by Nicole Fox
But maybe that’s my emotions blinding me from his stated reasoning—that my daughter would always be in danger if people knew she was a Balducci. My situation right now is proof of what he said. Nobody is safe with the Balducci attached to them.
And as much as I’m opposed to it, he’s still my father.
I turn to Maksim, expecting more of his trademark cold fury. But he’s looking back at me. Not only is anger missing from his face, but there isn’t a single trace of surprise. You’d think a mob don would be a little bit concerned about ending up in the same nightclub as his sworn enemy, but Maksim doesn’t seem worried at all.
Then it all clicks into place.
That’s why he was insistent that I come out tonight: He knew my father would be here.
I should be pissed. Once again, I’m just another pawn in a man’s game.
But seeing my father again after all this time makes me feel like I’m being hurled into another timeline, where, while I’m still prioritized above other people, I’m also still loved—imperfectly, messily, but in my father’s own way.
Maksim looks away from me. “Go to him.”
I take a step toward the stairs automatically, but I stop. I turn to him. “Why?”
“It’s not your place to ask questions, Cassandra. Go.”
I glance at the booths. I can’t see my father anymore. He must be sitting close to the wall. Of course, he would be. He can’t risk being somewhere that someone could sneak up behind him.
“I’m not moving until you tell me what’s going on,” I snap. I pull my hair out of its bun, trying to act like the opposite of an anxious prodigal daughter. My hair still feels wet and it’s turned wavy from being tied up so tightly. Just another sign that anything under pressure will bend, but I’m not quite ready to be that flexible.
“You don’t need to know anything. It won’t change the plan,” he murmurs.
I continue running my fingers through my hair, the strands getting stuck between my fingers. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t give a flying fuck about your plan.”
“You should. It’s the only route that will end with you seeing your daughter.”
He carries his conceit like a gun, ready to shoot anyone down, but I know one day he’ll have it turned against him. I just hope I’m the one who triggers it.
“Are you going to constantly hold that over my head to get what you want?” I ask. “Because at some point, I’m going to decide it’s a lot easier to take things into my own hands.”
“You’re smarter than that,” he says. “You know the moment I think you’re going near that girl, I’ll forewarn the school, I’ll forewarn her parents, I’ll forewarn—”
“I’m her parent.”
He shakes his head. “Not anymore. She has an adoptive mother and father. Because of your father, they don’t know who you are. So, get over your fucking daddy issues, go up there, and talk to him.”
“I don’t know what your problem is,” I say. “But if you think I’ll listen to you because you’re the big bad Bratva boss, you should remember that I already defied a mob boss once. I’m not afraid to do it again.”
His lip curls up in disdain. “You didn’t defy him. You ran away. Now is your chance to be as brave as you think you are.”
We’re standing so close to each other that I can smell the liquor on his breath.
“I’ll talk to my father,” I say. When he starts to smile, I grab his shoulder, digging my thumb into the muscle around his collarbone. “But it’s not because of anything you said or any of your threats. I’m going to talk to him because it’s been ten years. We both owe each other explanations.”
He pulls my hand off him and squeezes my fingers as he lowers it back down to my side.
“Do what you have to do now,” he says simply. “Because in the end, you’re going to do what I need you to do.”
I turn away from him. Our hands slowly untangle until the feeling of his fingers disappears. I keep walking, feeling infinitely more alone.
Walking toward my father feels like I’m a crashing airplane, hurtling full speed towards the ground. There’s nowhere to turn that will save me. No matter what, impact is going to hurt. A lot.
He doesn’t even see me coming.
I stop a few feet away from him. His hands have turned into the hands of an old man—ashen, the veins protruding, and tiny wrinkles creasing his skin. Time hasn’t been kind to him.
Those hands grab onto his drink like I saw him do a hundred times when I was younger. It’s impossible to describe what it’s like seeing the same behavior from a man who raised me for eighteen years, but it’s from a man who’s ten years older. Maybe it’s like waking up from a coma except this is a coma I chose to be in.
I reach out and touch his shoulder. He jerks around, his hand reaching toward his holster behind his back. The way his arm tenses, I know the gun is in his hand as his men rise to their feet, their guns already drawn. Recognition dawns on my father’s face in increments—slowly, then suddenly, like a summer storm.
“Cassie,” he blurts, reaching toward me over the corner of the booth. I step closer, letting his hands touch my face. His fingertips tug at my cheeks, pulling me close enough for him to kiss near the corner of my eye. The scent of alcohol saturates his breath. I’d love to imagine that his affection is purely love, but he’s always sentimental and doting when he’s drunk.
It’s when he’s sober that the monster comes out.
He grabs onto my shoulders, hugging me tightly.
“Come, come, sit down.” He moves deeper into the booth. “Drink with us. Everyone, you remember Cassie? Yes? You won’t know Gioffre. Cassandra, that’s Gioffre. He’s a made man now.”
Gioffre gives me a curt smile. The men have all discreetly put their guns back, but their wariness isn’t as covert.
My father hands me a glass of red wine. “Drink, drink. We have to celebrate. When did you make it back to the city? Did you hear that I loved this place? It’s such a good atmosphere.”
