Matilda
I wake to the sound of glass shattering.
A brutal explosion of a window giving way under force. The house screams around me, alarms, voices, boots pounding against marble floors. My bedroom door slams open hard enough to crack against the wall, and before I can even sit up, rough hands are on me.
I’m dragged from the bed in nothing but a thin, cotton nightdress, my bare feet scraping across the floor as I try to find purchase. I twist instinctively, and earn myself a sharp squeeze on my upper arm that promises worse if I keep fighting.
"Easy," a voice says, bored. "She’s not the one we're here for."
Not the one.
The words stick as I’m hauled down the stairs, past paintings my mother curated and rugs my father imported. Past the illusion of safety my family paid dearly to maintain. Every light in the house is on now, flooding the space with a cruel brightness that exposes everything.
They shove me into the living room, and I fall onto my knees beside my parents and younger siblings. I gather my younger sister, Katya, into my arms, soothing her as silent tears of fear and shock roll down her cheeks.
"Everything will be okay." I don’t know why I say it. I have no idea what is even going on, but I'll bet my life that it has something to do with my older brother.
My mother is crying openly, robe clutched to her chest, hair falling loose around her face. My younger brothers are frozen beside her, pale and still. My father kneeling beside them like a shield that’s been cracked down the middle.
And standing opposite them, perfectly calm in the middle of our home, is Gennady Petrov.
His men fill the room with quiet menace, guns loose at their sides, eyes everywhere. He looks exactly like a man who owns every aspect of his world, but I suppose he does. He is the Pakhan of his branch of the Bratva. The branch my family are also part of.
The alarm finally stops its wailing, but the relief is only short-lived.
"Where is Sergei?" Gennady asks mildly.
My father swallows. "We can fix this," he says quickly. "Whatever he’s done, whatever he owes…we can make it right."
Gennady’s gaze doesn’t even flicker. "No," he replies. "You can’t."
The finality in his voice settles heavy and absolute.
"He’s our son, Pakhan," my mother sobs, tears flowing freely now. "Please—"
She looks pathetic, and I know I should feel sorry for her but I can't seem to summon the empathy. I feel empty and exhausted where love should be. A coldness settles over me then, acceptance sliding into place.
"I don’t care," Gennady says, without cruelty. Just truth. "Your son stole from me. Lied to me. Disrespected me. But worst of all he laid hands on my sister."
It's the first time he has shown anything other than a bored calmness tonight as it gives way to the rage simmering beneath.
The news that Sergei has done something he shouldn't to a woman he has no right to be anywhere near, doesn't surprise me. I only hope he didn't hurt her. He has a mean streak a mile wide, one I thought only extended to me.
As kids he would pinch me, pull my hair, break my things. As we got older, he escalated to stealing my pocket money, cutting up my clothes, the odd slap here and there...
The Pakhan gathers himself with a deep breath. "That doesn’t end with apologies. It ends with me putting him in his rightful place."
My father’s jaw tightens. "Well, he obviously isn’t here."
Gennady studies him for a long moment, his eyes narrowed. His black shirt is open at the collar, his sleeves rolled up. He came here to work, not for formal pleasantries or business negotiations.
Tonight was only ever going to end one way.
My eyes trace the black ink that starts on his neck and trails down beneath his shirt, reappearing on his right forearm. I find myself wondering what they mean. These twisted symbols that are important enough to be permanently scarred onto his skin.
His eyes land on me. I hold his gaze, keeping my sister against me with one arm and adjusting my night gown with the other. It became trapped under my knee when I fell, and now I’m conscious that the neck is too low, revealing too much of my cleavage beneath a frill of torn white gauze.
I feel the blush creep over my face and silently scold myself for being embarrassed at a time like this.
