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“Thank you, Mr. Ivanov. That’s fine,” Damien said. The butler, Mr. Ivanov, bowed his head and retreated back into the hallway, from where I continued to hear the hushed murmurs of the motley crew I’d met—your family, as Damien had called them, even though clearly none of them were related to me. Damien gently lifted the teapot and poured its pink contents into each of the two cups. Steam escaped upward as he did so, disappearing just as I wished I could in that moment.
Damien took a deep breath and stared directly into my eyes.
“Nikolai, your parents didn’t want you to know about the mafia until you were 18.” Damien took a sip of the red fruit tea, placed it back down on the coffee table, and ripped open a pack of sugar, dumping its content into the cup and swirling it around with a small spoon. “They wanted you to live a normal life until you reached manhood, so you could decide for yourself if this was something you wanted to be a part of. If you were to grow up with it, as I did, they feared you would feel forced into the lifestyle, or that your young brain would grow attached to it simply because it’s what mommy and daddy did. They thought you might want to live like a civilian, and so they were going to wait until your 18th birthday, today, to tell you.” I didn’t say a word.
“Your mother was the daughter of Igor Obolensky”—he pointed again towards the giant painted portrait above the fireplace—”and thus was the Russian Mafia Princess of New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. Your grandfather was one of the most powerful men in America—a multi, multimillionaire at the time, which would be more like a billionaire today. We’re talking about the ‘70s. When he passed away, like I said, the mafia was your mother’s birthright. She and your father took over, but they began to change things.”
I continued to sit still, gazing into Damien’s eyes as if breaking their contact for even a moment might kill me. “How?” I asked. I realized my voice sounded cold.
“Your mother didn’t want the mafia to be ‘the bad guys’ anymore. She wanted to use her power and wealth for good. She didn’t mind operating outside of the law, but she insisted that, if the family were to continue to do so, they were going to do it in ways they could be proud of.”
“How can career criminals beproudof anything they’ve done?”
“They began to protect gay bars, for example,” Damien said, finally breaking his eye contact with me to reach for his cup and sip more tea. “Police were still raiding those spots in the West Village back in the ‘80s, but your mother and father decided to protect them with muscle for no cost. They literally didn’t even charge a fee.”
“Gay bars?” I asked. I knew my parents didn’t have anything against gay people, including their son, but this still surprised me for whatever reason. Of course, nothing really should have surprised me at that point. I could see Damien, just for a moment, becoming shy, turning away from me as he spoke about the gay bars.
“Absolutely. And they continued to run some of your grandfather’s illegal businesses—cement, fishing, used cars, and bananas, funnily enough—using only illegal immigrants, but paying them even more than the minimum wage. Your mother was the first generation of Americans in your family, and it was important to her to give to other immigrants what this country had given to her. She did not like seeing the Irish or the Chinese immigrants being abused by rich white Americans, or being deported even.” Damien paused for another sip. “That last part, that’s important. Because the Russian mafia helping the Irish and the Chinese—well, that was unheard of. They had their own mafias to help them. And what’s more, those mafias had traditionally been our enemies. They had a lot of Russian blood on their hands, and here we were helping them. You can imagine that not everyone was in favor, you see. Your parents had made themselves some enemies.”
“But if they were helping the other families, why would any of them become enemies?”
“It wasn’t the other families who became their enemies. It was their own family. You see, your mother had a younger cousin, Vladimir, who didn’t agree with what your parents were doing. He was a diehard Russian who believed that our faction of the mafia should not only watch out just for ourselves, but that we should in fact actively be trying to eliminate all of the competition. He did not believe there was enough space in New York City for all of us—the Irish, the Chinese, the Italians, of course, and so on. He begged and pleaded with your mother and father to return things to how they were when Mr. Obelensky was in charge. He told her she was weak, and that your father was weak too. He did not believe that they were fit for the mafia.
“One day, the Italians reported that Vladimir had gotten into a dispute with one of their men down by the docks in Bay Ridge, and that Vladimir had shot the man in the leg while he was trying to run away. The man still escaped—Vladimir likely would have killed him, otherwise. Your mother and father called a meeting, and Vladimir was put on probation. He was temporarily stripped of his honors and stripped of his gun. Your parents told him he was to remain low for a few years, and told the Italians as much in order to keep them happy, despite one of their men having been shot by a Russian. But Vladimir was too hot headed for that, too violent and too passionate about the Russians taking over New York, about returning things to ‘the good old days,’ as he called them. Secretly, he began to amass his own following of Russians who agreed with him, and they plotted to kill your parents. Two years ago, they did so.”
“My parents died in a car accident,” I said. I could feel a tear forming in my right eye.
“Your parents died in a carcrash, Nikolai. There was no accident. Why do you think they never found the car that hit them? Why do you think the cameras at that stop light were conveniently broken that day? The entire thing was manufactured. It was manufactured by
Vladimir. Your parents didn’t just die, young Nikolai. They were killed.” I wiped the tear off of my cheek and tried to regain my composure.
“So, what is Vladimir to me?” I asked.
“Well, for one thing, he is your enemy. That’s for sure. But in terms of your lineage, he is your second cousin.”
“Was he the one chasing us earlier?”
“One of his men, or a few of them, surely. I doubt he was in the car.”
“But why? What does he want with me?”
“When Vladimir killed your parents, it was part of an usurpation. He took over the Russian mafia, even though you were the rightful heir. He never admitted to the murders of course, and because of your age, he was next in line for the throne. But now that you're 18, the mafia is technically yours to run. Thus, you’re a direct threat to his power. He wants to remove you in order to maintain his control.”
“So I’ve been living in danger basically the entire time since my parents died?”
“Not exactly. We have a strict code of ethics, most of which even Vladimir follows. The killing of children is absolutely out of the question. But as of this morning, you are no longer a child. You are a man.”
Damien squeezed his hand on my arm. His touch reassured me for a moment.
“So what you’re telling me is that Vladimir killed my parents—who ran the Russian mafia—then took over said mafia, and now wants me dead so I won’t threaten his reign, now that I’m of age. Is that it?”
“Precisely,” Damien said.
“And what if I don’t want anything to do with the mafia? Why can’t we just tell Vladimir that?” I asked.
“He won’t care,” Damien replied. “You could change your mind. He’ll always see you as a threat. He will do anything to consolidate his power.”
“But it’s true—I don’twantanything to do with this. I want to go back to my grandfather.
