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“Come, darling” she said softly and held her hand out to me.
I slipped my palm in hers and let her lead me down the hallway, around the corner, and followed her as we descended the stairs. She took me to the gardens, a place I knew was where she found her solitude, where she felt safe and free.
I felt the tears start to fall as we sat on the wrought iron bench and stared at the blooming roses. The gardens were meticulously landscaped, mainly by the workers coming in daily to tend to it as if it were a religion, but my mother could also be found here during her free time.
“Mamma,” I whispered her name again and felt her hand cover mine, which rested on my lap. As I sat beside my mother I felt like a little girl again. I felt as vulnerable as one. “He's the bratva.” My mother knew this, yet I said it again, as if it would make a difference, change my fate.
She didn’t speak, but her silence was comforting in itself.
“Does Gio know? Claudia?” They’d know eventually, sooner rather than later.
“Gio was told.” She shifted beside me. “He wasn’t pleased with your father’s decision, but there wasn’t anything to be done. The deal had already been made.”
The deal had already been made.
I looked at my very traditional Italian mother and waited until she glanced at me. I stared up into her crystalline blue eyes, ones the exact same shade as mine. It was the only thing all three of us had inherited from her. Where she was fair skin and blonde hair, me and my siblings took after my father’s darker Sicilian side with our olive skin tone and black hair.
“In life we have to make sacrifices.” She swallowed. “We have to do things we don’t want for things to stay positive.” She lifted her hand and cupped the side of my face.
I’d grown up knowing the Russian mafia was the enemy, a dangerous and brutal organization, one my father said was filled with savages.
She smoothed her thumb over my cheek and dropped her hand back to her lap, glancing at the gardens once more. I did the same.
“Amara,” she said my name softly and my throat tightened.
I knew that tone. It was the one she used when things were lost, when there was nothing to do but obey.
I closed my eyes and felt more tears move down my cheeks. I knew the man I was to marry would be cruel. He’d be like my father… he’d be like all the men in our world. And there was nothing I could do. Running wasn’t an option. I had security with me constantly, a precaution my father took because there were men, bad men like him, who would use me to get to him. I had no money, no real friends to turn to for help. I had nothing to my name aside from what was in the home behind me.
So here I was, knowing my life was in the hands of others, knowing I had no choice but to go along and hope for the best.
Because as soon as I said “I do” to Nikolai Petrov, I’d be nothing but a vessel for his sexual depravity, and the babies he’d make me have for him.
2
Nikolai
The lights were obnoxious, the music too loud. And the people grinding and bumping against each other reminded me of cattle. They stunk, were sweaty, and I found myself curling my upper lip in disgust.
I followed my older brother Dmitry through the dance floor, the bodies parting ahead of us, my fingers twitching because all I thought about was pulling out my gun and shooting the next drunken asshole who elbowed me.
We finally made it to the backroom, and once the door was shut behind me, I leaned against it, crossing my arms over my chest, my leather jacket stretching across my chest, my hand close to my gun tucked in the holster at my side.
Dmitry had been silent for the last twenty minutes since we found out we had a motherfucking traitor right under our noses. I could feel the tension and aggression seething from him because of it.
My brother walked over to the scarred wooden desk across from the door, a stack of papers on one side, the rest scatteredacross the top. The grey, old as fuck chair behind it was pressed to the wall, the large black stain and three holes on the backrest a lasting memory that had me smirking on how it got there.
Because of me. Because I’d shot the bastard who’d been sitting in it just last year. Fucker had been cooking our books and skimming off the top.
I made sure to put that problem to rest real damn fast. And I got a thrill of pleasure every time I stared at that dam near black stain from where I’d put three bullets in his chest.
“Where is he?” Dmitry finally spoke, his voice deep, rough, and filled with a hell of a lot of emotions.
“They’re bringing him in, Pakhan.” Vladislav said, staying to the side, his hands clasped behind his back and taking on the stance of a good and loyal soldier.
And the prick they were bringing to us? Stupid asshole had also been stealing from us. But that wasn’t even the biggest issue. If that had been the only issue that had come up I would have made an example of him by cutting off his hands.
But nah, the bastard was also giving intel to our enemies, making back alley fucking deals to line his pockets and gain connections. Fucker actually thought we wouldn’t find out.
