove compartment. He checks the chamber, slides a small box of bullets into his breast pocket, and then sets the piece on the console. I lean back, eyebrows high, while I watch him lift each leg of his pants and check the bands on the ankle holsters. He has goddamn knives strapped to his calves. I’m still processing how the weapons don’t even show underneath his pant legs when he retrieves a longer, slimmer blade that Benito then sets with the pistol.
I’ll remove everyone except the two men. Then it’s your turn.
He nods toward my side of the vehicle to indicate I should get out before reaching for his door. I stand on shaky legs behind the safety of the open door and fuss with the gun. Do I tuck it in my waistband or keep it by my side?
Fingers on my shoulder send a shockwave down my spine. I turn to find Benito at my back, nodding toward his phone.
Keep it in your hand, safety off.
I’m not cut out for this. Papa was right. “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m not brave enough, Ben.”
He exhales heavily, glancing over my head toward the house before hastily typing one last message.
Want to know a secret?
I nod, and he continues.
I’m nervous, too. You’d be fucked in the head if you weren’t. But when you step across the road, you need to let instinct take over; it knows how to keep you safe.
He packs the phone away in his back pocket and replaces it with the slim blade in his left hand, turning the tip toward his shoulder so that the hilt of the handle stays tucked against the heel of his hand. At first glance, there’s nothing there, but I know he’d be able to have it out within a second.
I palm the Glock, stretching out each finger in turn to ease the clammy grasp I have on the grip.
With the pistol in his right hand, Benito curls the weapon behind my head to use his forearm to pull me close. I lean in and accept the kiss he lays atop my head, savoring the strength it shares before he pulls away and starts across the road.
I can’t hear our footsteps. There’s only the whoosh of my steady heartbeat as it pumps blood through my veins. It doesn’t seem enough; I can’t feel my face. My gaze darts around our surroundings while I stay close to Benito’s back, just as he asked. The dog I spotted earlier paces the fence line, yet it doesn’t bark. It’s as though it doesn’t dare, or perhaps it knows why we’re there and feels we have every right to bring hell to this doorstep.
Animals have a weird way of sensing things like that.
He doesn’t knock—Benito—and why would he? We reach the front door, and I draw a deep breath before he sets his hand on the latch. Music plays behind the timber panel, yet I don’t hear a single voice. Is that because they know we’re here? Because they hide, ready for our entry?
I swallow down the sudden surge of nausea and fixate on the checkered pattern of Benito’s shirt as it pulls across his shoulder blades when we step into the house.
I don’t notice the guy.
All I hear is the faint whistle of Benito’s blade as it sails to our left and directly into the eye of a man who reaches for a side-arm. His body hits the floor with an echo behind us as Benito leads us into the small living room.
Four people inhabit the twelve-foot space, and only two are conscious.
My grip tightens on the Glock as I peel my gaze off the two men passed out on the sofa and toward the source of the noise. The couple is oblivious to our presence, fucking like crazed animals on a Formica dining table that seems ready to collapse with the effort the guy puts into plowing the woman’s ass.
Benito lifts his empty left hand to press his forefinger and thumb to the side of his brow. I bite my lip to stifle the adrenalin-fueled giggle that begs to escape. He doesn’t need a voice to say it: What the fuck?
I expect gunfire or for Benito to manhandle the guy off the woman’s back. I don’t know how these things usually unfold, but what I don’t predict is Benito slowly dropping on his haunches to lean forward beneath the couple’s line of sight so that he can retrieve the weapon on the arm of the chair beside them. They moan and grunt, their labored breaths disguising any noise we may make.
The sawn-off gets passed behind Benito’s back, and I reach out to retrieve it with my free hand. I can’t look away from the way the man destroys the naked woman, his hand wrapped in her long auburn hair. She seems as though she likes it, but perhaps they’re as high as the two passed out to our left? I eye the rubber tie around the left-most man’s arm. Benito nudges me with his wrist and then gestures for me to keep my eyes on the two men sleeping on the sofa. I nod, lowering the shotgun to my side and readying the Glock in my other hand.
Two of the four strangers in this room stole my best friend. Until I know exactly which ones they are, I’ll continue to hate them all.
The half-naked man at the table grunts with his release and then steps back in my periphery, allowing the woman a clear line of sight to us as she rolls over to right herself. Her eyes go wide, and then the woman laughs—fucking laughs. Definitely high.
“What’s so funny, bitch?” the guy asks as he tucks his dick away.
“You didn’t tell me I got an audience today.” She nibbles on her bottom lip and gives Benito eyes that make me want to blow the look clean off her face.
I don’t get long to dwell on it before the recently sated man turns and lunges for the now missing weapon. “What the…?”
“Looking for this?” I lift the shotgun at my side.
