“Both your boys here coming to visit Granddad too?” I asked, not looking Dimitri’s way. If he caught fear, he’d feed off it, and I didn’t need him mistaking my disgust for that.
“Why? You want them to? You like something you see in one of them more than me?” His hand went to my jaw and yanked my face toward him.
We glared at one another, his eyes bouncing back and forth over mine.
“When I speak to you, your attention is on me. Don’t make me teach you manners, little niece.” His hand clamped down on my thigh and inched upward over my jeans. His thumb dipped into a hole in them, and my skin crawled.
“Dimitri, your father wouldn’t be happy.” The frowning muscle was trying to defuse the situation. He probably got queasy about incest.
My mind raced away, though, finding my safe space in case they decided to torture me. I scrambled to find the jar that had held all of my emotions for so long, but maybe I’d truly smashed it when I stabbed Georgie.
The frustration in me crackled like a fire just waiting to catch onto the dry forest ahead of it. I couldn’t bottle it if I tried. All of a sudden, I was free, and I wasn’t going back to whatever they wanted me to become. I wouldn't become anything for anybody ever again.
Taunting a woman who had nothing to lose except the freedom she’d just gained wasn’t wise. “Do you know Georgie’s dead?”
His hand stopped moving in the hole of my jeans. He yanked it away to grab his phone and, at the same time, flung Russian at the two across from us. They jumped to get their phones, everybody moving fast for information.
“What is it you’re hiding from everyone? We know you traffic, we know the government is involved, we know that—”
Dimitri slapped me across the face hard enough to make my ears ring. “Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Father wouldn’t argue with me on that one. You’re out of line.”
“Whose line?” I whispered, not sure if my question would earn me another smack. When it did, I found the weakness in the car. The muscular man that was frowning flinched like beating a woman wasn’t in the cards for him. He wouldn’t make it long in this family, and so I wouldn’t feel bad about swaying him to become an ally of mine. Identifying connections came at a price tonight. Enduring pain meant I’d get to the end of this charade though.
It was the most justified pain I’d felt in a long time.
Dimitri fisted his hand. “Father thinks blood is blood. You are going to prove to him right or wrong when we get there. Set him straight so his mind can rest.”
“He has dementia. A mind like that never rests,” I corrected him. It came automatically because Parkinson’s had taken my father and I wouldn’t have anyone, not even the devil, walking around with false hopes about a terminal disease like that.
“His mind is worse because he knows you’re running around with the Armanellis. He focuses on it all day and night. His lucidity is dominated by it. So we solve the problem by dragging you in.”
“So, you’re just the son who cares?”
“I’m the son who runs this bratva, niece. Once father sees you’re nothing more than a mutt, I’ll kill you.”
“No bargain?” I wondered if he would negotiate my life with me.
“After you giving up Georgie’s phone? You betrayed us--”
“I didn’t know I was a part of the bratva when I shared that information.” It wasn’t well hidden evidence anyway.
“It doesn’t matter.” He waved off my reasoning. “I’ll end the nonsense, and it’ll be the start of the end for the Armanelli Family. Have they known all along? Were you the only one in the dark?”
I didn’t answer him, just sat there breathing in the stench of Russian blood. The air within that SUV was so unbalanced, I could barely take a breath. My uncle was a man without a moral code, and I was about to test him in every way.
One of us would be spilling our family blood by the end of this.
I knew damn well it wasn’t going to be mine. I’d just gained my freedom, and I wasn’t about to hand it to a man who didn’t deserve it.
2
Katie
Dimitri’s muscle threw a black cover over my head to drag me from the SUV. I wiggled as they hauled me out and onto some sidewalk. “Is this necessary? I came willingly.”
Dimitri exchanged Russian with them both, and then I heard his footsteps get farther and farther away.
One of them grabbed my elbow and yanked me forward. Walking beside another individual should have been easy, but I tripped two or three times before the man swore in his native tongue.