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“Grounding will look like a walk in the park compared to the lockdown I’ll implement myself. Believe me, I don’t want to do that, but you’ve got to work with me. We’ve got to work together.”
Her eyes are rimmed in red and she looks so innocent at this moment. She may be a hellion, but she’s my hellion, and I don’t want to crush her spirit. I like her feisty. Hell, I like her combative.
But I like her alive best.
“What do you mean?”
“If you get an itch to leave the ’hood, you call me. Promise me that when you go to school, you’ll either call me to drive you or you can keep riding the subway with Star and Gabby. The only reason I’m allowing the second option is because I don’t want to change your habits. He thinks that you’ve kept him a secret and I don’t want to tip him off that anyone knows about him. Otherwise, all hell would’ve broken loose and we’d be in a full-scale war. He bet on the fact that you wouldn’t want that on your head.”
She cants her head to the side. “Why haven’t you told anyone, Marku? It makes you complicit in this.”
“For the same reason you haven’t.”
A couple of Lupu made men assassinated the former Bratva boss, with theirsef’spermission. I can’t even catch one man—one—but they somehow managed to kill a boss. Life isn’t fair. War is surely coming, but why catapult us into it before we’re ready? The clans need time to trust each other and to prepare more. Our truce was only a few months ago. And speaking of truces…
“We need to have a truce on this.”
She barks out a laugh. “A truce?”
I wrap my hand over hers and hold her gaze until her laughter trails off. “Yes, a truce. If you want to go anywhere, and I mean anywhere, I’ll escort you. No questions. No judgements. Text me the time and place and I’ll be there. You can do whatever you want, and I can make sure you’re safe. What do you think?”
She purses her lips, moving them left and right as she ponders my suggestion, then lifts a shoulder. “I guess I could do that.”
Tension leaks from my body, my shoulders loosening. I take a cleansing breath. “It’s settled then.”
Cracking a wide smile, I push her back into the seat and croon, “Let me take care of you for being such a good girl.”
Looking back, I shouldn’t have been so quick to reward her.
CHAPTER12
CRINA
Inever intended to hold up my side of the truce.
It’s not that I didn’t want to, but how can I when I’ve got to wheatpaste half the neighborhood in the middle of the night?
I’m on social media, sure, but I want to do something that reaches my people directly, and my people are right here in Little Bucharest. And anyway, posting on TikTok is not nearly as fun or daring as plastering guerrilla art in public spaces. I can’t tell you the pride I felt when I waited for the light to change on the way to school with my friends and Gabby leaned on a street pole covered inmywords.
I stuff the latest pile of large flyers I printed out into my messenger bag. I already transferred the buckets of wheatpaste that I store on the roof to the side of the house after my parents settled in for the evening. After I wheatpaste these babies, I’m going to treat myself by checking out open mic night at the Bowery Poetry Club.
I swing the messenger bag over my shoulder and prop myself up on the sill of my open bedroom window, white curtains fluttering in the breeze.
My last conversation with Marku echoes in my mind. He threatened me and shamed me. He played on my heartstrings, on my loyalty to my clan, and on my worry over my father. He should know better. Mama’s the expert in both those skills. If I can defy her, then I’ll have no problem defying him. And as for the fear of God Marku tried to instill in me over good-for-nothing Sperm Donor? It didn’t work. Kotov is going to do what he’s going to do. Like I told Marku, if he wants to grab me, he will. I’m not going to stop my life for a danger I can’t protect myself from.
You’re letting him think we can’t take care of our own.
That accusation reverberates in my head.
The clans need time to trust each other and prepare…
I shake off his words.
Marku sees danger everywhere. It’s the way of made men. That doesn’t make it reality. It’s not my reality, in any case. I make that the last thought I devote to this annoying and useless ruminating of mine and swing my leg over the windowsill. I grasp the large branch outside my window. This is not the first time I’ve gone wheatpasting and I’ve never caught sight of him or any of his thugs when I’ve sneaked out at night to plaster the ‘hood with my poetry. There’s no way I’m going to stop because of the stupid Sperm Donor. The rough bark of the tree scrapes the inside of my thigh as I clasp the thick branch tighter.
I’ve got this.
I shimmy my way across the branch to the trunk. Once there, I gingerly make my way to standing and give the tree a hug. I always hug the tree as a thank you for being my escape route out of the house. Without the tree, I’d be as trapped as Rapunzel in her tower. I toss the messenger bag down, painstakingly make my way down the linden tree and take a final jump. Crash into the bushes, I roll myself onto the ground.
