Chapter 2
ALEXEI
“There you are… What did you do?”
I’m sitting at the bar, the worst of the two bruised fists in a glass of ice as I rub the bridge of my nose. I’ve been nursing a headache since we showed up to this place. Pavel’s voice isn’t helping it, either. I look up at him as he stands there, staring at my hand in ice.
“I needed to vent,” I tell him.
“With your fists?” He leans into me and says in Russian, “Father is going to have your hide. Who did you beat up?”
“No one important,” I respond, also in Russian. “Don’t worry. This shit alliance hasn’t been tainted.”
Pavel just stares at me. My brother is always so worried about what our father thinks about any given situation. I used to joke that he doesn’t take a piss without asking for his permission first.
He rolls his eyes and says, “You didn’t hurt someone because you’re still upset about this thing, are you?”
I don’t really know how to answer that, so I don’t. I just look at the guests around us, who all seem to be blissfully unaware of us. I suppose I should be thankful for little favors.
“You know,” Pavel goes on, “you’re always the one telling me about how childish I am for using my fists when I should be using my brains. You’re the big brother, remember? You’re supposed to be setting an example for me.”
“I’m fine,” I say in English to break up his tirade. “In case you care.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he scoffs, then in Russian, “Did you at least leave the poor bastard alive?”
“He was breathing when I left him,” I respond, also in Russian. “Someone should probably call an ambulance, though.”
“You see, this is exactly the thing Father was telling us about. We are guests here. A dead body in—” He stopped, knowing better than to utter Pecora’s name in mixed company.
“A dead body here will make problems for our host. We don’t want problems. This entire situation is delicate enough as it is. ”
“Well, then, the body should have behaved himself.” I look over at the bartender who’s standing at the end of the bar, trying not to pay attention to us.
He’s the only one who seems to be remotely aware of our presence.
“A beer, please,” I say to him in English.
The bartender nods, reaches behind the bar, and slides a beer bottle over to me.
He then turns his back to me and starts wiping down wine glasses.
Pavel sighs and leans against the counter. “At least you’re putting alcohol on it,” he jokes in English. That gives me a chuckle as I take a swig. We sit in silence for a moment, then I tell him in Russian, “One of the waiters was attacking his daughter.”
Pavel looks at me, his eyes studying my face. “The younger one?”
I nod.
He scoffs and says, “That one’s like an alley cat. You were probably breaking up her date.”
I don’t respond to that. I just take a drink from my bottle. Pavel wouldn’t get it if I did try to explain it. In the moment, it didn’t really matter whether she’s the town slut or not. No one should get beaten and raped in an alleyway.
The lines between right and wrong have always been a bit blurry for my brother, even in this business. Not that I blame him. The rules we play by in the brotherhood aren’t the same as the rest of the world. It’s easy to get your morals mixed up.
“Oh, great,” he says. He straightens up, his eyes looking off toward the room’s entrance. I follow his gaze to see that our father has seen us… or rather, he’s seen me with my hand in ice.
He walks over to us as casually as he can with rage in his eyes. “Do I want to know?” he asks as he looks directly at me.
I shake my head. My father sighs as he regards us both.
“What am I going to do with you, Medvezhonok?” He says that without any of the love or humor that he has in the past. What I’ve done, whatever it was, is a big deal and we all know it.
He straightens his suit jacket and says to me, “Our business is done here, anyway. Let’s go.”
And with that, we leave the home of Anthony Pecora.
When I first heard about Pecora’s son meeting his end, my first thought was what a tragedy it was.
I know that with the Italians, the son or sometimes a nephew is usually the one to take over when the boss dies or retires or whatever.
I can’t speak for how things run with the Italians in terms of whether that’s a hard rule or not, but I know for us—at least for my father and his father before him—the firstborn son is the one who will carry on the legacy of his father when he’s gone.
If my father one day found himself with no heirs, whoever was unfortunate enough to take our lives would never know peace.
Judging from Pecora’s demeanor when he greeted us today, vengeance for his son’s death didn’t seem to be the chief thing on his mind.
Or maybe it was and that was why he and my father were talking peace now after all these years as enemies.
Maybe whoever killed his son is someone out of his reach and within ours.
If that’s the case, I wonder what Pecora is offering for that.
He and my father went into his parlor and talked, leaving me and Pavel to wait for him with the other guests.
Neither of us have any interest in Pecora’s family and they don’t seem to have any interest in us.
They’ve been our rivals since I was a boy.
I don’t even really know why Father is extending an olive branch now.
Well. My interest in them is piqued slightly.
When I walked in, I spotted his daughters.
I’ve never seen or met either of them up close before, but I knew them the second I saw them sitting together in the living room.
The redhead, Analisa, was just as beautiful as everyone had been saying all these years, tall and slim in a simple black dress that somehow made her look like a little princess.
I’ll bet her entire bedroom was drenched in pink, fluffy bunnies when she was a girl.
The other one is just as beautiful. Dark hair and blue eyes, not as thin from what I could see.
She’s got nice, shapely hips on her, and while I couldn’t tell for certain at the distance I was standing, I’m willing to bet she has a nice ass.
