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She sighs, a bored expression on her face. “I expected you to be more interesting.”
“You have formed your alliance and decided to leave me in the dark. Do you believe that is wise?”
“I believe I am trying to live my life.”
“At what costs?”
“Why is it my concern to worry for others? Others did not worry for me when I was suffering.”
Lena falls silent, making no attempt to elaborate. She does not believe she owes any explanation. After what she has suffered, I can not say she is wrong for being selfish. However, there are people still suffering the same fate at the hands of the same institutions she vowed to bring down.
It seems now she and her close ally, Ernest Adams, are fine with letting it go.
“Do not judge me,” she snaps suddenly, as though reading my mind. “You did not help me when you could.”
“Lena, I looked out for you. Did I not?”
“You were busy falling in love with… with… her.”
I swallow mouthfuls of the coffee that has been delivered by the server. The bitter taste is better than the bitterness that is radiating from Lena.
“I was living my life. As you are free to do.”
“I was not free then.” Her lips pucker. She glares out the café window.
Another point I cannot argue. She is right when she makes it; in those days she was not free.
But I did what I could to help her.
Lena… she… fell in love with me.
She has never stated so. But that is what happened when she saw me as the hero that would save her from her life as a piece of property. I do not believe she loved me as a person. She loved me as the person able to protect and free her.
It is why she has soured on me to this day. It is no mystery, even as I sit across from her and watch her glare out the window. I betrayed her by falling in love…
* * *
I met Stefania Crotone during the period of my life I met Lucius Mancino. Aleksander,moy brat, was no longer who I knew him to be.
Half Italian, half Russian was not ideal.
He could not gain entry into the Crotone family this way. Nor could he gain entry by revealing his father was Mario Maldini, a disgraced formercapo.
In order to fix this problem, he simply… recreated himself. In the years he went missing, he lived a criminal life. Very young and not yet a man,moy bratwas in the streets. He was studying how he could best infiltrate the real criminal world he craved, the one he believed he belonged to him by birthright of his father—La Cosa Nostra.
But how?
Aleksander Volchok ceased to exist.Moy bratceased to exist.
Adopting Maldini would not work. It would reveal he was a bastard son of the disgracedcapo.
Thus, Lucius Mancino was born. His first name was stolen from his father’s middle name. His last name was an invention, a name that was vaguely similar, but not quite the same. No one was able to connect the dots when a young, pot-bellied Lucius Mancino showed up to the nightclub owned by the Crotone family, and offered himself up as an associate.
For years, he worked. He proved himself. He was what they call ‘made.’ During this time, I had no idea.
I was making myself too, but in other ways. In the wake of Mama’s death, I learned the ins and outs of American business and capital. I became known for the lofty business deals I cut, which garnered the attention of Vladmir Kozlov. I did not knowmoy mladshiy bratwas in the same underworld I was dabbling in.
It was not until a chance meeting, where I attended an event as a business associate of Kozlov’s, and he attended the same event as a soldier of Crotone’s, that we met for the first time in years.
