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Chapter 24 - Ivan
"You were right, Audrey. I am the leader of the Bratva," I had said to her with a struggle. A part of me was slightly afraid that she would leave me if I told her the truth but I had to take my chances on the bond we had formed so far.
"Yeah, no shit. I know that, Ivan," she said after a pause, "I learned that as the mansion was falling over our heads, remember?" Her response caught me unawares as the sarcasm intertwined was unexpected.
"What was that winding tunnel we took to get here? I never knew such a place existed under the city.” For whatever reason, she chose to start there.
“Yeah well, the city’s crawling with them,” I began to share the history of the intricate underground network of tunnels, “They had once been the creation of a paranoid millionaire, who, driven by fear for his life, carved out places of safety in the face of an uncertain world. Ironically, the millionaire in question starved to death in one of his bunker after he had accidentally locked himself inside during an attack on his premises.”
“That’s terrifying. Sort of reminds me of a short story by Edgar Allan Poe about this man who had been buried alive. It’s truly a horrible experience.”
“Stay confined long enough in a place, one is bound to become claustrophobic, no matter how large it is. My father would often say before leaving me in a well or trapping me in a tight cellar for days. There was even a time, when I was a teenager and he caught me playing with some boys from a rival Mafia gang, he had left me in the cellar for months," I revealed to her. She sat up and stared at me with sympathy.
"I'm sorry that you had to go through all that," her soft voice spoke.
"It's alright. It's all in the past," I assured her. It was a beautiful experience being able to tell her any and everything. I thought back to the confession I made to her.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I mean, how exactly does one tell the woman they want to keep in their life that they're the leader of a criminal organization?" I shrugged.
"Have you ever killed anyone before?" She asked suddenly.
I waited, thinking of what to say before I opted for the truth, "Yes. Yes, I have." She gasped and withdrew deeper into the bed.
"And what about Josephine?"
"It was an accident. She had gotten a call from someone who claimed to be me that drew to the scene of an active gang crossfire. She got shot and her brother, the dead man you had seen in the alley, blamed me for it, even after I tried to explain to him that I never made the call."
"If you didn't make the call, who did?" She was puzzled.
"I have no idea," I remarked. I did suspect it was someone who knew about my schedule and about her, someone close to me. I began to wonder if this someone wasn't the same person who had been revealing the organization's secrets to the Bianchis.
"My father was involved in various crimes but when I took power, I abandoned his ways and dismantled his operations. I wasn't lying to you when I said the organization worked on favors. Leveraging on the influence of the organization, I used the power to do favors for powerful figures for which they would owe us for. That's how the business mostly runs under me.
"Any other questions?"
"Are all your family members part of it?"
"Everyone except Vanya. In spite of her constant efforts to insert herself into it, she’s kept out of it. My brother Mikhail chose to leave, but that brought bitter consequences…" I answered swiftly.
"I-I need to be on my own to think about all of this. I need to process everything," she turned around and leaned on the wall.
I was about to approach her despite her request for space when the emergency phone rang. Anton was the only one who knew the number besides the good doctor and myself.
“What’s the casualty rate?” I requested.
“Oh, Ivan. Are you still at the doc’s?"
"What is the casualty rate, Anton?" I asked again.
"A large number of the servants and guards were wiped out in the attack.”
“Fuck! What about Katarzyna?” I asked, my mind hoping for some good news.
“I’m afraid she didn’t make it,” Anton’s voice was low and somber.
I was shaken by the news. The old woman had always served the family diligently. I recalled when I had been made Boss and I’d told her to retire from service. She had refused, stating that she had nowhere else to go and she would mostly definitely die in service of the family. In the end, her words had come true.
I looked at the door and thought at Langdon, Sarah and their son, and I couldn't bear to be the cause of their deaths. I had watched Diego die in front of me. No more. I made arrangements with Anton and then dropped the phone onto the bed. No fucking more.