He keeps smiling, occasionally grabbing onto me like I’m prone to disappearing. I suppose, from his perspective, I am. When I finish the glass of wine—liquid courage for answering his barrage of questions about the last ten years—he fills up another glass. I down that one, too, as he starts asking about my current job.
He doesn’t bring up my daughter. Even drunk, he expertly avoids any topic that might condemn him.
As he starts talking about his own last ten years, I turn my head enough to see Maksim, drinking his champagne at the edge of the balcony. To a passerby, he might seem to be observing the patrons dancing against each other, but even with his head facing away from me, I can feel his gaze dissecting every movement between my father and me. He might even be able to hear my father with how loudly he’s talking about buying new property.
“We should exchange numbers now before we forget,” my father says, his words slightly slurring now. “You’ll have to come by and see the new house.”
As I type my number into his phone and text myself to get his number, I turn my head to check on Maksim again. Maksim’s arm tenses as he grips the balcony’s handrail.
There is no possible way that tonight will end well.
“Mia figlia,” my father croons a few drinks later, leaning against the back of the booth. “It’s so good that you’re back. I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you, too, Papa,” I say, though the words don’t feel right. My dad is far too drunk to notice my discomfort, though.
Suddenly, a scream pierces through the sound of the music.
I turn, but all I can see are people on the dance floor, moving out of the way, their expressions ranging from terrified to concerned to intrigued, depending on how much they’ve had to drink tonight. I look at Maksim, but he’s no longer looking over at us. He’s slowly walking north, trying to find a better vantage point. He either can’t see what’s going on or he can’t make sense of it.
One of his men—Bogdan, I
think—runs up to him, drawing his attention away.
My breath gets caught in my throat. The moment Maksim looks away, it feels like some form of protection has been torn away from me. It’s not that I need him or that I don’t know that I can take care of myself, but being close to him and being under his watch, there’s the knowledge that he’s invested in my safety. There’s the sense that someone other than myself cares if I get hurt, if I get killed, if I run away for a decade.
It’s slow motion as I see Gennady rush up the balcony stairs. The slash across his face appears wider now, though the bruises, the fat lip, and the swollen eye are almost enough to distract from the dark red gash. When he raises his arm, it takes me a moment to grasp that he’s holding a gun.
The first shot cracks through the room. A man on the other side of my father falls, headfirst, onto the table. Like a pin being pulled from a bomb, the reaction is instant. My father’s men yank out their guns while I see motion in my periphery as Maksim’s men rush to shoot first.
As the first bullets tear through the air, I feel a hand on my arm, tugging me down. In my hyperfocus, I think it’s my father, but as the person pulls me behind them, I know it’s not because I can see my father standing on my other side.
It’s Maksim.
He keeps his Glock raised. I flinch as he pulls the trigger at one of my father’s men who is aiming at him. He keeps his arm outstretched behind him, his hand gripping my arm as he steers me away from the center of the fight.
As we reach the dance floor, I notice the pandemonium down here. The other patrons are all trying to run out. They’re shoving each other, trampling each other, willing to do anything to get out of one of the two exits. Maksim shoves me in front of him, but he keeps his hand on my shoulder, keeping me close enough that people collide against him or both of us instead of just me. I reach back, gripping onto his suit jacket to keep my balance.
As we pass by the bar, I see people hiding behind it. One side of my brain is screaming to help them while the other side knows there’s nothing I can do. It’s a helplessness that feels pathetically familiar.
The stampede of people gets worse the closer we get to the doors. I’ve lost track of my father amongst the people. Maksim pushes me to the left to avoid a couple of people who have fallen to the floor. As I look back at him, he’s looking back at the gunfight. There’s a yearning in his face. I’ve become familiar enough with him and read enough about the Bratva’s reign to know that it isn’t in his nature to run from a fight.
We manage to get outside. I take in a deep breath, the air feeling bitterly cold yet soothing after the claustrophobic heat inside. Maksim continues pulling me away from the nightclub.
I follow his lead, and we run.
12
Cassandra
When Maksim drives us away from the nightclub, his grip tightens as we pass by several police cars, their sirens blaring. His eyes flit back and forth between the road in front of us and the rearview mirror.
He doesn’t know if any of his men have died. He doesn’t know if they’re going to get arrested.
I grip my seat belt, twisting it in my hand. I keep glancing at Maksim. His suit is spattered with blood. As we drive under a streetlamp, I can see smears and drops of blood along his neck and jaw, too.
“Your father will be fine,” Maksim says. “His men will protect him and my men know that I want him alive right now.”
“Oh,” I say. “Right. I know. I just—you set that up, didn’t you? We didn’t happen to be in that club at the same time as my father. You knew he was going to be there.”
“I knew he was going to be there,” he confirms. “I didn’t know that Gennady was going to go off the rails. We lost an important member of the Bratva. Gennady has a hard time controlling himself. He’ll be dealt with later—if he’s still alive.”
“Why did you want to be in the same club as my father if it wasn’t to kill him?” I ask. He checks his phone with his left hand before putting it back on the steering wheel. He doesn’t answer.
