Chapter Thirteen
Misha
I stand near my motorcycle and she’s hovering right by my backdoor. She looks totally uncomfortable, wearing her sweats and tennis shoes and carrying a bag full of last night’s clothes. She took off the ring as soon as she retrieved her purse. She really must hate her fiancé. So many plans are running through my head, of ways that I can kill Moretti. She has to know I’ll never let her marry him.
“I can take you home,” I say again. I offered twice already, but she told me no.
“And risk someone seeing me?” she argues, and turns away from me.
All she would have to do is give me some small indication that she doesn’t want to go home, and I’d have her upstairs in my bed. She’s determined, though. I know why, and it’s completely unbelievable. Why would any man want their daughter to marry Dante Moretti? I can understand Frankie. I hear he’s a good guy. He’s a thinking, careful, fair man. He’d make a good husband for anyone except my Chiara.
As badly as she says she wants to leave, she’s not making any moves to do so.
I step toward her, and brush my fingers through the strands of hair escaping her bun. My fingertips stroke her neck right under her ear, and she shivers so hard I see her shoulders shake.
“Say you want me baby, and we can go upstairs right now.”
“I…” She turns toward me, and her eyes are full of lust as she stares at my lips. Whatever she was going to say is lost as she bites her bottom lip. My cock twitches and grows, just at the sight of her. I lean down to kiss her, and she steps away. “It’s time for me to go. Thank you for last night.”
She moves to walk away from me. She’s going to leave me. She thinks it’s the last time we’ll see each other, and she doesn’t even kiss me. Why? Doesn’t she know how I feel about her? Doesn’t she care?
I grab her shoulders, and hold on to her as I kiss her. I don’t let her get away. Her mouth is hard, unyielding. I pull her closer into my body so she can feel just how much I want her. Her lips soften and finally part. I need to taste her.
I need her. Doesn’t she know?
No, she probably doesn’t, I realize. She’s only known me for one night. She doesn’t understand that I’ve wanted her for months. I want her to know that I desire her, only her. I want to build my world around her, not bring her into mine. I want to have the normal life that neither of us were born into, and I want to share it all with her.
I lick her lips gently. All of a sudden I don’t want to overwhelm her, or scare her. But I want her. I’ve never experienced an emotion as strong as my desire for her. It’s scaring me, so I’m positive it’s probably a little too much for her too.
She pulls away, and I let her. My lovely, enchanting fantasy looks completely confused, and it’s my fault. Then she glances up at me with her innocent eyes, and my heart stops.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and runs off down the alley and toward the street.
I let her go. She’s not the type of girl who falls in love in one night. This is the first time she’s done something reckless, that I know of, and she found me. I’m not husband material. I’m not a good person. I’m a killer. I fantasize about having something better with her, about being a better person. But I know I can’t.
I lock the door and hop on my motorcycle. I should be following Chi, because that’s the assignment my father has given me. Instead, I’m driving my bike through New York traffic toward my sister’s office which is in the back of the family’s bar, The Vodka Room. Natalya and Anatoli have taken up the hobby of infusing vodka with flavors, so it’s an apt name.
I pull up out front, park, and stride inside. In the afternoon the bar is always the same. Two Russian girls behind the bar, prepping for the evening crowd, pouring drinks, taking care of customers. The customers are all the same at this time of day as well, men who are too old to still work for the family. The bar is like a retirement home for the Ivanovich Bratva. There are always men who work for the family in and out, providing security, getting orders, or simply having a drink.
“Hello, Misha,” one of the bartenders calls out.
I turn toward her and nod. Her name is Kat, and she’s been trying to get me into her bed for six years, since before she was legal. The other bartender is married to one of the lowest foot soldiers. She doesn’t look at me, ever. Her husband is very jealous.
“Hi, Kat, is my sister in?” I ask her.
She gives me her best bedroom eyes, and answers me in Russian. She knows I don’t speak the language. Not that my mother didn’t try to teach me, but my mother had already taught the other three, and by the time she got to me she was tired. I know a few words. I can swear in Russian really well. But I have no idea what she just said.
“So, I’ll assume that’s a yes,” I reply, and walk toward the back. The other girl laughs. “Whatever. Fuck you both,” I call out, as I knock on the door labeled Manager.
I open the door to find my sister behind her big, cheap desk. She’s the dark haired child in the family, and the only daughter. She really is beautiful, but she probably didn’t have the best childhood. Our older brothers teased her, and when I wanted to play with her she screamed at me and told me to leave her alone.
I guess I’ve always been alone. That is, until I was given Chiara. Well, I was given the job to watch her, so that counts.
She glances at me briefly, then returns to her work. “What the hell do you want?”
