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2
PYOTR
“This was a bad plan. I’m isolated and alone, fucking hundreds of miles away from home and in the epicenter of enemy territory,” I growl in Russian, slamming my car door with unnecessary force. “You saw how the Marchetti brothers reacted to my betrothal to their sister. I doubt Don Lorenzo can keep them in check. We’ll be lucky if they don’t ship me back to you in a fucking box.”
It’s another hot day in August, too hot for a suit, but I refuse to stoop to wearing shorts. So instead, I’m wearing a light T-shirt and jeans. Still, it’s disgustingly muggy, somehow worse than New York, though I can’t fathom how it’s possible. God, I hate Chicago. I hate everything about my mother’s strategy. It’s desperate, and she’s putting my neck on the line to get what she wants.
“We need this alliance, Pyotr,” she responds in her native Russian tongue, her tone flat and formidable. “Tensions are rising with the Zhivoder. It’s gotten worse even since you left. We need allies. We need guns. And this marriage is the key. So quit acting like a petulant child.”
Grinding my teeth, I fight to keep my temper in check. I make my way across the Rosehill campus to my first class, bristling with frustration. I know I have to do this for my family’s sake. Still, it goes against all my instincts. If things are getting worse, I should be home, defending against our enemies and safeguarding our territory. Not playing college games with the Marchetti girl.
“I still think there’s a better way,” I hiss, cutting my eyes at a guy wearing his baseball cap backward who looks at me the wrong way.
His questioning gaze would indicate he didn’t expect me to speak another language. I suppose this is Marchetti territory. He’s probably used to hearing Italian, if anything. Well, I’m here now, and I’m making waves. It puts me slightly at ease to know people probably don’t understand what I’m saying.
“Well, as long as I’m in charge, it doesn’t matter what you think. We need the Marchettis’ resources, which means we need this alliance. So don’t fuck it up,” my mother states for the hundredth time. “I don’t trust them, so I want you to keep a close eye on the girl.”
“I know. I get it.” Though why she sent her only son hundreds of miles away into the territory of a family she doesn’t trust? That I don’t get.
Not that I can’t fend for myself. But it seems an unnecessary risk for a payout that’s not guaranteed. If Lorenzo Marchetti cared about his daughter, he wouldn’t have agreed to this deal in the first place. So having Silvia in our back pocket doesn’t seem like a big bargaining chip to me.
“I don’t think you do,” my mother snaps. “Because we’re having this conversationagain, Pyotr. I want you to make a statement. No one touches the Marchetti girl because she’s ours. Even if you aren’t married yet. I want it crystal clear what our family is capable of because we can’t be fighting battles on two fronts. We’re stretched thin as it is.”
“And whose fault is that?” I demand, irritated by the way she moves me around the board like a chess piece.
“Don’t you dare throw that in my face,” my mother hisses across the line. “Everything I’ve ever done was for you, to strengthen our family until you came of age. I didn’t ask for this. Your father wasn’t supposed to die.”
Vitriol drips from my mother’s voice. She’s never forgiven my father for abandoning her. He was the kingpin, a god among men who could command respect with the lightest touch. I know my mother has had to fight and claw for every drop of respect she’s earned as the Matron. She’s a woman in a man’s world, after all.
And I do appreciate that she’s kept our family strong, grown it even, in the decade since my father’s death. But some of her moves have been too bold, too greedy, and we’re paying for it now.
“All I’m saying is we shouldn’t be wasting our time in Chicago at all.” I keep my tone even, attempting to sound rational rather than argumentative.
“Yeah, well, you can blame your Petrov cousins for that. They’re the ones who thought expanding was the answer, and they bit off more than they could chew. Now, I’m making the best of their mess,” my mother countered.
“But as you said, you’re in charge,” I say flatly, pointing out that she’s the one who agreed to their plan and set it in motion.
The dig drives home. My mother snarls across the line, and I’m sure if I were in her presence, she’d have slapped me. “Just get it done, Pyotr.”
“I will.” I hang up, knowing further discussion won’t put us in a better place.
I pushed it too far. Even as the Matron’s son, I shouldn’t question her authority. It makes us weaker as a family–which is the last thing we need. My mother is making the calls she thinks are necessary. And she’s made plenty of good ones since she took over for my father. But this time, she’s wrong.
She shouldn’t have let my cousins Pasha and Dimitri come to Chicago in the first place. She shouldn’t have backed their revenge plan after they nearly got wiped out years ago by Ilya Popov. And she sure as fuck shouldn’t have decided to make a power struggle out of it by kidnapping Bianka Popov.
Like she said, we’re stretched too thin already. I can see why she took advantage of the circumstances and formed a marriage alliance with the Marchettis. They’re one of the most prominent mafia families in the Midwest with the resources to prove it. But we’re fighting battles on too many fronts.
Still, I shouldn’t have mouthed off. First and foremost, she’s the head of our Bratva. The Matron. She’s my mother, only second to that. I treated her with less respect than she’s due as my… well,pakhan, for all intents and purposes, even if women can’t hold that title.
But I let my temper get the better of me. I’ll have to deal with it later. Right now, I need to cool down. And get to class.
Shoving my phone into my pocket, I keep my eyes on the path in front of me. Students give me a wide berth, seeming to detect my mood. A melodic giggle cuts into my haze of irritation, and I glance left toward the steps of a looming graystone building.
The sight of Silvia pulls me up short as I realize we’re near the same spot where I ran into her on our first day of class. She hasn’t spoken to me since. Anytime I passed her, even in our one class together, she avoided me completely, which is what I wanted. Whenever our eyes meet, she averts her gaze, showing me she got my message loud and clear.
But now I guess that’s going to have to change. If my mother wants a statement, if I have to make it clear that Silvia’s my betrothed, I suppose I’ll have to speak with her. I feel my last dregs of freedom circling the drain as I approach.
She’s dressed in a flowing floral sundress today that makes her look younger than her age, the pastels combined with the shapeless cut border on girlish. Her light makeup lends to her youthful look, along with the bright smile that lights her face.