I don’t know why I felt compelled to ask—maybe an investigative journalist’s habit. But the answer has felt evident since he forced this fucked-up deal on me—he wanted to show my father that he has me in his web, that all my father’s power is meaningless as long as Maksim has control over me.
I should be more concerned about my father. Maksim could be lying. There could be another volatile Bratva member. There could be a stray bullet. My father could be arrested. He could be killed as he’s being taken to a police car.
A million scenarios could end with my father in a morgue, but as Maksim drives through the city, all I can think about is how Maksim abandoned his men, forfeited his bloodthirst, and left the fate of my father in the crossfire—a man he’d clearly been plotting revenge against for a long time and felt an immeasurable amount of hatred for.
And the only reason I can see for why he’d do that… is me.
When we step toward Maksim’s mansion, the motion lights outside flash on. Maksim moves toward me, his eyes focused on my dress. He reaches under the hem, peeling the material away from my skin.
As I look down in surprise, I see what he saw. Blood is spattered all over the dress. In the fog of my memory, I remember hearing the gunshots and grunts during the shooting, but for the most part, my mind erased people being shot around me. It must have happened before Maksim reached me.
“Do you feel pain anywhere?” he asks. “I thought I would have seen you get shot, but it’s possible I missed it and the adrenaline is numbing you.”
I run my hands over my body, checking for any pain.
“No. No, I don’t think so,” I say.
“Come in.” He moves toward the doors. “We need to burn our clothes before the police get here. We can check for injuries afterward.”
Inside the mansion, it feels like we’re escaped felons. Maksim strips off his clothes as soon as the door closes behind him. Shirtless, he goes into the lounge. I watch the muscles in his back ripple as he stacks logs in the fireplace. After he leans the pieces of kindling against each other to form a teepee, he strikes a match and lights the fire.
He steps back, whipping off his belt. He takes off his pants, leaving only his boxer briefs on. Then he turns to me, grabbing my shoulders roughly. He spins me around and unzips the back of the dress. When he forces it down, the material struggling to get past my hips, my underwear comes off with it. He waits for me to step out of it.
He throws the dress in the fire first. Sparks fly off it as the fire eats away at it. Maksim spins me back around, moving my arms to check for wounds. He examines me twice before adding his shirt, pants, and belt to the fire.
“Come. We need to wash off,” he commands, already heading out of the room.
Cold and scared, I follow him. His mansion is chilly. I keep my arms wrapped tightly around me as I walk after his silhouette through the darkness of his library and up the stairs.
The second hallway is darker. I almost reach out toward him for guidance, but he’s staying a step and a half in front of me. I’m nearly blinded as he abruptly turns on the bathroom light.
Before I’ve even stepped inside the bathroom, he’s turned the shower on. He gestures for me to step inside.
The water streaming from the multiple showerheads is ice-cold at first. Through the glass, Maksim is stripping off his boxer briefs. He steps into the shower behind me.
I feel like I’m in a dream, or an out-of-body experience, floating above and behind everything as the real me goes through the motions. It’s like I’m watching myself as Maksim spins me around. His thumb rubs away the blood under my neck. He keeps one hand on my shoulder like I might flee and I almost feel like that’s a solid possibility—running away is apparently what I’m best at, after all—except he’s blocking the only way out.
He leans closer to me, grabbing the bottle of soap behind me. Pouring the soap into his hand, he rubs it under my neck.
“You know, I can w
ash myself,” I snap.
“Shush,” he murmurs, not unkindly.
His hand moves down toward my breasts and I start to change my mind.
“How many times have you done this?” he asks. “Destroyed evidence. Washed away blood, DNA, gunpowder.”
“That’s not something normal people do.”
“That’s my point.”
The water is scalding hot now. Peals of steam rise from our skin. As his hands slide down my body, I feel the trail of where his fingertips trace, like he’s leaving fire in the wake of his touch.
When his hand brings up my chin and his lips press against mine, the world becomes simple. There’s only this moment. There’s only the scent of cedar and pine, and the feeling of his arousal as he pulls me closer to him.
I still feel like I’m hovering on top of this moment and watching myself act as I drop down to my knees and take his throbbing erection into my mouth. His fingers sink into my wet hair, gripping onto the strands tightly enough to hurt, but the sting only heightens the thrill.
I roll my tongue underneath him, letting the tip of his cock brush against the back of my throat. With my one other partner, this was a chore—something he pushed me into—but now, it’s arousing and empowering. I can drive him crazy just like he drove me crazy. I can control his uncontrollable side just like he did with me and all I need is my tongue.
My hand slides between my legs, rubbing against my clit as I bob against his length, moving closer to his balls. I take each one into my mouth, feeling him groan as I rock my body against my hand. My tongue tries to write my name on his skin, but I only get to the second “s” when his hand grabs onto my shoulder, his thumb digging into the spot right under my throat. When I lean away from him, he grabs me under my arms, yanking me to my feet so quickly that blood rushes to my head.
He shoves me against the shower wall, keeping one hand under my left thigh. I grip onto the soap niche as he thrusts into me. There’s a pinch, a burning, and a fullness as he fucks me like he intends to break the shower wall.
