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Having Lia back after two years of believing her dead was almost as traumatizing as having lost her to begin with. And knowing she had joined the Italians as a means to bring some sort of hope to the Russian women who were enslaved by the hand of my father was a difficult pill to swallow. She had embraced our enemy fully, to use their support.
But one thing I learned was that if the Italian don was anything like my father, no amount of schmoozing was going to make him truly join the cause. Leo and I had shared several very intense discussions about the fact that I was not out to destroy my Russian heritage or my family. He understood me loud and clear that I would not sell out—not like Lia had.
If I joined Leo’s side, it would be to make it clear to my father that I did not approve of his business dealings and I would do anything in my power to free the women under his control. No fake name, no disguise, no hiding in plain sight.
Lia had draped herself over the end of Leo’s desk, the knee-high boots she wore still dripping snow to his carpet. She looked well for having been lost for so long, but then she wasn’t truly lost. She had just been incognito.
“See the results for yourself.” Lia dropped a stack of photos onto the desk in front of me. I sat in Leo’s chair, hugging my arms across my stomach.
“Isabella has some great images here.” Leo stood behind me, rubbing my shoulders. I didn’t bother looking at the images. I had heard the reports every time a safehouse was emptied of women. I knew Lia’s brother Dominic was behind most of the slave trade too, which had to be difficult for her.
“Can we just call her by her name now?” I eyed Leo and then Lia. She grimaced and shook her head.
“I’ve changed my name, Yaya. I did it to help the women we are rescuing, over 150 of them now and counting. You can be a part of this too.” She slid off the desk and knelt beside me, taking my hand into hers.
“You left me with only a note to tell your family you loved them, and even that was written in some awful code.” A memory of the day she vanished remained etched in my mind as painful as the day it had happened.
“I did what I had to do, or I would have been forced to marry that horrible man.” She squeezed my fingers, lacing them between her own. Leo watched on, silent but vigilant. “Is that what you want, Anya? You want your father to marry you off to the highest bidder, the one who will gain him the most power or respect? You deserve so much more than that.”
I shuddered to think my father might do that, especially after having tasted how close I was to the power myself. He could have put me in charge of the entire thing, and if I had done as he asked me, as he would have done, I would have been given even more authority in the family.
I looked up at Leo and frowned. He hadn’t weighed in yet. If I left my family I needed a place to go, and he was the only one I could even fathom being with. He offered me a tissue, plucked from the table across the room. Is confident silence was the strength I needed.
“I don’t know what to think. I need time to sort through this. Lia, you are my sister in blood. If you think this is the right move, then I am disposed to thinking that it is the right move too. But if I leave my father, if I make that point, that his ways are not okay, and that I need him to be different, I will lose everything. My ties to my mother will be cut off, my source of everything. I will have no home, no food, no job.”
“I’ll take care of everything.” Leo crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw. Either he was firmly in agreement with Lia—Isabella—or he just wanted me.
“I’d like to have time to think. Is that okay?”
Lia stood, backing away from me. She nodded.
This might very well be the hardest decision of my life, one that Lia’d had to make herself at one point. I didn’t want to make the wrong choice. Once Lia was gone, I stood, pacing the room until Leo met me mid-stride and held me against his chest.
“You’ve done all you can from that side, Anya.” His soft kiss on my forehead warmed my heart, but not as much as they way he cradled me in his arms. I clung to him, listening to his heart beating.
“I could still change things.” My mumbles into his chest were hardly audible. I wasn’t even sure I believed myself, but I wasn’t about to give up and stop trying. Lia had done so much since breaking free from the family, but it had cost her dearly. Her father was dead, many of the men she knew, and now her brother had a bounty on his head, placed there by her.
“No one respects you, Anya.” Leo’s words were cold, exacting. I winced, then pulled away from him. I was certain he hadn’t meant to offend me, but he had. I hugged myself and walked to the large picture window that overlooked the city and stared out across the park.
“That was harsh.” The room’s temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. I shivered and watched the snowflakes flutter past the window on their way to blanket the streets.
“I didn’t mean to sound harsh. Here, listen…” Leo reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone, walking toward me. I mostly ignored him, favoring the winterscape outside to the dreariness that my life had become.
He held his phone out toward me, and a recording of a man’s voice started. I tuned my ear in immediately, recognizing Dimitri and Dominic speaking.
“Well the old man ain’t gonna live forever.” Dominic’s voice came across loud and clear.
“Yeah,” Dimitri said, “and he’s going to leave that bitch in charge. She can’t even hold a gun straight. Let me tell you, if she takes control there will be anarchy and I will lead it.”
He stopped the recording as my jaw dropped. “I know those men…” I searched Leo’s expression and saw concern there.
“They will never follow you, and from the moment your father hands over the reins you’ll be running for your life, if he hands them over to you and doesn’t marry you off like Isabella insinuated. I want more for you.”
He pocketed his phone and grabbed my elbows, forcing me to turn to face him. “So what do I do then? Desert my family? My mother?”
“I’ll make sure you can see your mother for as long as she wants you in her life. But you have to commit to leaving. We can do so much more from this side, working together. Join us, Anya.”
“Is this why you stalked me and got Lia introduce us? You just wanted my help turning my family out of the city?” I was apprehensive, until he responded.
