“What way? I’m listening.”
He shakes his head as he looks away for a moment, over at everyone around us working to put together this plan of action that’s been set forth.
“He will never stop coming for us if we run,” he says as he looks back at me. “Never. And if he ever finds out about the baby…” He takes a breath. “It has to happen like this. There’s no other way.”
Oh, no. My eyes are starting to burn again. I bite my lip hard to keep the tears from coming. “Okay,” I tell him.
He studies my face for a moment, then, “Teddy’s committed to keeping you safe. Whatever he says to do, you do it. Do you understand, my love?”
I nod. I want to kiss him, wrap my arms around him one more time. He touches my face gently, tracing my jawline until he’s cupping my chin.
“I’ll be back. I promise.”
He’s promised. I guess… I guess that’s what I have to hang onto.
With that said, he turns back to the table and continues his conversation with Teddy. I watch for a few seconds, then I go back to the bedroom.
I can’t watch him leave. I’d rather see him when he comes back.
It started raininga little while ago. I’ve been trying not to watch the clock as I wait to see him walking through the door again.
The commotion outside this room has died down, so I guess everything is in place. At some point, I got Nicki’s journal and started reading from it to pass the time. In these pages, I’m finding that he truly was in a place of transition before he passed away.
He writes about talking to Marla about his thoughts and considering having a talk with Viktor. He tried a few times, but he hadn’t been taken seriously. I should probably be upset about that, but I’m not. Viktor has been entirely committed to the brotherhood his whole life. He wouldn’t have wanted to see Nicki starting to change right before his eyes.
And it all started with Sturov. My brother was in his twenties when he died. He’d be on his way to his thirties now had he lived. He had been doing the job since he was old enough to take the oath. What a journey he had.
And as I go on further into his writings, he was becoming more and more convinced that there was a way out for him. It’s crazy how he thought of it. Like a puzzle that needed to be solved.
That’s probably the privilege of being the child of a Pakhan talking. I know I’ve always believed I had options, even as my father tried to strip me of every single one of them by locking me away like a fairy tale princess.
There’s a soft knock at the door, and I look up to see Teddy standing in the open doorway. I close the book and offer a weak smile before greeting him with a “Hey.”
“Hey,” he says back. “How’re you holding up?”
“How do you think?” I scoff. He doesn’t say anything. He just stands there like a sentinel, arms crossed, the light outside theroom shining off his bald head. “Couldn’t you send anyone at all with him? I mean… how could you let him do this alone?”
“I think you know the answer to that,” he says with a slight tilt of his head. “I mean, assuming you know him like I do, anyway. Nobody tells Viktor how to move when it comes to shit like this. If he thought backup was necessary, he would have asked.”
“You still could have offered.”
He leans a little toward me with a crooked smile. “Doyouthink he would have agreed with me if I did?”
I shake my head and sigh a little. “Point taken.”
He keeps his smile as he says, “You know the story of how I met Vik and your brother?” I shake my head. “Nicki knocked over the bikes in front of our old club.” He chuckles softly at the memory. “Little shit couldn’t have been older than fifteen at the time. We happened to catch him doing it on the cameras. And if you’ve ever heard the sound twenty-five Harleys make when they go down like dominoes… you’d be ready to take heads too if one of yours happened to be in the bunch.”
He sighs, his eyes glossing over as he remembers. “So, we did what we do, you know? We rushed out of the club and chased him down. Well, he didn’t get far, let me tell you. We caught him about half a mile up the road, and the only thing that saved his ass was that we realized he was just a kid. I ended up hemming him up against a fence and threatening him, hoping to scare him. Sonofabitch spat in my face for it.”
I listen with rapt attention. “What did you do?”
“What do you think? I beat his ass. Figured that was the end of it. I was wrong. The next day, he showed up, black eye andbruised face. He walked right up to our bikes and knocked them right back down again. So, we chased him down and I beat his ass again. On the third day, Vik shows up. And now, Nicki’s shenanigans are everybody’s problem.”
He walks into the bedroom and sits down on the bed next to me. “See, we didn’t know who Nicki was. I mean, it’s not like there was any time for any introductions. But the minute Vik showed up, we knew shit was about to get real. And Vik? He had every right to make sure nobody walked out of the club alive, too. I mean, it’s a rule as old as time. Nobody fucks with Bratva if they don’t want a war. That’s gospel.”
He pauses, pulling out a cigarette. “When Vik told us who he was and why he was there, I thought,shit, I’m fucked. Never thought teaching some little shit respect was going to end up with a Russian Boss sending his top hitman to our doorstep.” He lights the cigarette and takes a drag before continuing. “Lucky for us, Vik wasn’t there to crack skulls. All he wanted to know was what happened. I guess your brother showing up at your house all beat up two days in a row sparked more curiosity than anger for him. Turns out, Nicki was keeping his little adventure from your father. See, he thought tangling with us would make him tough, give him something to brag about so that his Bratva brothers would look at him with some respect.”
He takes another drag and chuckles, smoke tendrils escaping his lips. “Stupid kid didn’t realize messing with bikers is an easy way to get yourself erased off the planet. Fortunately for him, Vik and I understood the kind of thing that makes a kid like him do dumb shit like that. I think we’ve all been there, to be honest.”
