All the women in the room are gathering on one side. They knew – I see it in their faces. Dozens of them – Russian and Italian both. Alonza and Devora put the word out. Before Matteo can grab me, I hurry over to join them.
Evalina strolls forward. “We stand together,” she says loudly. “We will not allow our daughters to be taken from us again, and you will have to kill every last woman here – every mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter – if you do not respect our wishes!”
Evalina’s husband yells at her across the room. “Get over here, now!”
Tears stream down her face. “My beloved, I cannot! I love you with all my heart, but I will never let a child be taken from me! Will you kill me for it, my love?”
There are shouts of anger from the men’s side of the room, and some of the men storm over and start trying to grab their wives, and other women jump on the men, because mob wives are not delicate flowers, they are scary bitches, and everything is falling apart. I hear sirens in the distance, but the bosses are dead, their faces purple and twisted in agony. My father is dead, Mischa is dead. Their bodies are being carried outside to meet the ambulances, but they’ll all be taken to the morgue.
“Alonza,” Matteo says furiously. His hand slides to his waistband, and I realize he’s got a pistol tucked in there. How did I not notice that? “You know what the penalty is for betraying the family. I have no choice.”
He’s going to kill her.
“No!” I cry out frantically, even though I know he has no other option. “Don’t kill her, Matteo, please!”
Alonza smiles bitterly. “I would have only months left to live anyway. Cancer. I will see my daughter again very soon.”
Then she opens up her sweater, and I suck in a gasp of horror. She has dynamite strapped to her waist. She slides her hand into her pocket and pulls out a detonator. “Dead man’s switch,” she calls out. “I let go, you all explode.”
Matteo stands perfectly still. There are shouts and cries from the crowd, and the men start backing away.
Devora strolls up next to her. Mischa’s son Arkady is standing in the crowd, his face red with rage.
“You betrayed us!” he howls. “You killed my father! You old bitch! I’ll kill you!”
She flashes him an evil smile and says something in Russian that makes him go pale. A woman standing next to me murmurs, “She just cursed his genitals and says may he never have children.”
Devora has committed suicide to protect her granddaughter. She’s a dead woman walking. She must have carried so much rage and hate in her for so long, after having her child taken from her. She just killed her own grandson – and didn’t even blink.
“You have one minute to get out,” Alonza calls out. “And after that, I will see my daughter again in Heaven!” She and Devora stand side by side as the men begin rushing their women outside.
Matteo runs over and grabs me by the arm, pushing me forward. The women pour outside, and then the men start following us, but not all of them make it out before a massive explosion shatters the building. A cloud of smoke billows up and debris spews everywhere, and the air smells of dust and chemicals as we all run for our lives.
When we’re a safe distance away, we stop and stand, stunned. I don’t see Matteo. Where is he? Did he make it?
I see Arkady storming out, and my heart sinks. I wish he’d died too. He’s an evil bastard just like his father.
Where is my husband?
It hurts me to the core that Alonza would have killed Matteo, but I can’t hate her for it, because God knows what I’d do if someone tried to take my child from me.
Alonza and Devora were smart, killing off the older generation. With them gone, there might at least be a chance to end the Peredyshka agreement.
Where is my husband? I find Evalina, who is standing with her husband, pressing a handkerchief against his bleeding forehead.
“Have you seen him?” I demand.
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”
I start pushing my way through the churning crowd. Now police and firefighters are here, shouting directions at us, adding to the confusion. It feels like forever before I hear my name being called, then my heart leaps with relief as Matteo rushes toward me. His forehead is gashed and bleeding, but my husband is alive.
Chapter 21
Matteo
My great-aunt’s betrayal still stuns me. How could I not have known? I’ve never in my life been fooled before – but Alonza, she was a master of deception. A week has gone by, and I’m still stunned by the depth of her loathing.
All those times she pretended to be fighting with Devora, they were exchanging messages. Plotting and planning to destroy their own families. United by the anguish of their los.
I loved that sour-faced, grouchy old woman, I truly did. And I swear that when I was a little boy, she loved me too. I remember her making me cannoli, singing the songs of her childhood to me. But what this family demanded of her poisoned that love over time and filled her with such hate that she would have stood there and watched me die.
I’m only alive because of Natasha and her brilliant instincts. After everything I’ve done to her, she could have let me walk in there and die – and if I’m being honest with myself, she would have been more than justified. She could have escaped in the chaos. She could have run to the police when they showed up; could have told them everything and destroyed us.
But instead she stayed with me. She loves me, all of me, the dark and the light. She loves my passion, my cruelty, my ink-black soul.
I hold that in my heart as I look across the room at Arkady, whose nostrils are flaring like a bull’s. He is surrounded by his men. They pat his back, shout encouragement. We are at one of Mischa’s houses, in a room where he runs underground cage-fighting matches. Arkady can barely wait to see me bleed.
And bleed I will.
Two members of the Council of Five – Darman, who is Albanian, and Pedro, who is a Cartel leader – flew in to personally supervise. They were selected because they are not affiliated with either family. They are standing on an elevated podium where they will supervise the fight.
