Page 18 of Bratva Sacrifice

“Red wines,” she clarifies, with a dismissive wrinkle of her nose. “I don’t really like them. I like—”

“Sweet wines,” I say, because I have already learned that Katya likes her sugary garden drinks and her toasted marshmallow latte abominations. She will prefer moscatos, perhaps, or Rieslings.

“Yeah,” she says, “but Papa prefers red. So I drink red. When I’m allowed.”

“So you don’t drink,” I say.

“I don’t not drink,” she says in a faintly sulky voice, and she chews on her straw after another sip. Like a rare treat she thinks might be snatched away from her, still she is drinking quickly. “It just…wasn’t worth the fight. You know?”

I do not. There is nobody who would dare to challenge me in such a way. But Katya—she has been ruled by her loud, brash Papa for so many years, smothered beneath the pad of his thumb. Living on only the crumbs of his attention, the scraps of whatever he had left from that which he devoted to the rest of his family. His bastard daughter, always made aware that she would forever be less than. Less worthy, less important. Less deserving.

The stupid motherfucker wasted his love on his worthless son and his sniveling wife instead.

As we reach the bottom of the steps and come across the bridge before the waterfall, Katya leans over the railing with a sigh. The breeze wafts a mist of water over our faces, and for a moment, she closes her eyes. She thinks herself weak, like she has admitted something shameful to me. When the truth is only that she has been shackled by the chains of choices made for her.

I lower my voice in deference to the crowd of people around us, posing before the waterfall for pictures. “What else was not worth the fight, koshechka?”

“Parties,” she says as her head dips again. “Short skirts. Swearing. Dating. Friends. Being out past nine. Having any sort of privacy.” A last sip, and her drink is gone. The plastic cup crumples in her hand as she squeezes it absently. “What’s koshechka?” she asks.

Her pronunciation is terrible. “This is a small name,” I say.

“Nickname,” she corrects. “Like Katya?”

“Katya is nickname for Ekaterina. Like Cat is nickname for Catherine.” Of course I know this is not her name. But I also know that if she thinks I believe this to be so, this will put her at ease. “In Russian, cat is koshka or kot. Koshechka—this is a sweet name often used for something small and cute. Like kitten.”

Her cheeks have turned pink again. She lifts one hand to tug on the end of her ponytail. “You’re from Russia, then?”

“Da,” I say. “Moscow.” I don’t mind telling her this. If her Papa had told her anything about me, she would already have fled. But Giulio Russo is not the sort of man who explains himself to a woman, for any reason.

“How did you end up in Minneapolis?” she asks, and tilts her head inquisitively.

“Business,” I say. This is not entirely a lie. Catalina has been my business since first I saw her in that picture, wearing the sweet smile that I imagine she must have gotten from her mother. Probably the whole of her face is her mother’s, since Giulio is not a handsome man. Charming, maybe, but not handsome. But Katya is pretty, so it must come from somewhere.

“What do you do?” A sheepish smile pulls at her lips. “I’d tell you what I do, but you already know.”

“Shipping.” Of a sort. Guns. Drugs. Even artwork, for the purposes of laundering money. Whatever needs to be moved swiftly and with discretion. It is not the most lucrative of my business interests, but it is an easy one to explain. “It is family business, you could say.”

“Oh. Does it keep you very busy?”

I shrug. “Some business is unavoidable. But I have many employees.” Enforcers and underlings who follow my commands without question. “It means I am not often busy.” I do not want her to wonder at the openness of my schedule, or to be suspicious of me if I should visit her at work during the day.

She pushes away from the railing. We’ve crowded the area long enough; there are still swarms of people gathering around us, waiting for their chance to take their little pictures for social media. “Will you have to go back soon? To Moscow, I mean?”

“Nyet,” I say as I place my hand under her elbow and steer her back toward the stairs, where she discards her empty cup properly, in a recycling bin. “Not soon.” But eventually. My position is secure, but there are always those who believe absence means inattention. There is always risk in such things.

“It must be nice to travel for work.”

“Sometimes,” I tell her as we crest the stairs, and I guide her to the right, toward the walking trails. “You have not traveled much?”

She shakes her head, sidling closer as we pass a large family that crowds the sidewalk. I take the opportunity to slip my arm around her waist and hook my fingers through the belt loop on the waistband of her faded blue jeans, anchoring her to my side. She stammers, “I—I went to a boarding school in Washington. That’s the farthest I’ve ever been from home.”

“Boarding school?” I know this already, but I like to hear her talk. And it is convenient to let her tell me these things I already know to avert the risk of revealing that I know something I should not. Even though I do not often make such mistakes.

“A school for girls,” she says. “A private school with a dormitory. I only got to come home for the summer break. Papa said it was one of the best schools in the country, but really I think he just didn’t want me to be around boys.”

Probably that is true, to a point. Probably the whole truth is something like Giulio did not want to spare the time for his daughter when he could outsource that task to someone else. So he instead sent her away to somewhere like a jail, so he will not be bothered.

“Even at this school for girls, you were not allowed short skirts?” I ask.