Page 49 of Mafia Princess


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“You don’t need to stay,” Sasha said. She lifted the remote, but the sad look on her face was still there. “I’m sure there’s some sort of reality show that I need to catch up on.”

“Marco can wait a few minutes,” I said. “At least until Giovanna brings up your dinner.”

Sasha and I had developed a cordial relationship over the past few weeks, but I wouldn’t be the first person to say that the two of us were friends. I wasn’t sure what the two of us were even doing together. But I enjoyed learning more about Sasha. She had a light about her which I found myself being drawn to even when I wanted the exact opposite, especially because I knew that she was keeping something from me.

“I mean it,” Sasha said. “I’m used to being alone.” She shrugged slightly. “I’m used to it.”

“You had your brother,” I said. I don’t know what made me think about Nikolai Petrov at this moment. It was probably not the thing that I should have brought up considering the dark look that came over Sasha’s face.

“Nikolai and I were close enough, but there was such an age gap between the two of us that he was almost out of the house by the time I was old enough to want to hang out, and then, he was…”

“Dead,” I said. I don’t know what compelled me to finish the sentence, but I did. Nikolai Petrov had died in a shootout that had taken my eldest brother.

“You are lucky to have grown up with so many siblings,” Sasha said. “I always wanted to be part of a big family.”

I raised a brow. “Don’t you have a lot of cousins?” I asked. From what I remembered, the Petrov’s were a large family. My father used to joke and call the family a hydra. You’d kill one off and another would spring up to take their place. It felt like a tasteless joke to make now.

“It was important to my parents that I be protected,” I said. “My mother isn’t a Petrov by blood, and she’s always been odd about mixing.”

There was a lot of sarcasm in Sasha’s voice. I had suspected that Sasha and her mother didn’t have a good relationship. Though Sasha was very much the apple of her father’s eye, I was surprised by how much distance both of her parents kept from her.

“Your mother was the daughter of the last Pakhan,” I said.

Sasha sighed. I could tell that she didn't want to talk about this, but this was a rare opportunity for me to learn more about the Petrov family, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

“She was,” Sasha said. “It’s a sore subject. I think that deep down my mother believes that she should have been Pakhan. Of course that never would have happened. You and I both know that neither family would want a woman in power.”

“My father had all sons, as did my grandfather,” I said. “I don’t think there’s even been talk of a female Don ever.”

“My grandfather never would have heard of it. He considered my father to be the son he always wanted, and when it came time, he married my mother off to him, and made him heir to the Bratva. I don’t think my mother ever got over that slight.”

I wasn’t surprised. Katarina Petrov was well known in mafia circles as being ruthless, even more so than her husband.

“I think that my mother resents me. Nikolai was her favorite. The heir.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. My mind was already racing as I considered the information that Sasha had just told me. Katarina Petrov resented her place in the Bratva, and as the daughter of the former Pakhan, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering if the Bratva was splitting apart.

Nikolai would have been her great hope of seizing power, and now that he was dead, I wondered if she had found another way to get what she so desperately wanted.

“Anyway,” Sasha said. “I think that's enough for tonight. Talking about my family was depressing.”

I nodded. I wanted to press more. I wanted to know what Sasha had discovered before she got shot, but I knew my new wife well enough to realize that if I pressed too hard, she might clam up, and then, I wouldn’t get anything from her.

“You should get some rest,” I told her. “I’ll be back in a few hours. There are guards here and Giovanna if you need anything.”

I didn’t want to leave, but there was work to do, and part of that work was making sure that whoever threatened Sasha was no longer a problem.

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