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I don’t want this to be my life at all.”
“I know, and that’s exactly the decision that your parents wanted you to be able to make. But I’m afraid…I’m afraid that, with a high price placed on your head, you have to fight back in order to stay alive. The truth is, sweet Nikolai, if you don’t take Vladimir’s life, he will take yours.”
“And what about this place? Where are we, even?” I asked.
“You really don’t remember? This was your parents home. They stopped taking you here when you were just a toddler, after they decided they wanted you to grow up as normal as possible, in a normal apartment in Queens. But you used to come here all the time as a little one.
I was young myself, then, just 10 years older than you. All that is to say, this is still your home,
Nikolai. Everything here is yours.” I took a look around the room.
“And you? And all those people back in the hallway? Who are they?”
“They’re loyalists to your parents, Nikolai. As soon as Vladimir took over, they defected and left the Russian mafia. They pretended they didn’t know that Vladimir had murdered your parents, so that he wouldn’t see them as targets, but of course they knew. But this manor was legally in your parents name, and there was no way Nikolai could take that. So everyone—Svetlana, Igor, Roman, and Mr. Ivanov the butler—have been living here since your parents passed on, waiting for this day. Waiting to meet you—their new leader.”
Nikolai found himself nearly falling asleep against Damien’s beating heart, his chest muscles as hard as a rock. He wished this had been story time, back like when he was a little kid, and that the entire thing was make believe. That a distant family member wanted him dead felt inconceivable—as if this weren’t reality, as if his every sense was playing tricks on him. He reached his hand and grabbed Damien’s left calf, squeezing his way up the leg just as Damien had squeezed his hand down Nikolai’s arm. Nikolai felt his muscles, which were real; he pulled his head off of Damien’s chest and looked the man in his dark brown eyes, which were real. He could smell what smelled like vanilla coming from Damien’s breath, the sound of which was like that of an ocean—again, real. As Damien looked at Nikolai’s boyish face, he could hardly stop himself from leaning in to kiss his new leader, who was so emotional and yet strong. He began to lean in before the door opened once more and the butler appeared. Damien pulled his face away from Nikolai’s faster than you could say “vodka.”
“Mr. Nikolai, would you like me to show you to your bedroom?” he asked. “There is a phone in there, and your grandfather is on the line waiting to speak with you.”
Nikolai stood up without answering the butler, practically jogging towards the door in anticipation of speaking with his grandfather. Damien realized it had been a close call; he wondered if Nikolai felt anything towards him that mirrored how he felt towards Nikolai, but doubted it. He’d known about Nikolai his entire life; Nikolai had just met him, and not under the best circumstances.
“You can just call me Nikolai,” the young man said to the butler as they climbed the steps. “No ‘Mr.’ needed.”
“Alright Nikolai, very well,” the butler replied.
“My grandfather called the house?” Nikolai asked.
“Of course,” the butler said. “He doesn’t love this place—nor this part of your mother’s history—but he knows the number by heart.”
Chapter 4
Damien
I knew it was overstepping, but I couldn’t help but listen in on Nikolai’s call with his grandfather. I was worried about him—especially that he might try to leave and thus expose himself to Vladimir, who surely had picked up on what was going on when he’d seen me snatch Nikolai into the black Escalade. I couldn’t risk him trying to run away, and the boy wasn’t exactly opening up to me. I needed to see where his head was at.
Before Nikolai reached his room, I had picked up the kitchen phone to listen in. His grandfather, who must have been hard of hearing, didn’t notice the click when I came on the line. A few seconds later, Nikolai was on.
“Grandpa? Are you there?”
“Yes, my boy, I’m here. Don’t worry,” his grandfather said.
“Don’t worry? Are you kidding me? I was justkidnapped. And you’re telling me not to worry!?”
“Oh well yes, I know that must be quite a shock to the system, my boy. I was shocked to get the call as well. But what’s important for the time being is that you’re in safe hands.”
“How could you not tell me about this? About any of this?” Nikolai’s voice was shaking.
“Well, I, you see…” his grandfather mumbled. I could tell he wasn’t used to hearing his grandson so angry. Of course not—that boy was as sweet as sweet as the bird’s milk cake his mother Kira used to give me when I was a little child—my own parents were always drunk and reprimanding her, telling her not to waste her treats on such an undeserving little wussy.
“You pay them no mind,” Kira used to whisper in my ear.
“What? What, Grandpa?” Nikolai practically yelled.
“Well, I guess I didn’t want to believe it would really happen. I’d hoped they’d all died off, the whole lot of them. I guess it was wishful thinking.”
“The whole lot of who?”
“Your mother’s side of the family, and her friends,” his Grandpa replied. That hurt a bit, but I had to remember I didn’t know the man, and frankly, I could see where he was coming from, even if I had dedicated my life to the mafia. “Oh, she was so lovely, your mother, but I told your father that if he got involved with her, with herkind, it would cause nothing but trouble. And here we are, nearly 20 years after they got married and 18 years since you were born, and the goddamn mafia is still screwing up our lives. I wanted your father to be with your mother. I just didn’t want him to get into the business. But you know, the boy never listened to me…” Nikolai’s grandfather began to trail off, making little noises and no sense.
