Hopping up off the mats, I pulled Lennon up by her outstretched hand.
“Okay, I asked President Duke about target practice, and he said he didn’t think now was a good time. Maybe after the Alvarez job we can ask again.” Lennon nodded. “I think he just doesn’t want me to have a gun because he knows the temptation to shoot Pyro in the ass would be too great for any woman to overcome.”
“Tonight, we are going to learn to use Escrima sticks. They’re pretty popular in martial arts, and according to my phone, they’re originally Filipino. So that’s a fun fact.” I walked over to the rack that had been installed in the gym last week and grabbed two sets of sticks. Handing one set to Lennon, I rolled the other set over my wrists. “These sticks are used offensively and defensively.” I swung the sticks in an attack, and then held them up to demonstrate a block. “I chose these for us to go over because they’re easy to find in the wild. Any sturdy stick will do in a pinch. A chair leg, for example, could become an Escrima stick if you need one. Or a pool cue.”
Lennon watched me model a few strikes and blocks before she began to mirror my poses. We often ignored the mirrors in the gym and preferred to mimic each other.
“One of the guys who trained me taught me forms so I could learn how to use certain weapons, but memorizing forms can be a bit boring.” I walked over to my phone and attached it to a new, small blue speaker someone had left in the gym a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure who kept adding upgrades to the gym Lennon and I used so often, but whoever they were I loved them for the speaker alone. Working out to music made it infinitely more fun.
“Instead of forms, we’re going to dance.” I scrolled through my Feminine Rage playlist and selected “Castle” by Halsey for our first song. Setting my sticks down, I rolled my shoulders and started an eight-count out loud. The song had a good, steady beat that wasn’t too fast. On the second set of eight, I began to move, performing a form to the backbeat. I went slowly, and the rhythm of the music flowed through me as Lennon studied my every move. The music turned the form into a dance, and I knew that music was the key to Lennon. Like her dad,Sticks, music moved her, and Lennon learned better to music than she did to silence.
“Vigilante Shit” by Taylor Swift played next, and Lennon began to mirror my blocks and strikes. We performed a violent pas de deux. Lennon became more comfortable as the songs flowed, so we moved from mirroring each other to sparring. Bones and Priest must have gotten bored with the antics back at the clubhouse because they made their way into the gym. Lennon, an astute apprentice, didn’t let her attention wander. We sped up our movements to match the beat of the next song, and the sound of our Escrima sticks clacking together made music all on their own.
We were taking a water break, sticks left on the mats, when my phone began to ring. I saw my only non-Crow contact, Riordan, was calling. It had been a few days since he left the clubhouse with a vial of my DNA, and I felt in my bones that this call was about to change my life but I wasn’t sure if it would be for better, or worse?
I answered the phone, which happened to be a video call. Riordan’s face filled my screen, his green eyes glowing. “Hey, Riordan, how’s my favorite maybe-cousin?”
“Privet,Indi. Is now a good time to talk?” Ivan’s face loomed over Riordan’s shoulder, and he waved in greeting before he disappeared from view.
“Sure.” I panned the camera around the gym so he could see that Lennon, Bones, and Priest were with me. “As long as you don’t mind an audience.”
Riordan smiled tightly, seeming tense. “I don’t mind if you don’t. I’ll cut to the chase. We got your DNA test results back.”
Riordan smiled gently, which did little to expel my nervous energy. Did I want to know the results? If I was Tatiana’s daughter, did that change anything for me? It wouldn’t erase any of my past; wouldn’t change all of the fucked-up shit I’d lived through. Would it affect my future? That was the real question. What would it mean for me to have ties to the Petrov bratva?
“Would you like to hear the results,lisichka?” Riordan’s face softened with his question. Riordan was an enigma to me. On one hand, I knew he was the heir to the Petrov bratva, as capable of brutality as anyman involved in the underworld. More so, probably. On the other hand, Riordan seemed to genuinely care about his family and the fate of his aunt, my maybe-mother. I knew he was capable of darkness, but so far, he hadn’t directed any of that darkness toward me or mine.
I heaved a deep sigh. “Alright. Hit me, will I be invited to the next family reunion or not?”
Riordan gave me a small half smile. “We tested your DNA against Natalya’s. She was Tatiana’s identical twin if you recall. Your test came back with a fifty percent match. You are Tatiana Petrov’s daughter.” My head swam, and for a moment, I was thrown back into the dark, murky water of a memory.
