Viktor always gave me the creeps. He’s got to be close to sixty, and he never takes his eyes off my tits. Even when I was sixteen, he leered at me.
Gross.
Papa’s eyebrow climbs when he sees my face. He doesn’t stand to greet me this time, he just waits silently as I slip into the chair across from him.
I’m meek. Timid. My hands shake because I’m nervous, but I know that he’ll think it’s because I’m afraid of him.
“Daughter,” he says tightly. “To what do we owe this lunch?”
I clear my throat and look around, as if I’m making sure no one can overhear our conversation.
“You’re doing so great,” Julian whispers in my ear.
“I-I needed to see you,” I say quietly, not meeting his eyes. “Because you were right, Papa.”
My father leans back in his chair, his hands loosening from their fists. He’s already starting to drop his guard.
“And what was I right about, Natasha?”
“Everything,” it’s said on a whisper. “He’s not a good man.”
I look up at him and see that he’s sneering at the bruises on my face.
“He hits me, and I caught him ...doing thingswith our housekeeper.”
Papa snorts and Viktor flat out laughs.
But Julian growls in my ear, and it bolsters my confidence.
“Papa, please can I come home?”
“No, a deal is a deal, Natasha. You’re his problem now. His mouth to feed. I told you before that you’re not welcome back in my house.”
“I should have listened to you.” I bite my lower lip and let the tears fall. I can’t usually produce tears on command, but right now, I feel for the young girl who endured so much at the hands of this devil. So much pain and fear. How my mother would laugh when he hit me. How they wouldn’t care if I fell and hurt myself.
I brush a tear aside just as Julian speaks low in my ear.
“The compound is compromised. Communications are down, and the operation is underway. You’ve stalled him long enough, Angel.”
“Yes, you should have. I know what’s best. Ialwaysfucking know what’s best. If you’d just done what you were told, you’d be out of that house by now and back with us.”
“That would be a shame.”
I square my shoulders and look up at my father, dead in the eye. A muscle in his cheek twitches.
“Do you understand what it is to be beaten every day of your life?”
Papa rolls his eyes, and Viktor shakes his head, as if I’m a young girl who never learns her lessons.
But I’ve learned more than they’ll ever know. They tried to shape me into the proper Mafia wife, but instead, I’m a goddamn Mafiaqueen.I’ve taken abuse from this man, the one who’s supposed to love me, my entire life, and it ends today.I’mthe one about to take him down, and he’s going to listen to everyfucking word I have to say. Because I know that Julian and my new family wouldneverlet these men hurt me.
“Do you, Papa? To be tormented. Taunted. Every day. You didn’t let me have friends. You didn’t let me do anything except study, play the piano, and wither away in that godforsaken, gaudy, over-the-top eyesore that you call a house.”
“I. Will. End. You,” Papa says, and I lift my hand, put my pointer finger in the air, and the next thing I know, Viktor falls to the ground with a gunshot wound between the eyes.
“No, you won’t.”
Forty-Three
