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“It’s okay,” she says. “Just take your time.”
Seeing her like this just makes me even more certain that she’s going to make an incredible mother, so caring, so patient, so ready to move toward understanding where anybody else might move toward rage.
Patricia falls silent for a long time. The whole car does, the only noise the rumbling of the tires on the road, the wind whispering against the window. I’ve got the heater turned up against the cold, and for a moment it’s like we’re on some pleasant nighttime drive, going to the airport for a holiday, maybe.
With no killers on our tail.
Finally, Patricia starts to talk, her voice low, pushing the words out quickly as though if she doesn’t trust herself to finish.
“I was friends with your parents, Juliana,” she says. “I knew them from when we were kids together. We were so close, the three of us. Your mother and I were best friends since we were babies. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know her. Your father came along in middle school, and we were inseparable. They were good people. You need to understand that. They were the best people.”
I can sense how stunned Juliana is, as though her scent has changed. In the rearview, I see that her lips are a flat line, her face composed, but her eyes are glinting with the suggestion of tears.
She’s keeping herself together so that Patricia can finish.
She’s so damn brave.
“But somewhere along the way, they got mixed up with some bad people. Your father started running packages for criminals. Russians. Have you ever heard of the Bratva?”
I squeeze my hands on the steering wheel, stifling a savage growl from the base of my throat.
I feel like hammering my hand against the wheel, beating my chest.
This is bad.
“No,” my woman whispers. “Who are they?”
“They’re the Russian mob,” I tell her. “They’re bad, really fucking bad. Completely ruthless. They don’t just kill you if you make a wrong move against them. They kill your whole family.”
“Jesus.” Juliana shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. “Why would my dad do that? Why would he work for them?”
Patricia makes a hesitant noise, and then some fire flares into my woman.
She snaps, “I deserve to know. Tell me. ”
“Your mother wanted the finer things in life, I suppose,” Patricia mutters. “She wanted to live like she thought she deserved to. And your father desperately wanted to provide her with that life. It was just a stupid mistake. But once you’re in, you’re in. But then they started to tell him to do things he wasn’t comfortable with. And he made the worst mistake you can in that world. He hesitated.”
“And they burnt down our house,” Juliana says, unable to stop the sob from crackling in her words now. “The fire wasn’t an accident. It was them.”
“It was them,” Patricia confirms.
I glance at the rearview, almost pulling over so that I can cradle my woman in my arms. She didn’t tell me that her parents had died in a fire, too, that we’re bound by more than fate.
We’re bound in flames, in pain, in the torment of being left behind.
Her eyes meet mine and she nods, and I know she understands. She’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking.
I love how easily we can communicate, how effortlessly the words pass between us, even when we don’t open our mouths to speak them.
“The leader of the Bratva stated publicly at a dinner that he was going to murder your whole family for the crime of disobeying him. Apparently, this meant that he had to stick to his word, whatever happened, no matter how much time passed. He had to kill you – or have you killed – even if two decades have passed since he made that statement.”
“It’s their fucking code,” I snarl, putting as much hatred into the word as I can. “To them, this means they’re good men. They’re doing the right thing. They’re being men of their word.”
Patricia nods slightly.
“Yes, that’s it. They knew me – I’d met a few of the Russians whilst with your parents – but I hadn’t disobeyed them or agreed to work for them, so I was allowed to live. But they did visit me one night. A man put a gun in my mouth and just held it there, standing over my bed, staring down at me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The message was clear.”
“If you talked,” Juliana says, her voice quiet and leaden with grief, “you die.”
“Yes,” Patricia says. But then she puffs up, as though a glimmer of pride is moving through her. “But I did something, Juliana, something I never told anybody about. The night of the fire, I was staying at your parents’ house. The guest room was next to your bedroom. I heard the men stomping through the house. I heard your mother screaming. You were such a quiet baby. You were so easy to carry out of the house, to carry across the city, to lay at the doorstep of an orphanage. And then I had to run. I couldn’t be seen with you. I couldn’t let them know where I’d taken you. I left a note on your blanket. My name is Juliana Smith. Smith, the most generic name I could think of.”
