Page 42 of Baby for the Bratva King

“And we have some business to take care of.”

“What?”

The driver flashes me a devious grin in the rearview mirror.

Is this person really a taxi driver?

“Father?”

“Like I said, son—we can blend in here. The world is our oyster. Some of the crime families in this city are interested in taking us in.”

“But they’re not our family.”

“Not by blood,” says my father. “But the bond of the Bratva is much stronger. You can spill blood, drain it from a person’s body, but an oath is for life.”

“Until you break it.”

“We would be fools to break an oath when we can finally have the world.” My father glances over his shoulder, his determined eyes fixated on mine. “Even after your mother grew ill and passed away, I continued to fight for our family. We had nothing, Felix, and now we have the chance to build something meaningful.”

“By upsetting the council and getting deported?”

“By learning from the best. We’ll never have to struggle again.”

I glance out of the window feeling defeated. I’m struggling now. Yusen is dead, and I’m in a foreign country. Everyone is speaking a different language, including my father.

We came here for a fresh start, at least I thought that was the plan.

Perhaps I still have a chance to do that.

My father should be able to get me in school. Our passports are strong enough to get us far, and I intend to succeed. Just in a different way.

I’m living for Yusen as well as myself. I’ll study hard in school, get into college and build a life away from this mess.

Because something tells me my father craves bloodshed more than those bastards in our village did.

I want no part in the Bratva, in organized crime. None of it.

All I want is my brother back, but since I can’t bring back the dead, the next best thing I can do is live.

I crack open the door when I make it home, crossing the lobby. It’s late. Saskia should be back at her place, curled up in bed.

My chest fills with emptiness at the thought of her being gone. I push people away, always walking away first, but she’s changed the trajectory. Women love spending the night here, and Saskia takes off the second her shift is over.

At least I think she’s gone…

Soft music trickles through the wall as I head upstairs. Violins harmonize, the high notes lingering.

I frown, pausing down the corridor. The music is definitely coming from the guest bedroom.

I advance closer, realizing the door has been left ajar. Peering through, I see a figure moving in the mirror, a flash of brown hair coming into frame.

The violins grow louder. Saskia is playing the music through the speaker, twirling in time to the rhythm, hands cradled above her head. I watch her intently. She spins like a figure in a ballerina box, poised, controlled.

She spun like this on the pole, her body twisted around the metal as she twirled and twirled, soft brunette hair whipping around her like it’s doing now.

The somber violins harmonize in slow, staccato rhythms, and Saskia allows the emotive passages to roll through her body, feeling everything, right to the tips of her fingers.

She exits the spin, keeping her poise, and pulls one leg up into the air.