That knowledge alone had a chokehold on me. A dead weight tied to my legs as I sank to the bottom of the ocean.
To this day, there was no doubt in my mind that Ivan knew exactly what he was doing. Usually, he used me to kill men that had double-crossed him. And those men were just as despicable as he was. It didn’t bother me to end them. But that one time, he sent me to stalk the kids of his rival just because he refused to sell him a piece of land.
It fucking burned me that I didn’t kill him all those years ago when I had a chance. A fraction of a moment. A missed chance. But he played on one single emotion and manipulated me. He hinted at knowing my family, giving me a lead to follow. And then he fucked me over.
Fucking emotions.
If I could burn those and never feel anything again, I’d jump on that train.
I worked best alone, in the shadows. It was what I’d been trained to do even before I learned to kill. Probably why I was best at killing. And hunting men down.
When I found Cassio and his gang, or they found me, it was a calculated move on my part to work with them. My fucking choice. They let me do my thing, expected nothing in return, andaskedif they needed my help. There were no demands of blind allegiances. I’d never give those to anyone but my own fucking family. Though I always had the gangs’ back and they had mine, on more than one occasion.
“The FBI is hot on the case,” Vasili explained. No fucking wonder. This time it wasn’t a stray boy. This kid was on his way home from school… on his way to his family. It was the only thing that didn’t match Ivan’s MO. But that was the jab at me. And he had been ramping up kidnappings all over the States. He was desperate for more little boys for his fucked up games.
“I have a contact in the FBI.” No surprise there. Vasili had contacts everywhere. “He owes me one. We could have him give us his team and work with us.”
Okay, as far as plans go, it wasn’t a bad one. The FBI had vast resources and taking advantage of those would be to our benefit.
“I want you to work with the team,” my big brother added. “Find a way to get closer to Ivan. He has to be stopped.”
There wasa way. Except, I had no partner to take there. And I had to ensure I didn’t kill anyone when we got there.
“Do you know who the FBI has working on the case?” I asked him, knowing the answer already.
He shrugged his one shoulder. “Does it matter?”
It did. It was who saved me.A little hand that slipped into mine and gave me light to hold onto.
Yes, to me it mattered a great deal.
My eyes traveled out the big window of Vasili’s office. The view of the city stretched, like a sinful empire. It was quiet here, but I knew the city was noisy. I grew accustomed to the constant buzz of this city. New Orleans was eclectic - a perfect melting pot of the old world, new world, and many in between.
In Washington, D.C., I stood out like a sore thumb among the clean cut politicians and businessmen. Here, I was part of the city that embraced the dark, the light, and the paranormal through myth and magic, as part of everyday life. My face wasn’t any more unusual than that of the next guy.
The tattoos on my face - normal. Scars - normal. Fucked up past - so goddamn normal, it was sad.
New Orleans becamehome.
It didn’t matter that the air reeked of must from the muddy waters of the Mississippi, mixed with the sweet scent of beignets, spicy aroma of crab boil, and a block over on Bourbon, the smell of urine filtering through the streets. I belonged here. I fit in here as just another member of society.
The people that I cared about lived here. For the first time in my life, I had a family.Family!
It was a reluctant thought. Home and attachments to anything and anyone was long extinguished in me. Courtesy of the old Nikolaev bitch. It was thanks to her, Vasili’s mother, that I grew up never knowing my mother and father. Vasili’s mother had sold me out to Ivan. Her form of punishment bestowed on her husband, my father, for cheating on her. The woman’s jealousy was cruel, tearing my own mother apart and sending her into the clutches of the old Santos, Raphael’s father.
He was supposed to help my mother find me, but all he managed was to get her pregnant. At least she was smart enough to get away from him before his own wife hurt Isabella. Lombardo Santos wasn’t much better than Vasili’s mother. He trafficked women from South America and didn’t care about sampling them. In the most brutal ways. A few years back, I put a target on his head, and Sasha, being the good brother that he was, killed him.
One of the better days of my life. Life had been good lately. My siblings were protected and safe. So were my nephew and niece. Yet, over the last several years, that long forgotten feeling lingered somewhere deep. Fear of losing what I loved.
I fucking hated it. It made me extra paranoid and extra murderous.
I blamed Isabella for it. The anxiety became worse once she had the little ones. Nikola and Marietta, named after Vasili’s father and Isabella’s mother. I didn't think of either one of them as my own parents.
Thank fuck Tatiana hadn’t had babies. There was only so much worrying I could handle. The familiar cold feeling crept up my spine, but I ignored it. In my thirty-eight years of life, I had become accustomed to it.
It seemed the whole gang was popping out babies and getting married. Cassio was the latest one to fall. And soon, he’d become a father himself. Just several months ago, Luciano’s baby girl was christened. Nico and Bianca had their twin boys, along with the little hellion twin girls. The men had settled down and focused on their families. Something we all craved for years. Except, the family wasn’t just connected by blood but also tight friendships.
But now we had so much more to lose. It wasn’t just about us any longer. It was about the families we’d created.