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I squeeze my eyes closed. “Yes. Obviously. How did you hear about that?”
My father sighs and steps forward, grabbing me by the shoulders gently. He bends forward so he is looking in my eyes. “The man you spilled wine on was Ivan Volkov.”
This time, his words connect. “Shit.”
He lets out a long exhale like he is relieved to know I’m not as stupid as I just appeared to be. “Shit, indeed.”
“I didn’t know,” I say, breaking out of his hold and pacing back and forth in front of my apartment door. “He was just such a jerk, and I…I lost it.”
I look up at my dad. His eyes are turned down in the corners, sorry, but his lips are still pinched together in frustration. He doesn’t know the reason I lashed out at the man was because he reminded me of my father. Because, like my dad, the man expected me to aspire to nothing more than being some man’s trophy wife.
“It doesn’t matter what he said.” My dad walks into my small kitchen, grabs a glass from the cabinet next to the refrigerator, and fills it in the sink. He drinks all of it before he continues. “You need to apologize.”
“Apologize?” My eyebrows are so high they are probably lost in my hairline. “You think the boss of the Volkov Bratva is going to accept my earnest apology? I’m not sure if you’re aware, Dad, but you mob leaders aren’t the most understanding of men.”
“You’re not going to give him a fruit basket,” he snaps. He rounds my kitchen island, grabs my arm, and leads me over to my couch. I’m too tired to resist when he forces me down on the cushion and then sits across from me on the coffee table. A bigger man would break the legs, but my dad doesn’t weigh much more than I do. “You are going to beg for forgiveness, Eve. You are going to make this right by giving Ivan whatever he wants.”
I wonder if my dad knows what he is asking me to do, but when his mouth twists to one side and his eyes go glassy, I know he does. Ivan Volkov could want anything.Anything. I can’t promise him that.
“I can’t do that,” I say. “I can’t.”
He takes a deep breath. “I’m not asking you, Eve. You ruined a business relationship for me, so you don’t have a choice.”
I’m too shocked to find the words to argue. My dad reaches out and runs a thumb across my cheek. “You fucked up, kid. Now, it’s time to fix it.”
I’m still sitting on the couch, staring at the corner of the coffee table where my father had been sitting, when he closes my apartment door behind him.
* * *
By the time I’m shoving my toothbrush and some back-up underwear into a small backpack, it is late afternoon. My shift at The Floating Crown had been creeping closer and closer as the sun moved across the sky, and the closer it got, the more I realized I couldn’t go.
I can’t walk into the restaurant and bow to my father’s wishes. I can’t apologize to a man who doesn’t deserve my apology. Regardless of who he is within the city and my father’s world, begging him for forgiveness and turning myself into his personal slave is not an option. So, I’ll leave.
Too many people throughout my life have made me painfully aware that they don’t think I could survive on my own. Growing up the daughter of a don, they think everything in my life has been handed to me. And in a sense, it has. My time at culinary school was the first time in my life where I accomplished something by myself and for myself. And it was incredible. So, why not continue doing that? My father has made it clear that as much as he loves me, he loves his power and position more, so why should I stick around and be blindly loyal to him? I’m going to get out of the city and start over somewhere else. Even if I end up flipping burgers, it will be better than handing myself over to the Volkov family.
I have enough money in savings to get out of the city and begin the process of starting over somewhere new, so, an hour before service is set to start at the restaurant, I buy a ticket and hop on a bus headed south.
Public transportation is anything but luxurious. The man behind me is sleeping with his face pressed against the window, the glass fogging from his heavy breathing. A woman is changing a baby in the front seat. She drops a wipe with a brown smear on it and doesn’t notice. I look away. I just have to endure it for a few hours, and then I’ll be getting off the bus and heading into a new life. Whatever problems I’m leaving in the city, my father can deal with them.
The driver—a middle-aged woman with a bald spot and two silver front teeth—pulls the doors shut and begins pulling away from the station before suddenly slamming on her brakes. The doors open and a man runs up the steps of the bus. He has a black hood on despite the heat and doesn’t wave to the driver in apology for being late. He doesn’t smile or say ‘thanks.’ He just walks on with his head down, claims the seat across from mine, and sits down. Once again, the driver pulls the doors shut and this time, we actually pull away from the station.
I watch the people walking down the street. Some alone, some in groups, some pushing strollers. Everyone’s life is so varied and different, and I wonder what shape my life will take when I start over. I wonder where I will settle, who I will meet, and who I will become. I’m still pondering my future when I look over and realize the man in the seat next to me is looking over at me.
His hood is down now, and he is staring at me, his entire body pointed in my direction. When our eyes meet, he is not embarrassed to have been caught or apologetic. He simply smiles.
A chill rocks down my spine, and I look out my window, unseeing. Moments before, I saw the bus as a projectile to my future. A smelly, strangely populated vessel that would deliver me to a new life. Now, it feels like a prison. I’m trapped. I can feel the man watching me even when I don’t look at him. Is he crazy? Deranged? Surely, he wouldn’t attack me in the middle of the bus, right?
When my seat shifts from the weight of a person claiming the seat next to me, I don’t have to turn to know it is the man in the hood.
“What do you want?” I ask, refusing to turn and acknowledge him. “Who are you?”
“You can’t run from us,” he hisses. “If you stay, you can make amends. If you run, the Volkov family will have you rehabilitated.”
I let my eyes fall closed, disappointment wrapping around me like chains. “I’ve never heard of that. Rehabilitation?”
“Not many people have,” the man says, relaxing in the seat. “Those who go through the experience rarely come out the other side.”
Goosebumps rise on my arms, and I finally turn towards him. He is young, not much older than me, if at all, but there are small, ragged scars all across his face and neck. His body is pocked and painted with the violence he has endured and no doubt inflicted. My gaze shifts lower, and I see the familiar bulge of a gun in his waistband. “What do you want?”
