“The question is, what do you want, Yaromir?” she asks, twisting the question around on him. “I’ve risen from the dead to come and meet you, and this is how you welcome me?”
“Why fake your own death?”
She sighs. “If you haven’t figured that part out already, then I’m not going to help you. You always were a little slow in the head.”
“He’s on his way, you know,” Yaromir says foolishly.
“Fucker,” Lev growls. “He should have kept her talking.”
Marina looks perfectly at ease. Not a hair out of place. “You think I don’t know that he’s got you eating out of the palm of his hand? I’m not just a pretty face, Yaromir.”
“What do you want?” he asks again.
She smiles. The effect is chilling. It would be upsetting for even the bravest of men. For Yaromir, it’s overwhelming. He seems to wither on the spot, folding in on himself.
“I want what’s mine,” she says simply.
“Your father handed the reins of the Ivanov Bratva to me.”
“Because he thought I was dead.”
“Exactly,” Yaromir says. “He thought you were dead. Why would you let him think that?”
She rolls her eyes. “Why do you think? My father loved me to death, but he was too much of a traditionalist to give me his Bratva. He wanted me to marry for it. So I did.”
“You had the Ivanovs and the Stepanovs,” Yaromir points out.
She scoffs. “If you believe that, then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought you were. Do you really think Anton gave me any power at all? Half his strength came from me, but he wanted me on the sidelines.”
I heard versions of this sob story for years while we were married. I’m almost bored hearing it again.
“If Daddy had known I was alive, he would have told Anton. They would have tried to bring me to heel. But I’m no one’s bitch. You’d do well to remember that, Yaromir.” He takes a step back and she raises her gun higher. “Another move and I blow your head clean off.”
“You’ll give yourself away.”
“But you’ll be lying on the floor with your brains gushing out. So what does it matter to you?”
He cringes away from her, but his feet stay rooted in place. She gives him an approving smile. “My father must have really been desperate for an heir to hand the Bratva over to you.”
“I’m his last surviving heir.”
“Heir?” she repeats scornfully. “No, you’re no heir. You’re not even Bratva. Not for the first time, Daddy made a mistake.”
Yaromir tries to stand tall. “I may not be as ruthless or as brutal as you or Anton, but I have the head for this.”
She laughs softly. “What’s the point of having the head if it’s not firmly fixed on your shoulders? It’s much harder to think when your severed skull is rolling around on the floor, Yaromir.”
Marina bares her teeth. Just like that, she goes from composed to feral. The outside finally matches the inside.
I glance at Lev and Yulian. Both are transfixed by the scene playing out in front of us. Lev looks like he wants to reach into the screen to strangle Marina himself.
Yulian is enthralled. Like he doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, even though we saw the aftermath yesterday.
“I’m your cousin, Marina,” Yaromir whimpers. “Are you really capable of killing family?”
She looks surprised by the question. “I told Daddy once when he was questioning my direction for the Bratva: I’m capable of anything.”
Yaromir’s face goes blank for a moment. It’s the same expression he gave me at our last meeting. And I know exactly which memory he’s reliving.