There’s a part of me that understands the kind of trouble a woman with a body like that could get into.
But other than her reputation, I didn’t think very much of her until I happened to go outside for some air and see her getting attacked in the alley.
Something clicked inside me the moment I saw that asshole throw her into a wall.
Just like that, nothing else that I heard about her mattered.
All that did matter was that she clearly didn’t want to be around that guy and that guy was ready to take what he wanted from her just the same.
My legs were moving before I had any say in it.
I was going to make sure that no one ever hurt her again.
We’re riding back in the car now. Pavel’s up front with the driver and I’m in the back with Father. Out of the ice, my sore and bruised knuckles are starting to throb now.
“It’s been some time since Kira passed,” Father says to me suddenly. I glance over at him and frown a little.
“Four years,” is all I say back.
He nods. “That’s more than a respectable amount of time to move on with someone new, don’t you think?”
This is an odd conversation. I don’t think my father has ever asked me about my dating life in any form, let alone like this. We haven’t really even discussed Kira’s death since it happened. And since my father isn’t the kind of man who does small talk, I know this has to be leading somewhere.
I’m the last person to question his motives, however. I clear my throat and respond with, “To some, I’m sure.”
“And for yourself?”
I shift around in my seat as his polar ice blue eyes bear down on me. I feel like I’m under a spotlight. “My life is dedicated to the brotherhood. To you. I don’t have the time nor the inclination to search for a wife.”
“Hmm,” he said in response. “Well, perhaps very soon, fate will decide for you.”
An odd thing to say, but I don’t respond. What he says sounds a little like a Russian proverb or some such thing that my grandfather might’ve said when he lived in Russia when it was the Soviet Union.
He drops me off at my penthouse, and once I’m on the other side of my own door, I can let go of everything that this outing had in store for me.
I could spend the afternoon at one of Father’s clubs. He likes it when I’m a presence at any one of them. I think it’s his idea of having extra security. Everyone knows who I am and who my father and brothers in arms are. No one would dare cause problems if I’m in attendance.
At least that’s the thought process. If it always worked out that way, I wouldn’t bear half the scars I do on my body.
I go into the kitchen and get an icepack from the freezer, putting it over my wounded knuckles. That asshole had a hard head. Those first punches were like hitting concrete.
I wish you wouldn’t fight, Lyubimiy. Your hands are my favorite parts of you.
The sound of Kira’s voice is just as loud in my mind as if she were standing right behind me. Whenever she’d say something like that, she’d take my hands and kiss them. Her cool lips always felt like a salve for my wounds.
I flex my sore hand under the icepack as I stand by my sink.
This place is too fucking quiet. I thought that I would eventually get used to it after she passed away.
I thought that I would start to hear the sounds of the city below or the soft mechanical noise of my fridge or even the ticking of the clock and that would take away the unbearable silence.
It’s still here, though. It’s always here. Always underneath it all. I don’t think I ever noticed how I would always know she was here even before I saw her.
I turn on the television as I walk into the living room, just for the noise, and walk down the hall and into my bedroom.
I kneel on the floor next to my bed and look underneath for my lockbox.
It’s my most valuable possession. Everything in my penthouse could burn to cinders as long as this box survived.
It’s tucked under the bed, right next to my nightstand.
It’s a little hard to get to. I have to kneel all the way down on both knees to reach it.
But I get it and once it’s in my hands, I sit down with my back against the bed and open it.
Inside are photos and letters, mostly. The first photo on top is of Kira and me when we were teenagers.
We’re walking down the lane of a carnival and she’s holding an oversized teddy bear that I’d just won for her.
I don’t know what ever happened to that thing.
I know she kept it in her bedroom for years afterward.
The photos are like these little happy snapshots taken between the life we had together and the promise of more to come.
Honestly, I should have known better. I come from a long line of tragedy.
There are stories of loss throughout my family line that could fill a library, all of which were just told to me by one elder or another throughout my life.
Grooms murdered at their weddings, wives thrown from balconies with their babies in their arms. The history of my family should have been a lesson to me that I can never, ever trust in something like love.
How could I ever have believed that my life would be any different from any of my ancestors’?
I don’t even fully know what happened to my mother. I have vague memories of her waking us up in the middle of the night and trying to run off with us. Memories of her smile changing whenever my father entered the room. Tense nights when we could hear her screaming for our father to stop…
And then one day, she was gone. No one ever told me where she went.
No one explained. She was just gone. But then, the story of my mother’s disappearance isn’t exactly an isolated one.
Parents who leave in the night and never come back are probably the most common thing that ever happens in my family.
I knew all this when I met Kira and it didn’t stop me from pursuing her, loving her, asking for her hand in marriage. It didn’t stop me from believing that one day, we’d have children and live happily ever after in spite of it all.
I look through the photos for a little while and something settles within me.
Maybe her spirit is here, kissing my sore knuckles, helping to ease the damned quiet of this place.
I don’t know. I’m tired, though. I know that much.
It’s the middle of the day by now. I should probably be out doing something for my father.
I’m not, and thankfully, he isn’t calling me. Right now, all I want is to close my eyes for just a little while. The madness of my life and this world can wait until I wake up.