Bratva King (Koalistia Bratva 5)

2

Manya

My mascara felt too clumpy for the fact that I hadn’t shed a single tear during the funeral earlier that morning. I had tried summoning some sort of emotion for my husband, as cold and distant as he had been. But in the wake of everything that I now knew about Papa Koalistia and the shock and fear from his death . . . I couldn’t summon a single tear. It was as if I had cried them all out.

My eyes hurt though, maybe from the strain, maybe from the lack of any real sleep lately. At least in that respect I knew that I appeared to be grieving. Makeup could only hide the dark, purpling bags beneath my eyes; it could not hide the bloodshot veins through the whites of them.

I was tired enough that it felt like it would be easy for me to just shut my eyes, right where I sat, and nod off. Though, in reality, the pricey chair I was sitting in was made to look plush while still being firm and unforgiving, and I couldn’t tear my focus from the closed mahogany doors that Dmitry had disappeared behind hours ago. He’d led the procession of Bratva members, his blue eyes so glacial that they were almost grey, the furrow lines etched across his forehead in his quietly restrained fury.

Only Shura was out in the sitting room with me. Like a hulking gargoyle, he perched on the arm of the chair beside me, half tilted towards the entrance with an expression even more bland than Dmitry’s had been.

“Why did they take those two men in?” I asked, my eyes darting to the entrance as if expecting someone to burst out at my mentioning it. Where the main group had entered the room with expressionless faces, those two men had been all but dragged inside.

Shura’s eyebrows lifted, the jewels in his teeth flashing as he considered my question. “Do you really want to know? Or do you want me to tell you it is no business of yours?” His blue eyes drifted to me almost lazily, his gaze appraising, and I appreciated the frankness of his response.

“I want to know,” I answered more surely than I actually felt.

“They are Papa Koalistia’s Sovietnik and Obshchak. Ones who did not voice support for Dmitry. Ones who might have voiced . . . something other than support.” Shura muttered it darkly, his eyebrows lowering as he too glanced towards the mahogany doors. He looked like he wanted to leave the chair he sat in and join the bodies inside. . .

Which meant that what was going on inside was most assuredly violent, and probably very dark as well.

My nails edged deeper into my palms. “Ah . . .” I muttered, glancing away again and trying to push the mental imagery out of my head. “So they’re part of the infighting problem?”

“Part of . . . da,” Shura grunted. He sighed, eyeing me with a little more obvious interest, and I could practically see the cogs turning in his head. His mouth opened, the jewels within glittering for just a moment before he sighed again. “Not my business,” he muttered, turning away.

But my interest was piqued.

“What isn’t your business?” I asked carefully, half leaning towards him as if afraid that the walls might be listening in. It was certainly possible, given where we were.

“You cried, the day of. Over Papa Koalistia, Papa Yerik, what have you. But you did not mourn. You do not mourn now, though you go through motions…Why not mourn the father of your husband that you claim to love?” It was more words than I had heard Shura say in one sitting to date. His shrewd eyes watched my expression go from careful to shocked.

It was easy to forget that behind his hulking form he was as observant as he was.

“I can’t mourn him.” I whispered the confession, my eyes darting to the doors again, swallowing hard against the obstruction in the base of my throat. Discomfort pooled in my belly as I turned back to Shura. “Did you know he had killed my mother?”

Those words were even quieter when they left me. I hadn’t said it aloud before. I hadn’t opened my mouth, even the once, to admit to knowing that information. It was the one question I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask Dmitry, and one that I certainly couldn’t ask him now.

Shura exhaled heavily through his nose, shrugging his wide shoulders. “Da. It is commonly known. Your mother was killed by Koalistia family…by Papa Yerik.” He thumbed the bottom of his nose, looking to me in confusion. You already knew this. You said so, at your wedding—Dmitry told me.”

My eyes watered, my lips parting silently for a long moment before a shuddered sigh left them. “I thought that it was just his family . . . maybe even that he ordered it, but not that he had been the one to carry it out . . .” The betrayal coated my words leaving them harsh and bitter.

Shura seemed to hesitate, weighing his words before he spoke them. “Papa Yerik was a Koalistia. A Koalistia torpedo. He did not make contracts at that time, he carried them out. Torpedoes have no control over who they kill.”

They were, of course, things that I had refused to consider, due to my own proximity to the situation.Did it make a difference that he had not directly placed the order that had resulted in my mother’s death? Not really, not in the long run. It was still his hand that had carried it out, and his own decisions that had carried him to that point.Did it raise even further questions? Yes.

Who would have put that contract out on my mother’s head? And why? It obviously wasn’t as cut and dray as my father had made it out be when I was younger. Even with this semi-new information, there still seemed to be giant holes in my knowledge.

“He still killed my mother,” I finally croaked out, unable to explain it any further than that.

Shura nodded, seemingly unperturbed by that admission. “Da. He did. I would not mourn the man who carried contract on my mother either. But maybe, when Dmitry ask, you explain like that. Man that Dmitry knew and man that you hate: two different men. Or same man, but different sides, like a coin.”

“Dmitry wasn’t close with Papa Koalistia though.” I didn’t know why I said it, nor what exactly I meant by it, but the words came out almost like a plea. I understood why Shura was advising me to handle it as he was. I couldn’t even find fault with his words, I just . . . felt very lost and alone all of a sudden, sitting next to him without Dmitry by my side.

“Nyet, he was not. But you are not close with your papa either, da? So, he dies, someone speaks ill, you are good with it? Or you want to knock their teeth out?” He was being so reasonable there was no space left for me to disagree or argue in the slightest.

“Dmitry wouldn’t like me without teeth,” I answered primly instead, looking away. Shura let out a sudden bark of laughter. My head spun in question as he waggled his thick eyebrows up and down, tilting his head. “Nyet? You don’t think Dmitry would like youwithout teeth?” He lifted his brows again, his chuckling growing with my obvious confusion, and it was only after he folded his lips down over his own teeth that I saw his point.

The blush moved through my cheeks so suddenly and with such ferocity that it caught me by surprise. “He might knock out your teeth for referencing that,” I grumbled, fighting back a smile.