With Mischa and my uncle and all the older bosses dead, we have been told that Arkady and I will be the new bosses. This is the Dubrovas’ year, so Arkady is in charge. Arkady’s first act as boss was to demand that I hand my wife over to him. He says that is the penalty I must pay for my great-aunt’s part in murdering his father. I point out that his grandmother also took part, but he just says that’s his business, not mine. And then like a giant, pouting child, he repeats his demand.
Give him Natasha or face off against him in the ring.
I refuse, as he knew I would, and so we will fight to the death.
Everything rides on this. It’s not just my life that’s at stake here; it’s the fate of the people I love most.
Natasha has been taken from me, and is sitting with Valentina, next to Darman and Pedro, sandwiched in by their bodyguards. My sister and her husband are sick with fear. Arkady’s wife Lara and his children are over there too. His wife has two black eyes and a split lip, and she limped into the room clutching her ribcage and gasping with every step; Arkady beat the hell out of her for joining the women in their protest against the Peredyshka. There were several similar beatings on our side of the family, but as soon as I heard about it, I put the word out, telling them to lay off or deal with me personally.
Dozens of family members and street soldiers from both sides are here. We are in crisis mode now. If I survive the fight with Arkady, I will have to address the Peredyshka issue in a way that satisfies the Council and does not condemn all our women to death.
At a signal from Darmon, Arkady and I approach the elevated podium where Darmon and Pedro sit, and they loudly and solemnly pronounce the terms. Arkady will be permitted to choose whether we go in bare-knuckle or with knives.
He chooses knives. I was counting on that.
I turn to the judges, inclining my head
in respect. “I request that Arkady and I exchange knives, to ensure that everything is on the up-and-up.”
Arkady’s face flushes a dull, angry crimson, and he lunges towards me, held back by his men. I just smile.
I know Mischa’s ways, and I know that he never left anything to chance. He will have taught his son to follow in his footsteps. Arkady will have coated his knife with poison. Would he get in trouble for it? If he killed me, probably not. He would have chosen something untraceable, and with me dead, he would continue to reign as boss, and who would dare demand an investigation?
“To ensure that everything is on the ‘up-and-up’, as you call it, we will provide the knives,” Pedro pronounces. That works just as well for me.
Arkady splutters, but he doesn’t dare argue with a Council member. One of his men scurries out of the room and returns shortly, carrying two knives. He hands us one each. Fixed-blade tactical knives, cold steel, with cruelly curving blades. Partially serrated, for maximum tissue damage.
Arkady and I are ushered into the octagonal cage. I glance up at Natasha. She is looking at me from the stands, tears in her eyes. She has her arm around my niece’s shoulders. I press my finger to my lips and lift it to her, sending her a kiss.
Arkady brays with laughter. “See, that is why you will lose,” he says. “You are a weak little pussy and your wife owns your balls!”
“No. That is why I’ll win. I will explain it to you while you’re dying.”
Arkady holds his knife up. “See this knife?” he taunts me. “I’m going to fuck your wife with it – after all of my men are done with her. I’ll make it last for days.”
I smile at him. “What’s it feel like, knowing that my wife and your wife are rooting for the same man to win – me?”
His face twists in anger. “Want to hear what I’m going to do to your niece?”
I keep a tight lid on my rage. “No thanks – the Rossis don’t get turned on by little girls like you do.”
The signal sounds from the stands. He howls in anger and lunges forward, jabbing at my throat with his knife.
I’m faster on my feet than he is, and I dodge away from him.
I move in under his arm and slash at him, cutting through his shirt and opening up a red line. He dances back before I can do any more damage. Like his father, he’s surprisingly light on his feet for a large man.
Then he lunges at me again with his knife…and I twist my body around so that the blade jams into my side. I place myself right in the knife’s path, praying that I’ve positioned myself right, that it hits a rib and does not slide in between. And I succeed. An explosion of pain rockets through me, but it’s washed away by a mad rush of adrenaline.
I move away from him with the blade still lodged in my body, jammed into bone, and tear the knife out of his hand.
I’m bleeding heavily now, but I’m still armed and he’s not. He backs up quickly in shock – and dances away.
“He has my knife!” he screams, his voice rising to a high-pitched whine.
I carefully press my fingers around the wound to slow the bleeding. The flesh feels numb – not a good sign.
He turns and runs to the edge of the cage, appealing to the judges. “Give me another knife!” he shrieks.
I can see from the disgust on their faces that he’s already lost in their eyes.
I stride up behind him. I could stab him in the back, but I want him to see it coming.
“Face me, bitch!”
He spins around, fists balled. I’m light-headed. It has to be now. He lunges at me, eyes wild, and I ram my knife right into his stomach and rip upwards. Then, for maximum damage, I pull the knife back out. He screams like a woman – a high, frantic wail – except that the Rossi women showed more balls, more courage, more steadiness of purpose than that sorry little bitch ever had. The Dubrova women too – they put him to shame. He stumbles then falls on his back, his hands pressed against his guts.
