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SASHA
The two ounces of whiskey I downed five minutes ago is suddenly nonexistent in my system. The urge to snatch the almost full bottle that my father placed on the counter after filling his own glass is strong.
I went through a sneaking alcohol phase during my senior year of high school, but after getting sick on vodka and orange juice, I can go without. I’ll enjoy the occasional glass of a good whiskey like tonight, but never does the need for more present itself until now. I’m not your stereotypical Russian who’s supposed to drink vodka over everything else. That’s my father and brother, and since I didn’t eye any vodka while I was pouring my drink, they had to make do with what the Caputos had on hand—or the former residents, to be more accurate.
My father’s striking blue gaze penetrates so deep within my chest it makes me want to crawl into a dark hole and stay there until he’s gone. This is to fuck with me, and it’s an ‘I’ll end not only your life, but I’ll wipe your entire goddamn family from this planet’ look the pakhan is known for.
To say he’s scary right now is an understatement, and that’s saying something coming from me. Very few people frighten me. Usually, he isn’t one of them. I love and loathe this man in the same breath, but that’s different from being terrified of what he’s capable of. I’m not naive to the fact that Krishna has shielded me from a lot of things. I imagine Domenico has done the same with Ren and Sienna too. Krishna is open to a lot. He tells me things, but he also keeps the really dark shit to himself.
You’re going to tell me exactly what Dimitri Sokolov said to you last week. Word for word, Sasha. Spill it. I repeat my father’s words in my head, confused as to why he knows anything about my encounter with the second in line to the Russian Canadian criminal organization, or why he cares; not when he’s the very monster that gifted me to another monster, a more sinister one at that.
“Quit being a brat for five minutes,” he says when I don’t respond. “I want to know what transpired between the two of you when your brother was dealing with Kozlov.”
“This is important, why?” I ask, honestly curious. Did he fly all the way from New York to find out when he could have texted me? He rarely calls. He knows I send them to voice mail ninety-nine percent of the time, so for the most part, he’s stopped calling me. In fact, I can’t recall the last time he and I spoke on the phone.
“Because I asked it of you, and I expect an answer, Sasha.”
I run my tongue back and forth over my top teeth as I think. I don’t know what he wants me to tell him. I’ve had many interactions with Dimitri since I was thirteen, and all of them I shove to the back corner of my mind so I can’t obsess over his words like I used to.
There were nights, days even, that I didn’t sleep because of the things he would tell me, his plans for when I was officially his in a unity of marriage. The thought of my dick hitting your cunt so hard you cry out in pain, tears smearing your makeup, makes me hard, ptichka.
To that I would reply, Only in your dreams, while forcing out of my head the very image he drummed up.
Do you know what I did to the whore that couldn’t get me off last night, ptichka? While she was bouncing on my dick, I was fucking her mouth with my nine mil. Her brain matter painted my office wall. I think I’m going to keep some of it as a reminder to other girls to know what the fuck they’re doing before they sit on my cock.He threw his head back and laughed harder than I’ve ever seen a man, finding joy in his monstrous ways. It turned my stomach, but I still didn’t let him see it faze me. I’ll never give him that satisfaction. She was sixteen, you know. A shame too. She had a hot body. Her cunt, on the other hand, sucked, and not in the literal sense.
Yeah, I’m full of false bravado. Hell, if I can get others to believe, then maybe one day I will too. Fooling Dimitri into thinking I’m too strong for him to break me was a mission I hatched the day I overheard the Russian Canadian pakhan and my father discussing our arranged marriage. I was fifteen for Christ’s sake. Dimitri had been telling me for two years I belonged to him, but I never believed him.
I fell in love with a boy in the third grade and haven’t looked at another in that same way since. Ren is the only one I’ve ever wanted as fiercely as I’ve needed and craved him. He’s light and dark, good and bad, but he’s not evil. The perfectly imperfect man. The only man that will ever own my heart and body.
I’d rather die than be chained to someone’s bedpost, my freedom stripped. I know I have to walk away from Ren, leave him, break him, divorce him. I’ll do anything to make sure the devil doesn’t take his soul from this world, but I will not go willingly to anyone else, especially not Dimitri Sokolov.
Mischa Nikolayev can get fucked for all I care. Whatever deal they made will not come to fruition if it involves me. Over my dead body will that happen.
“His exact words were, Little birds aren’t allowed to leave their cages. Lucky for me, I’m skilled at bird hunting. Happy? Can I go now?”
I haven’t seen much of Lorenzo in the past few days. I’ve been working with the girls at the club for nearly sixteen hours a day, getting it ready for opening night tomorrow. Ren has been working on the rest of the club’s aesthetics. Getting top-shelf alcohol and a bar with so many options for draft beer will make your head spin from the choices. It puts any adult entertainment club in New York to shame. I have to give him credit. He knows what he’s doing. He’s good at it. Why he wants to be a lawyer is beyond me. His talent could be of better use elsewhere, and with less stress than a suit and tie everyday would bring.
“I’m far from happy, daughter. What else did he say? I said leave nothing out.”
“Jesus, Dad. Like it even matters. He said an American piece of paper—meaning my marriage license—doesn’t mean shit, that I’ve belonged to him since before I was even born, and that there was no place I could go that he couldn’t find me. There! That’s everything I remember. But like I said, what does it matter?” I throw my hands up, pissed and angry but also emotionally hurt, however, it’ll be a cold day in Hell before I allow him or anyone to see that feeling cross my features.
“What. Does. It. Matter?” He bites each word out as its own sentence, his tone hard, deadly even. “No one comes to my house, my territory, like he owns it or anybody in it. Especially my goddamn daughter.”
“But doesn’t he, though?” I say it more like a statement than a question, and in the most bitchy voice I can muster. “You agreed to an arranged marriage with his father, after all.”
A flash of surprise flickers across my dad’s face so fast I would have missed it had I not been staring him down. “Who the fuck are we talking about?”
“Is dementia setting in already? Dimitri Sokolov’s father, Ivan Sokolov, the Canadian pakhan. You agreed to have me marry his son. I’ve known since I was fifteen. Question is, what did you get out of the deal?” I’m so fucking mad right now I swing the back of my hand against the thick bottle of whiskey, watching it fly off the counter, smashing to the floor. It causes pain to shoot up my wrist and through my forearm from my knuckles hitting the glass.
“You think I’d give you to someone you do not love? Is that what you really think, Sasha?”
“It’s what I know,” I claim. “I heard the conversation. Dimitri backed it up for years. Hell, even before then. He always said I was his.”
“Goddammit, Sasha. Where did I fuck up? Where did I go wrong with you, with our relationship?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer. I guess the eye roll said enough. “I can handle Ivan and Dimitri, but I’m appalled my own daughter thinks so little of me. It wouldn’t matter if you did have feelings for that sick fuck, I’d never allow a marriage between you and a Sokolov. I’d kill him before I let you do that.”
“Oh, give me a damn break. You didn’t kill Ren. What was that? My practice marriage? Get me prepped before you sign me over to the devil himself?”
“Give you a break? You should give me a little fucking credit, Sasha. How about having more faith in your old man than you obviously do? If it kills me, if I die trying, I will find a way to fix this shit between us.” Steam practically filters out of his ears and up into the night air before dissipating. “I’ve never beat you or even laid a hand on you in twenty-four years, but I could strangle you right now for this bullshit. There is no such thing as a practice marriage. You marry who you marry and he better be the right fucking person the first time or he’s a dead motherfucker. There aren’t do-overs, so the young Caputo better be the one.”