“Nice to see you too, sis,” I reply.
She sighs loudly, as if I’ll always be the annoying little brother. I guess she doesn’t remember all the assholes I protected her from after I grew to be six feet tall in freshman year.
I sit down across from her, and place my hands on my knees. I don’t want to do it, but I know I have to. It’s the only way I can make enough money to formulate a plan to get away from this city, this family. “I’m ready to move on from the Rossi thing. I want to make some money. So put the word out that Volk is available.”
She knows what I mean. I’m ready to go back to killing. I don’t only kill for the family, I kill for other families too. Everyone wants me because I’m the best, even though I’m expensive. They know I’m worth it. Volk, which means wolf, is my code name. No one outside the family knows who I really am. Well, except for Chiara now. But she doesn’t know that I’m the wolf, a paid assassin, she just thinks I’m a soldier for the Bratva.
She sits her pen down on the desk, and gazes at me. Well, I think that got her attention. “Are you fucking with me?” she asks. She’s surveying me with her hazel eyes that are so like our mother’s.
My sister is a beautiful woman, and she knows it and uses it to her advantage. She looks like our mother, and she thanks God every day. Our older brothers look just like our father, with wide noses and pudgy faces. I’m the only sibling to look like a mixture of both. I have my dad’s hair and eyes, and my mom’s nose and lips. I don’t think I’m bad looking, especially not with women throwing themselves at me constantly. But I don’t know if that’s because I’m good looking, or because I’m an Ivanovich son.
“No.” I mean, she knows I hate it, but I didn’t expect this kind of response.
She’s really trying to dig into me deep with her eyes. Suddenly she laughs. “Why do you think you can defy Papa’s orders and change your assignment on your own?”
I try to turn my face into a mask of non-feelings. “I thought Rossi was just busy work to keep me out of trouble. I’m ready to move on.”
“Where was the Rossi daughter last night?” she questions. Fuck, this is an interrogation now.
I don’t even think about it. Thinking about it is how people can tell you’re lying. I just lie. “She left the church and went home, like she does every night.”
“Really?” she counters with a wry smile and a nod. Apparently she does have some of our father’s expressions, because in that moment she looks just like him. “Is that what you’re going to tell Papa?”
Fuck! She knows I’m lying. “Yes.”
“Because his driver told him that he picked you up at a club last night, with a gorgeous, shapely Italian woman, and dropped you off at a hotel.”
So obviously I made no good decisions last night. Typical for the family screw up. But she’s hiding something from me too, I can see it in her smug Ivanovich expression.
“You think Papa put you on this assignment merely to keep you busy because there’s only one thing you can do right, and that’s kill?”
I look away when she says that. Fuck. I hate that, and she knows it. But she’s right. Her statement was harsh, but true.
When I don’t answer, she continues. “Don’t you wonder why Papa gave you strict instruction not to touch the Rossi girl?”
I’m done with her cryptic bullshit. “What are you saying, Nats. Just spit it out.”
“Papa knew that the marriage was arranged. He knew the Rossi girl didn’t want to marry Moretti. He knew if he told you not to get close to her, you would. Why do you think he sent his hot, single son, the one all the girls lust over?”
My chest gets tight. My hands start to sweat. I sit perfectly still, without moving. I refuse to give away the fact that I’m angry. No, I’m furious. I played right into my father’s hands. I should have known he’d have an ulterior motive. He always does.
“What’s his endgame?” I demand.
She stares at me for several moments, as if reluctant to tell me. Then she gives me an almost sympathetic look. “You need money because you want to run, obviously. You’ll never get away from him, no matter where you go.” She pauses a moment, watching my reactions. I don’t give her one. “The mission was for you to seduce the Rossi girl and fall in love, that way you could get inside information from her.”
Father wants to put her in danger. He wants her to carry on an affair while married to the next in line to the most powerful Don in New York. “I’ll just kill him,” I say flatly. That was the plan anyway.
“He wouldn’t mind if all three Moretti sons died. But if you get caught…” she starts.
“I don’t get caught,” I assure her.
“But if you do, Papa will say he knows nothing about it. He’ll hand you over to them.” So I’m expendable. My father has two other sons who make him proud. He doesn’t need me. “Think long and hard, Misha. It’s time for you to finally prove how smart you really are.”
Smart but doesn’t apply himself. That’s what all my teachers used to say. Stupid is what my father always calls me. Maybe he is right, because I never, in a million years, saw this coming.
“The best thing for you to do is stay in the family, and use your new Italian girlfriend to get all the information you can. Because if you don’t, you’ll put both your lives at risk.”
So I finally fall in love, with a girl my father wouldn’t approve of, and it’s exactly what he wants. I have really fucked up this time.