“She was the opposite of my father,” I say slowly. “Loud where he was silent. Warm where he was cold. She touched people when she talked to them, always had a hand on your shoulder or running through your hair. He believes showing affection to your children makes them soft, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d kiss our foreheads before bed, even when I was too old for it. I didn’t care. Hell, what I’d give to feel her arms around me one more time. Everything was different when she was around.”
Her thumb strokes over my knuckles, gentle and grounding.
“I think she was lonely,” I admit. “Married to a man who was never home, raising kids in a world that saw women as decorations at best and liabilities at worst. She smiled a lot, but looking back, I don’t think she was happy. Just good at pretending.” I drag my thumb across the seam of my lips. “After she died, my father erased her. Within a week, everything was gone. The colors, the photographs, her furniture.” I meet her eyes. “I thought it was because he couldn’t stand the reminder of the wife he lost, but I’m not so sure. Maybe it wasn’t grief at all. Maybe something else.”
“Better lives than the ones they got,” she says softly. “They both deserved better.”
“They did. My father wasn’t exactly father-of-the-year material before, and after my mother died…” My hands curl into fists on the table. “Let’s just say he was barely around, so my brothers and I did what we could.”
Under the table, her knee bumps mine and stays. “That’s a lot of responsibility for a teenager.”
“I’ve been looking out for her my whole life, and I’ll continue to. That’s what started all of this. There’s no way in hell I’m letting my father marry Katya off to Elio Valenti.”
“Is it Elio you object to, or an arranged marriage in general?”
“Both.” I lean back in the booth, dragging a hand through my hair. “Elio and I went to Saint Augustine’s together. It’s where the families send the sons they’re grooming to take over. We weren’t friends, exactly, but we ran in the same circles. Back then, Elio was with this girl, Mara Castellano. Her father worked for the Valentis, ran a mid-level crew in Staten Island, nothing major. She was kind of quiet and shy and sweet. The last girl you’d picture Elio with, especially when he was all swagger and ego. Our final semester senior year, she disappears. Gone. No one hears from her ever again. Word is she got knocked up by Elio and wanted to keep the baby. The mafia didn’t like the ideaof a bastard heir, so rather than deal with the fallout, Elio killed her.”
Her eyes go wide, taco abandoned on her plate. “Holy shit. That’s terrible.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how true it is anymore,” I admit, picking at the label on my drink. “Elio’s no white knight, but he’s not the world’s biggest shitbag either.” I shrug. “But it’s not about that. Katya missed out on so much of her life being sick, and this is her time to live. To play music, go to Juilliard, make friends like a fucking normal person.” Bitterness bleeds into my voice. “My father cares about bratva alliances, nothing else.”
“I take it you and your father don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“Understatement of the year.” I ball up the napkin and toss it onto my plate. “But he’s pakhan and I’m sure you know how this world works. I have to play his game until I inherit the crown.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but before she can get a word out, the front window explodes inward.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
KIRILL
Glass spraysacross the restaurant in a glittering cascade. On pure instinct, I launch myself across the booth and take Dinara down to the floor, my body covering hers as bullets punch through the wood where her head was a second ago.
“Kirill!” She shoves at my shoulders, wriggling underneath me. “I can handle myself!”
“Like hell.” As if I’d take a chance with her life. I keep her pinned, scanning for the shooter. Three shots, semiautomatic, came from a vehicle outside. Carlos ducks behind the counter, and I can hear Rosa screaming from the kitchen.
“Seriously, you need to move off of me.” Dinara’s voice is steady, no fear, only irritation. “That was the opening shot. Let me up before this restaurant is surrounded.”
She’s right. The gunfire stopped too quickly. This wasn’t a drive-by; it was an announcement of what’s to come.
I pull back enough to take her face between my palms. “Listen to me. Get to the back and hide with Rosa and Carlos. Preferably somewhere with a lock.”
“No! I want to help you,” she argues, my blood pressure spiking. “I’m trained for this.”
“Absolutely not, Dinara. I won’t risk your life. I only have one gun on me and I’m going to need it. Promise me you’ll stay safe. Promise,” I growl.
My jaw tightens, eyes darting toward the window and back to her face. The hand against her cheek trembles once before I steady it.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine.” Every instinct screams to keep her pinned here, protected under my body where bullets can’t reach her. But I know she’s right. I need to fight, and her best bet is to hide with Rosa and Carlos.
“Go.” I pull my gun from my waistband, already loaded with a round in the chamber, safety off.
She rolls out from under me, staying low as she sprints toward the kitchen. I position myself behind the booth, eyes on the shattered windows.
