Gavriil (Stepanov Mafia)

Gavril had insisted the guard go with me everywhere not because he was afraid I would run away, but because he didn’t want anything to happen to me or his child. Remembering that made me hate having the guard around less. It made me feel loved and cherished rather than watched and followed.

“How are you?”

The answer to that question was written all over his face. Devin’s eyes were still bruised green and yellow from his beating by Gavril’s men. He had scrapes and cuts across his cheeks and jawbone, and a split that ran down his bottom lip. Misshapen bruises dotted his skin like a cow’s hide, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt and into his hairline.

“I’ve been better,” he said. “It’s hard not having you around.”

“Gavril sent a nurse to take care of Mom. That has to help a lot.”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

I sighed. I’d been with Devin for less than five minutes, and already I was annoyed with him. He had no understanding of how much work it was to be there for Mom, to make sure she ate and used the restroom and didn’t get bed sores. He had never taken care of her the way I had, and I knew if Gavril hadn’t sent the nurse to the house, her health would have declined sharply under Devin’s care.

“With the nurse there, your life should be the same as it always has been,” I said.

“I’m not accustomed to my little sister living with a mafia boss,” he snapped. “So, excuse me for being shaken up by it.”

Again, I was annoyed. Devin was more worried about how my deal with Gavril affected him than me. It made his life difficult and left him distracted and worried. Poor him. I decided to try and change the subject so the conversation wouldn’t dissolve into a fight in the first five minutes.

“How’s Mom?” I asked.

Devin’s mouth opened and then closed, his eyes darting off to the left. “Fine.”

Liar. He didn’t know. Even though he felt uncomfortable with Gavril paying for a full-time nurse, he didn’t feel uncomfortable enough with the situation to check up on Mom or get progress reports from the nurse. Typical Devin.

“Have you talked to her recently? To Mom or the nurse?”

“I’ve been busy, Sam,” he snapped.

“Has she asked about where I am? What have you told her?”

“I told her you were off banging a mafia boss to save my life.”

My eyes widened. “Devin, you didn’t.”

His face was straight, mouth tightened. Then, it cracked. He smiled. “I told her I hired the live-in nurse, so you could take a vacation. She agreed that you needed the break.”

It was nice to know my mom wasn’t worried about my wellbeing or wondering where I was, but I couldn’t help but bristle at the fact that Devin had made himself the hero. I was living with Gavril to save him, and Gavril had paid for the live-in nurse, but somehow Devin had managed to take credit for all of it. He could have told Mom that I’d paid for the nurse, but instead, he had made himself the benevolent figure who took care of everyone and sent me on vacation. It was a good cover story, but I would have liked some of the credit.

“Where in the wide world have you sent me on vacation?” I asked.

“Somewhere tropical,” he said with a grin, pleased with the story he’d constructed. “You are taking surfing lessons and drinking milk out of coconuts and going to pig roasts on the beach.”

“Sounds fun,” I said, thinking of the days I’d spent cooped up in Gavril’s house when my mom thought I was on a tropical beach vacation. It didn’t matter though.

“What have you been up to at Gavril’s? I imagine it’s boring being stuck inside his house all day.”

I thought of the large shelf of books Gavril had in his room that I had been slowly making my way through, of the thousand different cable channels on the television, and the refrigerator full of fresh food. In many ways, I had been on a kind of vacation. Just the kind where I also had to have rough, acrobatic sex on demand. However, even that had become more pleasure than pain. The longer I spent with Gavril, the more my tastes changed. Now, I looked forward to him spanking me and biting me. The reality of that scared me a bit. How much had I changed in the few short weeks I’d been with him?

“I stay occupied,” I said.

“Is Gavril there often? I’d imagine he is busy being a mafia boss – beating people for insignificant crimes, killing people for fun, that sort of thing.”

I rolled my eyes. “He is there often enough.”

“What does that mean? Does he come home for lunch? Does he work late into the evenings?”