Dmitri had found his stepsister, a girl he had almost forgotten ever existed. Step or ex-step or whatever she was. That didn’t matter to him.
What mattered were memories, something he usually blocked out with meaningless sex and alcohol and violence. But these were different than the memories that tormented him in the night. They were beautiful memories.
In a way, they hurt even more than the horrible ones. And that’s why they were buried even deeper. It had been too painful to think of the innocence of childhood. It would have made him too vulnerable to survive, let alone thrive, as a mobster.
Now, it seemed okay to indulge in Edenic reveries, if only a little. The distant past was no longer dead and gone. It lived, because Sonya lived - Liza lived.
He started to remember her better as he let himself drift into the deepest recesses of his mind.
Playing outside, building fortresses, telling little Liza that he would protect her from the bad guys, always and forever.
How could he have forgotten all that? Well, it wasn’t an accident.
His uncle always told him to forget the past. And he was only four when his father died. He moved to another country. Everything changed. Forgetting was the easy part.
Life seemed to begin for Dmitri in kindergarten. And even that was only a vague memory now. The nightmares that woke him up — sweaty, heart-pounding — were a perpetual reliving of his years in prison. Solitary confinement for months on end, no sunlight, meager food, or brutal fights, beatings by prison guards… and worse.
Those rough years had given him too much time to think. Deep thinking was something he had learned to avoid. But now he had to think, and so he did:
When my father was murdered, and my uncle took me to Russia, Rebecca - Katya - and her daughters moved from St. Petersburg, FL over to Tampa?
Only across the bay, though they were in danger? A tactic, maybe, “hiding in plain sight,” a place the killers wouldn’t suspect. Or like Sergei said, they weren’t exactly hiding, she just didn’t want to be too close to her mafia past.
But what am I missing? How did she get involved in this again now? And Sonya too. Coincidence? Vladimir always told me there are no coincidences in the Bratva.
Coincidences are for Hollywood and poets. In this life, you see patterns or you see blood running down your chest after your enemy has slit your throat.
So like Sergei guessed, Rebecca must have found out a deadly secret while she was in Russia. But then why didn’t Ivan kill her there? Waiting would have been dangerous, giving her time to tell Vladimir. Ivan must have found out later, somehow.
And if Vlad suspected Ivan, even to the extent of making a secret visit home, how’d the killers find him?
Vlad never went anywhere without his Bykis… except to his mother’s grave. He thought it was disgraceful and cowardly to show up there with armed men. So who found out about his final trip to Saratov? One of my men, a rat?
I kept the info even from them. One of his own men, maybe. But he was too smart, he chose his men and his words wisely, and besides, where’s the connection to Sonya?
Halim, of course, that snake! I mentioned to Sonya once on the phone I was driving my uncle to the airport. Everyone knew Vlad hated to fly and wouldn’t do it except to visit the Motherland.
What an idiot I was!
Blinded by love like a school boy, babbling like a fool. Is she the rat? FBI? Maybe they looked into my past and planned all this. She might not even be the real Liza.
It’s all just some sick setup. I fell for the oldest trick in the book. Fuck!
No, she couldn’t fake what I saw in her eyes. And those green eyes, I recognized them the moment I saw them, I just didn’t know where I had seen them before.
What then?
Wait. Halim gave Sonya a cell phone. He must have bugged it first. She didn’t tell him anything I said - he listened himself.
That night Halim sent Sonya to my table when I was with Salvatore, he’d never done that before with any other girl. He even brought Sonya to me instead of those rich oil scum buddies of his.
And that drink Sonya thanked me for the first night as I walked down the stairs, I didn’t know what she was talking about. But that was part of the setup too. Halim must have told the cocktail waitress to say the drink was from me, or he brought Sonya a drink himself and mentioned my name.
The day I ran into Sonya at the mall, Halim had called me and said he needed to talk about business. I thought he wanted to sell something his friends at the port had just smuggled in on a ship. Stolen cars, guns, TVs… then he didn’t show up.
I saw Sonya walk into that cafe thirty feet from the bench where Halim had said to meet him. She must have talked to a friend on that tapped phone earlier and mentioned where she was going.
Yet I hardly thought about the “coincidence”. I let my cock lead the way to disaster.
Halim was playing matchmaker. He has no clue about the history between Sonya and I. Does he? I guess he only needed to know she was the prettiest girl in the club and that I’m a sucker for pretty girls.
Plus he was probably watching the front door on a hidden security camera, and he noticed the dumbfounded look on my face when I came up those stairs and saw Sonya, an angel in hell.