All I’ve ever known was the life of being the daughter of one of the top-ranking officials in the organization. Although my father kept many of his dealings secret, I knew who and what my father was. I heard the whispered meetings in the lower level of the house late at night, saw the men come and go at all hours, frightening-looking males who gave me onceovers with sickening delight.
I knew what they’d do to me if Petrov wasn’t my father, if they knew their dicks wouldn’t be cut off and shoved down their throat if they put one hand on me.
Again, my father wouldn’t do this because he loved me. He’d do it, because I was his property, just like every other luxury item he crammed in this mansion. And anyone who crossed him, took something from his property, would be disrespectful to him, a disgrace he’d never tolerate, because he’d never be deemed weak or could be taken advantage of.
“Yes, Papa?” My voice was timid and I hated that. I hated that being around my father made me this scared rabbit, startled at the drop of a hat.
My father was trouble, the worst kind, the kind that raped and pillaged, took without remorse, and defeated without a care about who or what he destroyed in the process. I supposed all the men in the bratva were, men who were at the top of the food chain and everyone else was below them, collateral damage.
He didn’t say anything, just lifted his hand that held the cigar and motioned me forward. I smoothed my palms down my thighs, feeling my muscles tense. I was sore all over from what I’d done with Frankie, the pleasure he’d given me. But the tension I felt right now was from fear, the kind that went bone deep, the kind that twisted you up inside and made the pain excruciating.
When I was on the other side of his chair looking down at him, I stared at his profile. Petrov Romonoff had been called many things. Although he wasn’t the head of the bratva, he was as close as they came, a right-hand man, a killer of killers. That was his nickname, the latter, an assassin for the organization.
I just stood there, not saying anything, knowing he’d speak when he was ready. We all worked on his schedule.
He looked at me then, bringing his cigar to his mouth, his eyes dark as he stared at me, the smoke billowing out around him. It was a sweet, cloying scent, the kind that suffocated you, wrapped its fingers around your neck and squeezed until you begged to breathe, or prayed for death just so it would end.
He pulled the cigar out from between his lips and blew the smoke he held in his mouth out, the white clouds snaking out like tendrils, fingers searching for life to suck out.
“You smell like him,” he said in this monotone voice I felt throughout my entire body, as if it were a serrated knife sliding down my spine.
But still, I said nothing. What could I say? I had been with Frankie in every way possible. I had no doubt my cheeks were still pink, my lips still red and swollen from his kisses. I felt my neck tender from the scruff of his cheek as he kissed my throat. I felt him still all over me, in me.
And I hated that my father made me feel as if what I’d done with Frankie had been wrong, some dirty act that meant nothing.
It had meant everything.
“I know where you were. I know what you did.” He let those words hang between us, and I licked my lips nervously.
“I know you do.” And I did. “I know you have your men follow me.”
He gave me a smirk, but it held no humor. “And yet you still disobey me. You still act foolish and go to him, even though I told you it can’t last.”
In my father’s eyes, I was already taken, given away to someone who would strengthen the bratva’s alliance. But to me, in my heart, I belonged to Frankie.
“I love him,” I said. I know I told him this before, when he first told me I needed to focus on what was important, and that wasn’t running around with some lowlife boy. Frankie didn’t have money, didn’t have connections. So in my father’s eyes, he was nothing but a dead end.
“Love means nothing, Nadja,” he said in Russian, as if driving home who we were, what we stood for. His eyes were hard and cold as he stared at me. “The only thing that matters is loyalty and allegiance. That is how we survive, how we rise up.”
And still, I stayed silent. What could I say? Nothing I uttered would make him see reason, would make him let me live my life the way I saw fit. Nothing I said would let me be in love with Frankie on my own terms.