I bend down and look into his eyes, which are dull with shock and rage. He lost. He can’t believe it yet – this can’t be happening to him, not to Arkady Dubrova
“I will tell you why you lost. Because I have a love worth fighting for. And you have no-one who loves you, nobody to mourn you.”
I am so light-headed that I can’t stand up anymore. The last thing I remember is falling to the ground, falling and falling, into a red haze of nothing.
When I wake up, I’m in bed, and my Natasha is sitting there. Her face lights up when I open my eyes.
“You’re alive!” she cries out.
“Lucky you.” I manage a smile. The left side of my rib cage aches, and when I move, I feel the bandages taped to my skin. I look around the brightly lit room and recognize it being in the clinic – the same place where they test women for the marketplace. There’s an emergency wing where both families bring their people when they don’t want the authorities asking any questions – gun shots and stab wounds tend to get the cops way too excited for our liking.
There’s an IV in my arm, a pulse oximeter clamped on my index finger, and the sensors on my chest are hooked up to a vital signs monitor.
“Matteo!” It’s Nico’s voice. He’s come home. He hurries over to my bedside and grasps my hand.
“Nico,” I croak. “I’m sorry. I should never have doubted you.”
He shakes his head. “Not your fault. Who could have known? I was doubting myself, there, in the end. My condolences on Alonza’s death.”
I am trapped in the clinic for five more days as my flesh slowly knits back together. Natasha is by my side the entire time. The families have been busy covering up the events at the reception hall. Copious bribes to the coroner’s office ensure that the bosses were recorded as victims of accidental food poisoning, and the explosion as due to a faulty gas main.
When I return home, the Council orders me to rule on the Peredyshka issue.
And I issue the only decree that my Natasha would accept. She may appear soft and yielding, but beneath her beautiful chest beats the heart of a warrior princess. She would follow in the footsteps of her mother and take drastic steps to prevent her daughter being taken from her.
So I decree that no longer will daughters be taken from their mothers. However, the arranged marriages and the lottery selecting their husbands will continue. Daughters will be selected to marry the men in our rivals’ families – but they will be raised by their own parents until the age of eighteen.
The Peredyshka daughters will be home schooled, and they will be virgins, and they will be raised to be traditional home-makers. I know Natasha won’t love the idea of an arranged marriage if we have a daughter and she is selected, but she will accept the compromise. Our daughters would leave home to marry one way or the other, wouldn’t they? And she has seen that arranged marriages can still be happy ones.
Epilogue
One year later…
Natasha
Matteo and I are the parents of beautiful twins. A boy and a girl. But this year, my daughter escaped the lottery.
In the future, if I have another daughter, that may not be the case. The thought makes me queasy, but Matteo has promised me that if our daughter were selected for the truce agreement and her marriage turned out not to be a happy one, he would take steps to end it one way or another.
And, he keeps pointing out, look at how happy he and I are.
Amazingly enough, we are truly in love, and I know that I am exactly where I was meant to be. But I also know that my mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. If I had been raised in the traditional fashion, I would never have fought with Matteo over the terms of the truce agreement, and Matteo has told me that I was the deciding factor that tipped the balance when he changed the terms. Because of my passionate resistance, Matteo has issued a decree that frees all the women in our family from the terrible fear that once burdened them. Feodora gave birth to a daughter this year, and her daughter was selected. But she will have eighteen years with her child, and she will continu
e to see her after her daughter is married. My heart is lighter every time I see her smiling and cradling her little girl.
Now I have just finished nursing Maria and Dante in the enormous sun-drenched parlor where a beam of light illuminates a wall of family portraits.
My mother’s portrait is up there. I insisted – diplomatically, respectfully, but I made it clear how important it was to me. My children will know how brave she was and what she sacrificed for me. I have spoken to some members of the Dubrova family, hungrily gathering every scrap of information I could about her.
Her name was Aksana, and her mother – my real grandmother – saved some pictures of her, even though she’d been ordered to burn them all. I have the pictures now. They are framed in ornate gold. They have a place of honor next to her portrait.
My grandmother told me about my mother, filling in some missing pieces. Aksana loved to cook. Aksana was an amateur photographer. Aksana was twenty-one years old when she jumped off a bridge rather than reveal my whereabouts.
And there’s something else. Matteo’s men found out what happened to the Millhouses’ real daughter. My mother took her from her hospital crib and left me behind in her place when I was only three days old, and fled with her across the country before leaving her on the steps of a hospital in Montana a couple of weeks later. Her name is Lacey. She was adopted by the nurse who found her, and her husband, a surgeon. She is currently in nursing school. By all accounts, her parents are loving and warm people, and she had a dream childhood.
Will we ever let her know the circumstances of her birth? I think we may stay silent. What good would it do? The Millhouses are cold, sharp, and heartless. I am afraid that telling Lacey about them would do more harm than good, and it would also stir up too many questions about how the Millhouses’ daughter ended up halfway across the country as an infant.
Matteo: A Dark Mafia Hate Story Page 18
