All the other guys saw what was going to happen, but they didn’t tell him.
And all of us could see what was going to happen when these elevators hit the ground floor of the lobby, but no one was telling Mary Varvara Bell for the exact same reason.
And fuckingLogan.
LoganfuckingBell.
You don’t betray family like that. It never goes well.
And you sure as fuck don’t try to betrayme.
That shit never goes wellat all.
Like a mafia wife from one of the old families isn’t going toalwaysbe carrying a gun.
They didn’t even frisk me.
Fucking idiots.
35
SARAH BELL
Maybe it was my father’s bratva-stained blood that ran in my veins, and maybe it was the backward way he’d coached me my entire life to deal with his family in case I were ever confronted with them.
He told me stories about treachery and betrayal in the bratva.
He narrated our history and the arrogance that was every Vor’s downfall.
My father told me why he’d walked away, because he didn’t have the stomach for murder and the machinations it took to stay on top.
Maybe it was my mother’s fundamentalist blood that ran in my arteries, the strident adherence to what is right, the hardened resolve to defeat evil in whatever form it takes, the hard-working ability to live my life on the one true path and not be swayed by the Devil.
Or maybe it was the farmer’s ability to raise a baby chick from its fuzzy little birth, name it and cuddle it, and then chop off its head with an ax and eat it.
You might think, well, you eat chicken, but do you butcher her, drain her blood, and boil her up into Mavis Noodle Soup?
Because that’s farm life.
My aunt Mary Varvara Bell thought she was different than her father, the bratva Vor whom Blaze called the Malefactor, but she wasn’t.
She was just another easily manipulated thief because she had succumbed to the sin of pride.
And now as we walked through the lobby and the valley of the shadow of death, I feared no evil and kept my head high because I knew there would be an opportunity to escape or destroy her if I just kept my eyes open.
Mary Varvara Bell decided that we would take three separate elevator loads of people down to the lobby, one male and one female prisoner but not a couple in each descent, with guards.
I got shoved in an elevator with Micah Shine, three unnamed mercenary goons, and my brother.
Logan wouldn’t look at me as we rode the elevator down, but I talked to him. “How could you do this, Logan? I’m your baby sister. You’re the only person I have left in the world. You drew me into this crazy criminal world of yours, and now you’re going to let themkillme.”
Logan didn’t turn around to look at me. He just kept staring at the seam in the silver doors that flashed light from each floor as we descended as he talked. “I had nowhere else to go. Grandfather and then Dr. Bell were the only ones who took me in. So yeah, I’m loyal to them because they were the only ones who gave a damn about me.”
“Dad would’ve taken you back if you’d come home and apologized.”
“Apologize for what, being myself? He had my whole damn life all planned out for me, to inherit his patch of dirt and live his life. When I didn’t want to, when I wanted to go to college and leave Iowa, he threw me out into the night and didn’t give a damn about what happened to me. I did the right thing by leaving.”
“But the farm is important. The farm is all there is.” My father’s words came out of my own mouth.
