Blood.
I left my drink at the bar and met her halfway. “What happened?”
She took in the club, not meeting my eyes, but instead scanning everything that was going on in the room. “I wonder if you didn’t tell me about your club because you didn’t trust me.”
“Trust you with what?” I said, trying to at least grab her attention.
She shook her head as if in disgust but didn’t say anymore.
“I’m calling Bastian,” I announced.
“No need. I did already. Everyone will be here soon.”
Katie before the bratva felt nothing. She moved through the world letting everything roll off her back, even when it was the craziest shitstorm barreling through.
Katalina, now, after the bratva, felt every single thing. She felt her pain. She felt her reign. She felt everything. She felt the weight of this damn city and it was a heavy one.
Yet, the numbness in her gaze and the way her hands didn’t shake meant something had driven her back to the hole she couldn’t be in anymore. She needed to feel, she needed to know her power.
She couldn’t shut down again.
“Okay. Let’s talk about what happened then.”
She shook her head and walked past me, past the throngs of people mingling and getting lost in one another, to the bar. She asked the bartender for a water and when one was handed to her, she took two gulps before turning to me and asking, “Do you think the monster is in you or in me? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever wondered about whether or not I’m too far gone to come back? Because I do. I wonder if I’ve been wronged so much that I’ve forgotten my dad’s love.”
“What are you talking about Katalina?” I knew exactly what she was talking about. I just knew it wasn’t true. She had to be stronger than all of us. We needed her to be better than we could ever be.“Tell me what the fuck happened. I’m going to find out anyway.”
She fisted her hand, but I took it and pried her fingers open to thread them through mine.
“I just don’t know how I can do that, lead the bratva and be a mother. I don’t know how I can kill and still love. I’m furious and I feel it down to my bones. Am I supposed to turn around and love a daughter after something like that?”
I shook my head at her. “Did you kill for love? That’s what families do, that’s what any family would do for someone they love. “
“Is that what keeps you going? Knowing that we’re doing all this for the family, for people that we love? Seems like everybody does it for pride or for money and greed. “
“Is that what you think of Bastian, Cade, and me? You think I took Mario… No, let’s go way back. You think Marvin was for that?”
She tilted her head, her hair falling like a smooth waterfall down her shoulders as she thought about it. I wanted to drag her out of there, tend to her needs, tear her from the line of fire. If she’d done what I thought she had, word would spread and the exclusive members of this club would be judging her by the end of the night. It was the last thing we needed.
“Did you love me then?” she whispered.
“I loved some part of you since the moment I met you, Cleo,” I admitted. “I was chained to you since day one.”
“How do we chain everyone together then?”
“We have to gain their trust, Katalina. Or you reign in fear and power alone. That doesn’t last.”
She hummed low and murmured, “Maybe it’ll last long enough for me.”
The music pulsed through our veins and swayed the crowds and their extracurricular activities. Katalina spun on her bloody red-bottomed shoes and stalked away.
“Goddamnit,” I grumbled into my drink and shoved away from the bar. I made my way to where she had disappeared. It looked like she was about to enter the fitting room areas but had been stopped by Bastian, Cade, and Dante walking in. She pushed past them.
“Did you check your phone?” Cade asked me, his stare piercing me instead of his own cell in that moment.
I didn’t answer him, but pulled my phone from my suit pant pocket. His text read “Vladimir is dead. Trafficking. She did it herself and made a show of it.”
There’s something deep inside you that grows and morphs into something ugly when the people you love are in danger. “Was she protected? What happened?”