I grabbed a pillow and held it over my chest, cuddling tight as I furrowed my brows with genuine curiosity. “What good stuff can anyone really do in a mob organization?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Anja softly. “Not all crime families are bad.”
“I know that,” I said, the defensiveness rising in my voice. “I come from one too, remember? But I know none of us are saints.”
“No,” Anja smiled. “None of us is. But Arko is as close to one as he gets. He just never wants anyone to know. Thinks it’ll ruin his big, scary reputation or something,” she sighed wistfully.
“Did you know he paid for his assistant Marta’s son’s entire cancer treatment?” She crossed her legs and leaned forward, propping her chin up on her elbows. “Six figures, paid in full, because the kid had no insurance, and he never told anyone. I only found out because I saw the hospital bills in his office.”
“Really?” I felt my eyes widen at this story, the likes of which I hadn’t heard before. At least, not when Arko was involved. “That’s…something.”
“Oh gosh, Alena, and remember that time he found out one of his men was beating his wife?” Anja gushed, turning to her sister with a look of pride on her face. “He not only fired him, but Arko told him he doesn’t want him near his ex-wife, then bought her a house on the other side of the city and made sure she had security until the restraining order went through.”
As the girls continued to share these incredibly kind stories of Arko, I found myself leaning in to hang on to every word. His kindness shone through, no doubt. And still, somehow, my heart was conflicted.
If what they said was true, if Arko truly was this spectacularly good man, then why the hell didn’t he let me see that side to him? Why did he fight me every step of the way?Why, for someone with such kindness, was it so incredibly hard to be compassionate toward my brothers?
That seed of doubt gnawed at me, even after Anja and Alena left. That night, I found it impossible to think of anything else but Arko. All evening, I asked the staff repeatedly whether he was back home.
I didn’t know why, but a loose plan had started forming in my head. I needed to see, for myself, just who Arko was when he wasn’t obsessed with revenge. That side of him I heard about today? I wanted to be privy to it.
I knew one thing for certain. If I asked him about this, he’d shut me down. If what Alena and Anja said was true, he’d keep all this goodness in him a secret, to the very end. So, maybe the best thing I could do was to catch him in the act so he couldn’t hide from me.
Later that night, I went to my bedroom. Arko still hadn’t returned, and I’d eaten dinner alone. I was about to turn off the lights and get into bed, already anticipating a sleepless night, when I heard tires over gravel.
I rushed to the window and saw Arko stepping out of a car. The shadows were strong that night, but I knew it was him from the broadness of those shoulders, the clean cuts of that suit. Even in the dark, my eyes were drawn to him.
I watched, surprised to see that he didn’t walk into the house. Instead, he made his way through the garden arbor. It was well past midnight, and a strange hour to take a stroll at this hour.
Without even thinking, curiosity burning deep, I pulled on a robe and some shoes and rushed out the door and down the stairs. But instead of heading out the main door, where his men on patrol might see me, I went out through the back doorin the kitchen, which gave me a vantage point view of the lawns beyond.
I stood at the doorway, watching as he walked fast. Really fast, his strides long and urgent, like he had somewhere urgent to be. Without thinking, I followed to gain ground, and then he started heading downhill toward the bottom of the big yard, where only the pool house was.
I felt my blood turn cold.
The pool house was a small stone building set away from the main house, surrounded by overgrown rose bushes. I’d never been inside because Arko had told me it needed renovation and wasn’t safe.
So what the hell was he going there for?
I crept closer and kept low. Dread turned my heart to race, for I felt in my bones that there was a secret kept hidden in that pool house.
Orsomeone.
The night air skimmed against my skin, making me shiver. I started into a slow jog, quick enough to catch up, but not enough to get caught. I watched Arko stop outside the pool house, looking left and right like he didn’t want to be caught, before he went inside and closed the door firmly behind him.
Whatever he was hiding in there, he didn’t want it discovered. I knew getting caught tonight was a bad fucking idea, and I couldn’t exactly just storm in there and demand answers, so I crept closer until I reached the old garden shed, right next to the pool house.
From there, if I managed to get to a certain height, I knew I would have had a clear view through the grimy windowon the right side of the pool house. I climbed onto a discarded, forgotten crate and looked inside.
That’s when dread and any sense of wrongness turned to pure panic. I wish I’d never come, for what I saw had bile rising in my throat.
Arko stood there, with his back to the window, flanked by two men on either side. Before them, on his knees, was a man bound and gagged, staring up at Arko with fear-filled eyes.
I watched breathlessly as Arko pulled a gun and raised it to the man’s head. I could feel the man’s terror, see it play out in the desperate way he tried to free himself, begging for mercy by falling further to the floor. Then, on Arko’s nod, one of the men removed the gag.
I couldn’t hear from where I stood, but I watched as Arko and the man spoke. Whatever Arko wanted to know, I guessed the man told him.
That’s when I felt relief. If Arko got what he wanted, that man could walk out. The gun was only there to scare him.