I was sleeping when Uncle Roark stormed into my room. The force with which he threw open the door caused it to bang against the wall, waking me. He used his foot to slam the door closed behind him and flicked on the overhead fluorescent light. Uncle Roark’s face was pinched with rage, and his eyes glittered with vicious intent. I sank back into my bed and pulled my blanket up to my nose, trying to cover the soft whimper that escaped my lips. This wasn’t the first time he’d visited me in my room at night, and the knowledge that it wouldn’t be the last time sank into the pit of my stomach and settled there.
I wanted to run. Hide. Escape. Fight. I wanted to die if that was what it took to be free of the monster. No matter how hard I fought, the moment Uncle Roark came into the room, I froze. He was the predator, and I was prey, and nothing would ever change that. Rough hands grasped my blanket and jerked it off me, leaving my body trembling on the rapidly cooling bed.
I clamped my mouth closed, knowing that if I cried out it would only cause him to enjoy his cruel pleasure even more. Staying still and quiet when every fiber of my being recoiled at his touch was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do. I squeezed my eyes closed as I felt his brutal hands grip my ankles, prying them apart. Silent tears tracked down my face, and despite my best efforts a sob escaped through my clenched teeth.
Uncle Roark enjoyed my desperate misery, licking my tears off my face as he violated my body and soul. “Such a pretty whore, just like your mother,” he whispered. I turned my face to the wall and tried todisappear into my mind so I didn’t have to hear his words and feel his grasping hands. Bile surged up my throat, and I desperately swallowed it back down. The first time he’d ever raped me I threw up on him, causing him to beat me. I didn’t want to enrage him more than he already was. Uncle Roark truly was a beast, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do. Before I could get my mind to the special safe place in my head, he was finished. If I was lucky, he’d leave, and if I wasn’t… well, it would be a very long night.
Uncle Roark climbed off me and left a few moments later, and I felt pathetic for the gratitude I felt that it was over so quickly. Not for the first time, I pondered why he hated me so much. I knew he loathed my mother, a nameless whore according to Uncle Roark. He said “whore” with such disgust, I knew the word had to mean something truly horrible. Maybe she was the reason he hated me? Because he knew I was a part of her even though I had no memory of my mother. I hated and feared Uncle Roark, but I also hated my mother, whoever and wherever she was. She couldn’t have ever loved me if she’d leave me with such a beast.
I came back to myself and was aware that I had several sets of eyes on me. I cleared my throat and briskly wiped my eyes where a few tears had fallen. “Do you, uhm—” I cleared my throat again. “Do you know who my father is?”
Riordan shook his head. “We don’t know for certain, but it was probably whomever Tatiana was having an affair with.”
“But,” Lennon chimed in from beside me, “didn’t you say it was only a rumor that she was having an affair?”
Riordan took a deep breath before he replied. “We can be relatively certain that she was. She practically admitted as much to my aunt the last time they saw each other. She didn’t say who she was sleeping with, but she told Natalya that she was pregnant the last time they spoke.”
“But there’s a chance Roark could be her father, right? I mean… they were married.” Lennon couldn’t know how sick her words made me, but the idea that my tormentor and rapist could be my father made me want to vomit.
“We aren’t going down that particular rabbit hole right now. I’ve lived this long without knowing who my father is, I’m cool with notknowing. It adds to my mystique.” I smiled half-heartedly, trying to lighten the mood and distance myself from anymore strolls down Trauma Avenue while I had an audience. Sometimes a girl just wanted to break down in peace.
“You’re family now,lisichka.” Riordan peered solemnly through my phone screen. “I hope that we can build a relationship but understand if you need time to process. Is it okay if I tell my parents and Aunt Natalya what we have discovered?”
Priest, who’d been a silent observer next to Bones for the entire conversation, spoke up. “You just dropped a bombshell on her. Give her some time to think before you throw her to the wolves.”
Riordan bristled like he was about to snap a reply at Priest, but I cut him off before he could.“Just, give me a week or so to wrap my head around everything. Before today, I had no family…I didn’t even know my mother’s name. It’s…a lot. It’s brought up a lot of stuff I’d rather keep buried, and I’m not sure where I want to go from here.”
