“Tell me what your tattoos mean?” I ask. “All of them, not just this.”
He nods. “The rose with a dagger means I served time when I was still underage.” I blink. How old is he? How long has he been in the brotherhood?
“The skull defies authority and combined with the rose, spider, and manacles, declare me Bratva. Each means a different notch on my belt. Conviction. Prison. Theft. Murder.”
My heartbeat quickens. So many questions to ask him, but I don’t want to break this spell. For just this moment, his eyes have softened, his voice quieted, and his pulse beneath my hand has slowed. I soothe him, somehow. I’m the lion tamer and just for this moment, he purrs beneath my touch.
After another moment of silence, he speaks to me. “You have things you want to ask me, Calina. I can feel you’re barely restraining yourself. Ask, then.”
“I don’t want you to get angry with me,” I tell him. “I like it when you’re calm like this, and I don’t want to ruin anything. You’re…” I tread a fine line before I choose to speak the truth. “You’re scary when you’re angry.”
A shadow crosses his features. “I’m always angry.”
“I know.”
We don’t speak again for long minutes while he plays with my fingers, stroking one thumb along the top of my hand. I figure it couldn’t hurt to ask the tamest question of all.
“I wondered how old you are.”
“Thirty-four years old,” he says without hesitation. He doesn’t even stop the brush of his thumb along my hand.
“So if you’ve been in the Bratva and served time before you were of age…” my voice trails off as I calculate the years.
He nods. “On my next birthday, I will have spent more time in the brotherhood than not.”
“How many times have you been in jail?”
“Twice.” No hesitation this time, but I know each one of those times marked him, impacted him, and somehow formed the man he is today.
“Is it awful? Russian jail?”
The very corner of his lips quirks up but no humor meets his eyes. “You ought to know. Is it awful being a Russian prisoner?”
It’s not an answer at all but an evasion. He doesn’t wish to speak of this, and it’s a harsh reminder that I am his prisoner, and he my warden.
But after a moment it seems he’s thought better of his curt answer, and he begins to speak. “It isn’t a joy,” he says with a rueful smile. “There are many types of Russian prisons, depending on why one is there. It is, in many ways, brutal. Cold. But my first time in jail I met Maksym and recruited him to the Bratva.”
“How do you do that?” I ask.
“Dimitri, our former pakhan, descended from a long line of Bratva, their origins hailing back to the second World War. He began with fresh blood. He adopted each of us before we were of age. After his passing, we discovered the records he kept for us in the library. His process was intentional and nearly militaristic. He was a harsh, exacting leader, but we each loved him in our own way.”
“What happened to him?”
A shadow passes over him before he responds. “He took his own life.”
I shouldn’t want to know this. I shouldn’t give myself a reason to feel sympathy for Demyan, to fear the pressures of leadership will cause him to face the same demise. If he served time in jail, he deserved that punishment. He was no innocent put behind bars.
My next question for him chills me before I even ask him. Do I really want to know?
“How many people have you killed?”
This time I maybe went too far. He tightens his grip, his jaw firming, before he answers, “Too many to count, Calina. No more questions now.”
The first time he went to jail, I was seven years old. I hadn’t even learned how to ride a bike yet, and my biggest worry was what costume I would wear on Halloween. I mull this over as
we cruise to a stop outside the compound. When we exit the vehicle, his men are there, but he dismisses them all, telling them he’s tired and wishes to address everything that happened this evening in the morning. They obey and soon, we’re alone in his suite. When moonlight hits his features, I see the edged lines of his face, weary from battle, and in that moment he looks older than his thirty-four years.
Drained and travel-worn. Still dressed in his slacks and dress shirt, he pours himself a drink, then folds himself into a chair by the window. I stand awkwardly to the side, not sure what he wants me to do. I want to sit on his lap again. I want to talk to him until the sun rises, here in this magical time between dusk and dawn, when who we are and why we’re here fades into the night. But he doesn’t even glance my way when he orders wearily, “Go to bed, Calina.”