My girls’ disappearance had everything to do with the past.
I turned sharply, staring at my dad. He’d aged so much since Selena’s death. He’d taken her murder almost as hard as I had, although he’d done his best to remain stoic, the right-hand man of the Dmitriyev Bratva. The man who’d escaped with his brother and their wives in tow, a couple of children tagging along to start a new life. A better life.
Only bloodshed and violence had followed us and why? Because that’s all my father and uncle had known.
Maybe we’d cleaned up our act, but deep down inside, we were still the same.
Monsters.
“Istoriya boli i skorbi—eto ne konets. Eto tol’ko nachalo. Rukoy krovi budut napisany novyye glavy.” When I repeated the exact same thing to my father, his eyes opened wide and for a split second, I could swear he was embarrassed or ashamed.
Or guilty.
“Isn’t that what you said to me all those years ago, Pops? The story of pain and sorrow isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning. There are additional chapters to be written by the hand of blood. Is that right? I am remembering your words correctly. Yes?”
What I found disturbing was that not only did my father remain silent, but so did my uncle, the man who’d spearheaded the move to America. The man who’d taken control, beaten down the various enemies we’d had over the years, both men building a company from nothing. Rags to riches. We’d gone from murder, drug running, extortion, and blackmail to highly respected members of society, wealthy beyond our means. And completely legit.
But maybe another Russian saying should be that you could take the gangster out of the man, but not the need for retaliation.
When the two men looked at each other, I broke out in a cold sweat. They knew something. I pulled out my phone, scrolling to the picture I’d taken of the emblem on the bastard Lainey should have beaten to death. “What is this?”
I shifted the screen back and forth between my father and uncle.
Neither one of them offered a single word. But dear God, I’d bet my life that there was recognition in their eyes.
“Come on. I know you’ve seen this before. From where? The crazy thing is that I have too. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out from where. When. How. But you know. Don’t you?”
“I don’t recognize it, son.”
My father had once told me and my brother than one of the greatest attributes was knowing when someone was telling a lie.
For the first time in my life, my father had lied to me.
Or maybe it wasn’t the first.
Maybe it was just one of a string of them.
“Then answer me this. Why does our uncle Yuri hate us so much? You told us very little months ago.”
Mikhail narrowed his eyes and I dared him with mine to intervene. We’d never gotten the answer. At least not one that had sat well with us.
We’d heard there’d been a falling out with the three brothers and that once they’d been close. We’d heard that Uncle Yuri, although I used that term loosely, had blamed them for something that had occurred long before I was born.
Maybe I hadn’t been listening clearly or paying enough attention because I was born in the United States and had shied away from the family business for as long as possible. Although even that was a lie. I’d been a part of the troublemaking team as a teenager, using our status and dropping my father’s name like a get out of jail free card.
“Yuri blamed us for losing someone he cared about.” My father’s admittance didn’t hit me nearly as hard as it had Mikhail and Vissarian. I could tell by the looks on their faces they were surprised.
“What does that mean exactly?” Mikhail asked.
“He blamed us for the death of a woman he loved.”
Sighing, I could tell there was more to the story, but I wasn’t certain what if anything it had to do with my wife’s death or this incident.
“That was a long time ago, Sasha,” Uncle Boris said in such a way I knew he was attempting to shut down the conversation.
We weren’t getting anywhere just standing here speculating.
“I’m going to get them back. Whether with your help or without it. I don’t plan on losing someone else I love because of dark secrets held within this family. I love Lainey just like I loved Selena and she was taken from me with no answer as to why. Including from my own family, two men I’ve looked up to my entire life. Now, my little girl who never knew her mother and barely had a father decent enough to be called that is gone. You know what’s worse than that? Just the other night that brave little girl felt close enough to a woman who’d convinced me through her love and her actions that I could shed my guilt and live again to call her Mommy. Do you have any idea what thattook for my little girl to feel as if her world wouldn’t be rocked again?”