His crazed eyes flick from Benito to me as though he didn’t see me there initially. Given the way he treated the naked woman just now, I’d say a lot of women are invisible to this jerk.
I don’t get long to dwell on it before Benito has the man in an arm-bar, much to the woman’s amusement.
“Come on, Jerry. You can do better than that.” She taunts the guy with a lop-sided grin. I shiver when her gaze then drifts the length of me. “You want me to take this skinny bitch?”
First off, I am not skinny. Second, who the fuck does she think she is, calling me a bitch? “Pardon?”
“Oh, honey.” She slides her naked butt off the table, much to the men’s confusion. “You think you can walk in my house and show me up?”
So, it’s her place. Figures.
“Which ones are they?” I ask Benito, ignoring the shameless homeowner sashaying toward me as I check the unconscious duo.
He looks between the man in his hold and the guy sleeping on the right.
I lift my right arm and point the Glock at the woman’s head. “I wouldn’t take another step.”
She hesitates, unsteady on her feet, and lifts both hands. “Whatever you say, blondie.”
It would take a hell of a lot for me to get up the courage to pull the trigger—the odds are slim. But she doesn’t need to know that.
“What the fuck are you even here for?” The whites of the man’s eyes show with the effort he puts into peering at Benito behind him. “I know who you are, Janitor . But who’s this whore?”
The man screams out in pain when Benito twists his arm higher between the guy’s shoulders.
“Where’s your car?” I ask, keeping my periphery active on the woman playing coy to my right.
“What do you mean?” He jerks his chin high.
“I mean exactly what I said. What did you do with the car?” Fuck knows why the detail is important, but it’s as though seeing it will alleviate my anxiety that this is all a mistake. That they’re not the men.
The held man’s gaze is black, like a shark. I can’t tell if it’s the piss-weak light in here or the dilation of his pupils, but I can’t pick if his irises are green, blue, or goddamn rainbow-colored for how little shows. “Which car are you talking about, girlie?” He lifts his eyebrows and gives me the type of goddamn condescending look that makes my blood boil.
Like when men think you’re stupid and find it adorable.
“Don’t fuck me around,” I growl through a stiff jaw. “Tell me. Do I look familiar to you?”
The left-most guy on the sofa groans and shifts position. Everyone collectively holds their breath while we wait to see if he’ll wake up. No go.
“I told you, doll face,” the man says once we’re all convinced Sleeping Beauty will stay where he lies. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Perhaps because I should be dead?” The hand on the shotgun trembles with the effort it takes to keep the one trained on the woman steady. “Where were you last Friday?”
He stays quiet, much to Benito’s frustration. My fiancé takes immense pleasure in twisting the man’s arm so high we all hear the pop of his shoulder as it dislocates. The woman to my right gasps, the man hollering with pain while he attempts to kick Benito with his heel.
Sleeping Beauty wakes up.
“Who the fuck…?” The black-haired man scrambles backward and falls over the rear of the sofa. “Imir?” From his vantage point on the threadbare carpet, he stares at the guy with the knife in his eye.
Homeboy Jerry, in Benito’s hold, appears to realize the severity of the situation. We’ve killed one—who’s to say he isn’t next? Sweat dots his brow as he pants through his pain. “The car’s gone, okay? What does it matter?”
Benito shifts the guy so that he’s restrained with one arm. He pins the man against him with a forearm curled over the guy’s chest, a knife held to the man’s throat. The captive’s arms may be free, but one move, and he’s dead.
I shrug as I answer his question. “I wanted to make sure it was really you.”
“What now?” He glances at the woman beside me, which I don’t like one goddamn bit. “You here for your payback, little girl?”
The naked woman shifts on her feet, and I make the mistake of moving my focus to her. The impact from my left knocks the wind clean out of me, and I hit the floor at her feet, Sleeping Beauty covering me from waist to toe.
Another thud sounds as the guy Benito held hits the floor—out cold.
Not a word is said—Sleeping Beauty wrenched off me and thrown against the sofa with a single rough jerk of Benito’s arm. The guy scrambles to his knees, leaning over the cushion while Benito steps over my shoulder to contain the naked woman behind me—incensed and hollering obscenities at the two of us. I frown at first, wondering how Sleeping Beauty thinks burying his head against the sofa will protect him, when it dawns on me that the guy reaches between the cushion and the seat back.
The man knows there’s a damn weapon in there.
“Ben,” I murmur, the strength of my voice lost within my disbelief. “Benito.”
He grunts behind me, and I twist my neck back to get a sideways view of the crazed woman with a fistful of his hair, clawing at his face and neck with her painted talons. It seems a lack of clothing doesn’t dampen her fighting spirit at all.
The guy on the sofa pushes up with one leg, turning as he stands.
His arm swings out.
Benito bends double to get the banshee off his back.
And I pull the trigger.