I refused to be any man’s possession. Ever.
My older brothers, Alexander and Dmitri, hadn’t helped matters by scaring all the decent men away. God forbid a man so much as glance in my direction. If they did, they’d be all over that poor unfortunate sucker’s ass.
My grandparents might have changed our last name when they’d come over on the boat, from Popov to Preston, but we were Russian through and through. My brothers especially, with their tempers and macho attitudes. It drove me up the damn wall.
“We just want you to be with a man who’s not afraid of us!” Dmitri would say. “If he’s scared of us, he’s got no balls. He won’t keep you safe. He’s not the man for you.”
Yeah, but if the guy did have the balls to stand up to my brothers, they’d consider him a threat. Enter Papa with his itchy trigger finger. There was no way to win in that fight.
If you asked me, that was a big part of the reason we hadn’t climbed further up the ranks in the mafia underworld. We were still just a middling family, not one of the big players like the Russo’s, but for-fucking-bid Papa ever listen to me when I tried to…
Shaking those thoughts from my head, I took a deep breath and ignored my mother as she continued to pace and rant. Papa would make his own decisions about how to run the family, and it didn’t matter what I thought, because I wasn’t going to be a part of this world much longer. I was going to get out, and I was going to have my own life separate from the family business, the mafia, and—
The door to the office was abruptly thrown wide open as Samuel, one of our trusted soldiers, staggered in. He looked alarmingly pale. There was only one reason he’d barge in without knocking and it wasn’t to make a social call.
“Ma’am. Miss Marla.” His eyes were wild, his broad chest rising and falling rapidly. “You need to come quickly.”
“What has happened?” Mom asked.
I stood immediately, the reports on my desk already forgotten as my stomach churned with dread. “Is it my father?”
Samuel shook his head. “No, Miss Marla. It’s your brother, and we don’t have time to waste.”
Mom let out a small cry and I took her arm, hustling her out of the room while trying to hold on to my own composure. Samuel led us outside to where a car waited for us, and we slipped inside. My heart raced wildly as a dozen question crowded my mind. Which brother? Was he injured? Had he gotten arrested? What the hell was going on?
The entire drive over, Mom murmured prayers under her breath while she stared out the car window. Her hand gripped mine like a vice so that by the time we arrived, my whole arm was numb. Mom had grown up in this world, and she’d married Papa, knowing the crime and violence and potential death this kind of business brought. But I supposed it was different when it was your child involved. You could never prepare yourself for that possibility, or get used to it.
This was exactly why I wanted to leave this world. I didn’t want to raise a family surrounded by brutality and bloodshed.
The car pulled up in front of an innocent-looking pharmacy and weed shop. Now that marijuana was legal it was even easier for us to use the stores as a front for our criminal activities. God bless capitalism.
My heart dropped when I realized where we were, though. A weed shop and a pharmacy? That was never good. We tended to use pharmacies as fronts for our doctors. Easily obtained and perfectly legal drugs would be on hand for medication and medical procedures.
Please, I silently prayed as we followed Samuel, and I helped lead my mother around to the back of the building. Whichever brother it is, please let him be okay.
Alexander was quiet but had a troubling violent streak, and Dmitri was a troublemaking pain in my ass. Growing up, I’d always been the closest to Dmitri, but I loved them both. They were my big brothers. They’d always looked out for me, even if sometimes that protectiveness was misguided. I couldn’t even begin to imagine losing one of them.
“In here, ma’am,” Samuel said, opening the door for my mother.
I locked gazes with him as I entered behind her and raised my eyebrows in a silent question. Samuel’s eyes were dark, and he shook his head solemnly.
An awful lump formed in my throat, and I tried to prepare myself for the worst.
We were shown into a room full of medical equipment. Our doctor—who we kept on retainer for unexpected emergencies like this—stood there in surgical gloves and gear that was smeared in blood, a grim, foreboding look on his face that openly stated, I’ve done all that I can, adding to the terrifying fear swirling in my stomach.
Several bodyguards were stationed around the room, and lying on the bed was my brother Dmitri, barely recognizable even to me, and God, there was so much blood all over him.
I stared in shock at his severely damaged upper torso, which had been stripped bare of his shirt so the doctor could work on him, revealing deep, horrific gashes from a knife—in his chest, his abdomen, and near his kidney and other vital organs. At least a dozen of those fatal looking wounds had incapacitated him. His skin looked battered and bruised from a vicious assault, including his normally handsome face. His nose appeared to be broken, his lip was cracked open and bleeding profusely, and one of his eyes was completely swollen shut.
Mom let out a horrible wail and dove for him. Papa, sitting by the bed and holding Dmitri’s hand, immediately shushed her. “Quiet, Alina. Do you think he needs to hear such loud noises?”
Mom ignored him, clutching Dmitri’s other hand. “My darling boy,” she said, speaking in Russian. “My sweet boy. What have they done to you?”
Behind Papa stood my other brother, Alexander. He looked at me and I saw the hateful fire burning in his gaze. I didn’t know which was worse—if their positions had been switched I knew that Dmitri would’ve become reckless and wild in his desire for revenge, not even thinking twice about putting himself in danger. But Alexander, with his penchant for violence, was the one who would stop at nothing for vengeance, carving a bloody swath through the families until he discovered who’d done this to our brother.
There was no doubt in my mind that the echoes of this heinous deed were going to ring far and wide.
Mom sobbed, stroking and kissing my brother’s hand, while my father, Andrei, sat silent, his face ashen. I quietly walked over and sat on the side of the bed and gently pushed Dmitri’s dark hair out of his face.
He stirred slightly, his one good eye opening just a crack. “Is… is that… you… Marla?” he asked, gasping each word as he struggled to talk.
I blinked back the hot tears trying to form, trying not to let my own emotions overwhelm me. Not here. Not now. Not when my brother needed me to be present for him.
“I’m here, Dmitri.” I leaned closer, so that my lips were near his ear. “Do you know who did this to you?” I whispered.
“No,” he croaked. “You have to… handle this… get vengeance. . .for our family. . . you were always the smartest…”
I felt a rush of terrible pride, despite the devastating circumstances. Dmitri had a strong, passionate brother and a smart, wily father. Both were experienced in mafia business and retaliation. He should have asked one or both of them to avenge him.
Instead, he was trusting me to find out who’d crossed him, and our family.