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Goddamn the Bratva, source of my secret and bane of my existence. Alex wasn’t lying when he said they were back to their old tricks, lurking around and sabotaging our shipments. Their interference came in waves. They messed with us, we fought back, and they retreated for a time, the cycle repeating itself endlessly. With other Romanian clans, there were options like negotiations or arranged marriages.
Not with the Bratva. With them, it was pure hate.
And I had reason to hate them, more at stake to keep them off our territory.
“And since when does someone not like you?” He raised an eyebrow challenging me. “Every virgin in a ten-mile radius sighs at the sound of your name, and Clara’s the virgin of all virgins. She’s the Virgin Queen, is she not?”
“She is…,” I replied carefully. “But we clashed during my time in Cali. She’s…something else.”
Luca finally intervened, not used to coming to my aid. I’d never needed backup before, but I simply couldn’t watch over her. The woman was a menace. Worse still, she twisted me up inside. The heat that invaded my body when I was around her, the lust I felt for her, was unnatural, unhealthy. Certainly wasn’t good for my mental health; I could testify to that.
Luca finally interrupted, “He’s busy, Alex. Hasn’t he done enough with the Hagi clan? Give this one to Sebastian.”
Ignoring his younger brother by two years, Alex’s voice turned hard. Hard like the sef he was, not the friend who loved me like blood. His wife, Nina, was the only person who never saw this side of him. With her, he was a pussycat, through and through.
“Sebastian isn’t experienced or high enough on the totem pole yet. It’d be an insult to her. If she doesn’t like you…then make her like you. Surely you can do that much for me?”
With a weary sigh, he leaned back into his high-backed chair, reminding me of how much responsibility he carried on his shoulders. I pinched the bridge of my nose. Knowing exactly how stressed he was, especially with the Bratva—the same Bratva that had killed his father—I felt my resistance crumble.
As if knowing how close I was to succumbing, he went on, “I don’t like to lose, Tatum. You’re the fixer, so fucking fix this. I’m too busy for this shit right now. Nina and I are trying to start a family, so I need to focus on my woman. That Bratva scum, Ivanov, is up to no good, and I can smell their intentions like week-old garbage during a New York blackout. You’re more than capable of taking care of this, and I need someone I can trust. I’m leaving her in your hands. End of story.”
His rigid features softened a touch after laying it out like a hard-ass.
Tempering his tone of voice, he finished, “You haven’t let me down yet. You succeed in everything you do. You can do this, too.”
I swallowed down the retort hovering on the tip of my tongue. You have no idea to what extent I’ve let you down, brother.
But no. That wasn’t a possibility. The image of my father the day his secret became mine shimmered in my mind’s eye. He’d come home early, looking far too smug. My father was rarely happy, but there was no denying the self-satisfied expression on his face. He’d always been a liability to our family, and when he was in the shower, I stole his phone and checked the last person he called.
Ivanov.
No, no, no.
The Bratva boss.
Our sef, Alex’s father, would’ve never engaged with the Bratva. There was no one he hated more than them. My father contacting the head of the New York Bratva was a rogue and dangerous move. The kamikaze move of a man on a suicide mission. Only later would I find out quite how perilous a move it was.
My father was Rudari, an ethnic group linked to the Roma that worked as mine workers and gold panners. That made sense for my father. He was always panning for gold in the shit that was his life. When he saw Alex stick up for me when I was bullied about my heritage in school, when he realized how close Alex and I had become, when it became clear to him I might become the next consilier, he decided to hurry things along by getting our sef killed by the Bratva.
For once, my unlucky father bet on the right horse. Our sef was gunned down in broad daylight, forcing Alex to take over our clan. The day Alex called me to his side as his consilier, my father was gleeful. In a drunken spree afterward, he crowed to me what I’d already suspected. He’d been behind the hit. The only good that came out of the Summer of Blood, as we dubbed the summer of retribution for our sef’s murder, was that my own father was eliminated by the same Bratva he’d conspired with.
I didn’t feel an ounce of regret for his demise, even if it left me alone, saddled with his secret.
And that secret reared its ugly head anytime I wanted to bow out, to be imperfect, to be human. I lived a lie. I was the second-hand man of the most powerful mafie sef to exist, and at the same time, I was the son of his father’s murderer.
Knowing that did something to a man.
Guilt wasn’t my only motivation. I loved him like a brother but feared him as a sef. He was ruthless. I’d seen it in action during the Summer of Blood; the gifts of severed heads left on the doorsteps of the Bratva brass, taking a page from the book of our illustrious Romanian, Vlad the Impaler.
With all the heavy baggage weighing on my shoulders, I did what I always did.
I bowed my head and replied, “Yes, sef.”
I didn’t mess with women, and she was most definitely not a woman to mess with. She taunted and teased me every opportunity she got. She was a downright bitch at times. But I’d do what was expected of me. Out of guilt for my father. Out of love for Alex. Out of fear for my mother and sister.
I’d somehow figure out a way to make this work. I had no other choice.
