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“Blyad’, he had said Mom’s life is in my hands, and what do I do? I’m here, doing exactly what he warned me not to do.” Indecision gnawed her hollow as she looked first down the right hallway, then the left. “I’m not running away. If Mother is here, I’m taking her home with me, even if I have to shoot him to get her out.”
Vanya hadn’t forgotten Andrei’s promise the day she killed Janos. She also recalled the challenge she had sneered at him in response.
“Bring it, Andrei. I’ll be waiting.”
However much she had been crawling among the ashes with the news that he was her half-brother and out to destroy her entire family, Vanya couldn’t accept it as true. Even now, standing in his house, nothing of what Janos had claimed rang true. Not in her mind… and definitely not in her heart. She didn’t believe in faerie tales, and although Andrei had destroyed the trust and love she had for him long before that incident, she had no desire to kill him.
Except if it was to keep her family safe. Family always came first, and for her own mother, she would gladly give her life. Not confronting a mortal threat wasn’t in her DNA.
“I’m done waiting, Pakhan Smirnoff. I’ve come to you. So, if this is gonna be a showdown, so be it.” Squaring her shoulders, she made her way to the left, and quickly checked every room.
“Oh, thank God!” she exclaimed as she opened the last door and walked into a room to find her mother sitting up in a large four-poster bed.
“Vanya?” she said sleepily. “What are you doing here?” She glanced out the window, then peered past her into the hallway. “How did you get in here? Where’s Andrei?”
“Isus Hristos, Mom. I haven’t seen or talked to you in months. I came here expecting you to still be in a coma, and the first thing you do is bombard me with questions. How about morning, Vanya? How are you?” Vanya sat down on the bed and clasped her mother’s hands. For the first time ever, she yearned to feel her mother’s arms around her.
“I thought you were dead. When you disappeared from the hospital, I… I’m sorry I didn’t come looking for you immediately, but I had to… I had to… I’m so sorry, Mom.”
All the emotional baggage burst open at that moment as Zafira spread her arms and hugged her tightly. She clung to her mother as if she was the only lifeline left.
“I was in such a bad place. Instead of being there for you, I fell off the edge. God, I still can’t believe how close I came to self-destructing. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.” Vanya’s chest heaved with broken sobs.
“Enough, my darling. Shh, no more crying. I firmly believe everything we’re going through now will soon pass.” Zafira gently rocked her, just like she had done when she was a little girl. “Shh, my little princess. I’m here.”
Slick with sweat, Andrei bounced up and down to the steady beat of the music in his ears. He panted as he took a slug of water. Glancing around, he inhaled the fresh morning air. The breezy run through the abandon of primordial beauty always astounded and rejuvenated him. Sunlight tinted the forest and lake with a golden glow, creating a natural and breathtaking panoramic of the morning. He would never tire of the expansive scene.
He stopped with a grim look crossing his face as he took note of the position of the sun. His voice echoed on the breeze as he turned and started jogging back to the house.
“I guess she’s had enough time to breach the house and findComareby now.”
He had been expecting Vanya to show up since the day at Club Extaz when he’d admitted to having taken Zafira. More accurately, he had been waiting for her since she went back to work after Arian had forced her into rehab under Bogdan’s care.
When he had noticed the lone sailor rowing a small fishing boat to the center of the lake, he knew their face-off had finally arrived.
The circumference of the lake comprised the boundaries of the private estate. Those who did fish here were seasoned anglers who knew not to pull a seventeen-foot skiff through the water with eight-foot oars. Not only were the oars too short, but there were also no oar rights to keep them balanced in their towers. In the end, what transpired was the unmasking of an amateur.
From the vantage point of a sniper, Andrei had watched with amusement through a pair of high-powered binoculars as the novice sailor, unaware of the scene she had managed to create, ended up entertaining an untold number of spectators as they, too, watched as she mangled her passage forward.
“It’s time to clip her wings—for good. This nonsense of drowning herself in booze and getting high whenever life throws her lemons has to stop. She’s better than that. It’s fucking time she realizes it.”
Time was a relative concept that allowed retrospection and corrective measures if a person was open to it. Andrei wore the mantle of being a fair and just man like a badge of honor. Words blurted out in a moment of heated passion could be as dangerous as rash actions taken without thought. He was a staunch believer in granting second chances. If he didn’t, he would’ve been dead long ago.
Although Vanya had killed his uncle, it was exactly what he would’ve done had their roles been reversed.
It can be said that in the criminal underworld, acts of violence committed by one family upon another in the struggle for supremacy were usually returned disproportionately in an attempt to decapitate the offending power structure. Often, this retributive violence only succeeded in begetting more violence. Where one head was severed, two grew back. And so, all-out war ensued, with each side inflicting so much damage as to disrupt the genetic hierarchy. Outside help was then enlisted to fill the vacancies until such time that a blood member could reassume the reins of power.
In rare circumstances, to stop the cycle of violence, exceptions were made. Andrei understood this, especially now, where his past intimately merged with that of Vanya’s. Even she, the hardened Mafiosa, deserved a second chance.
Except, his benevolence was just as likely to be preempted by Vanya’s obstinate nature. How she had survived this long while engaging in behavior that continued to put herself in harm’s way was unknowable. Inasmuch as it could be attributed to a combination of luck and skill, it was always in the back of the minds of those who knew her best at what point would the application of one or both of those ingredients from that mixture fail, with the likely result ending with her untimely death.
As one of the leaders of the most revered Bratva group in the EU, she knew how the unwritten rules worked. One became the top dog by eliminating the weak. This was accomplished with help from family and loved ones against those one wished to unseat—just like the attempted assassination onComarehad proved.
He would’ve thought he had made it very clear to her, Bogdan, and Arian that he was keeping Zafira safe.
“But does she listen?” he scoffed as he ran. “No. The little chit has an impenetrable mind of her own. I can only hope she hasn’t led the assassin directly here.”
Chapter Ten
