Wicked Mafia Prince: A dark mafia romance (Dangerous Royals Book 2) (12 page)

“It won’t work, Viktor.”

“Can’t we just enjoy the afternoon?”

“You won’t make me remember.”

“Then what’s the harm?”

She sighs, seeming to relax, and I think maybe Mira was right about letting her relax, surrounding her with goodness. You can’t force a flower to bloom, but you can show it the sun.

Tanechka eyes her honey cake. “I require only simple food.”

“Honey cake isn’t so complicated.”

She bites into her cake and chews without expression, as if it’s cardboard. It was one of her favorites—layers of honey-soaked cake with creamy frosting between each one. A girl’s cake. She pauses, still looking at nothing, but there’s a slight light in her eyes. Is she remembering?

I stay quiet, but my heart feels like it might explode.

Her famous focus was good for more than killing; it allowed her to enjoy beauty and pleasure more deeply than other people.

I want to tell her this is something beautiful that I loved about her very much, but I hold back. I want this moment to be for her, not for me.

She casts her gaze down at the cake. “Not bad,” she says softly.

I look away before she can catch the shine in my eyes and think me soft. “Hmm,” I say, as if bored. I’d give her anything if only she’d come back. I’d give her a blade and tell her to cut my throat.

Out the corner of my eye I see her take another bite. I school my features to look unimpressed.

“Usually it’s the Russian babies going to the West.”

“What?” I say.

“You. Sent to a Moscow orphanage.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Your enemy wanted to destroy your family. A young family.”

I try not to betray too much happiness that she’s engaged me. “Yes. My father lifted him up to make him his right-hand man, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted the power that our father possessed. He wanted the power to pass on to him, not to me and my brothers. Mira’s father is dead now, but his dangerous
kumar
, Bloody Lazarus, is even worse. Lazarus is the man who owns Valhalla, where you were.”

“That’s why you want to destroy it, then. To hurt Lazarus.”

“It’s not only self-interest,” I say.

“No?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll take it down all the same.” I look away. “There was a prophecy—”

“I don’t believe in prophecies.”

“I don’t either, but a lot of people do, and that’s what gives them power. An old crone, honored for her predictions, pointed to the three of us brothers at a party soon after Kiro was born. She said that we brothers together were unbeatable. ‘You boys. Together you rule…you boys, you three boys.’ Aleksio thinks it was part of why Lazarus and Mira’s father went after us.”

Out the corner of my eye I catch her focusing on the box where the rest of the cake still waits. Two more pieces.

I try not to smile. “There’s more.”

“I do not think I want it.”

I wave my hand. “Feed it to the gulls, then.”

She folds her hands in her lap. Oh, she wants the cake. “Your enemies want to keep you from reuniting?”

The old Tanechka would not ask such an obvious question.

“Yes,” I say. “It’s why we have to find Kiro before anybody else can—especially Bloody Lazarus. He needs to prevent the brothers from being together.”

“He believes in the prophecy?”

“I don’t know. But within…our community, it would be an immense psychological advantage for us to bring Kiro back. The three brothers united would command the hearts and minds of people because of that prophecy. But if he kills one of us, it’ll make him stronger. People will more readily follow him. It’s not so easy to kill me or Aleksio. But Kiro is out there unaware. Lost.”

I sit up and put another piece on her plate, then I gaze out at a distant freighter, allowing her privacy. She very much wants that cake.

I tell her about Kiro, how he might be a wild boy. I tell her about the joy I felt when Aleksio showed up at a garage in Moscow. Tanechka would have been every bit as happy for me as Yuri was, seeing that I had a brother. She would’ve jumped into my arms, and the three of us would have gone out and torn up the town.

Now she just listens.

She reaches out and pulls a bit of spongy cake from the edge. My heart lifts. But then she throws it. Gulls fly over. One takes it and flies off. She throws out the rest, bit by bit, feeding the gulls. This, too, is so Tanechka. She will not be managed.

Tanechka

T
he gulls finally
leave. I lie back, staring at the sky that is such a beautiful blue. “Just the color is so beautiful, it makes me feel dizzy. As if the color is alive,” I say.

He says nothing. I can’t tell whether he’s happy or sad. So often he seems to have both emotions flowing through him. Never have I met a man so volatile. Then again, I have not met so many men.

That I remember, anyway.

He stares at the lake, arms planted behind him, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms wild with sinew and muscle.

If he is to be believed, I once loved him. We had sex together.

Thick, thick fingers spread out on the picnic blanket.

If he is to be believed, it means he once touched me everywhere with those fingers. I can’t imagine what it would be like, to allow him to touch me with those thick fingers. To have him put himself inside me.

Sometimes his gaze is invasive, seeing too much. Other times it has weight and warmth. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with such a gaze upon my naked body.

He turns to me as if he senses the direction of my thoughts. “What are you thinking, Tanechka?”

“Many things.”

“I wish I could take all of the pain you felt. I would die ten times over to spare you from what you went through. The pain. The fear. I would do anything—”

“I wouldn’t want you to take it away. What happened was a gift,” I say. “The best thing.”

He grits his teeth and looks away. He doesn’t agree that it was a gift.

He has four guards following us, keeping watch on me. I saw two when we got out of the car. Two more later. Three are on the road behind us. One lingers near the shuttered snack stand some distance away. I am just one woman.

Perhaps he’s right to have four on me. I get many ideas about escaping, seemingly out of nowhere, like a hidden helper passing me a note. I often picture the floor plan of the flat he has me trapped in as a diagram in my mind. The idea of the roof has come to me several times. The row of homes is so tightly packed, the roof will be like a highway. This way of thinking feels like a well-worn path.

He wants to read the poetry to me.

I tell him I don’t want to hear it.

This upsets him—he’s gets upset very easily, this one—but I don’t like the way he knows things about me that I don’t know. Like the honey cake. The
orehi
. The fizzy water—favorites of mine from the past. This is not a fair playing field.

He wants to play music instead, but I will not have it—not after what he told me about my love of American rock and roll.

He reaches into the basket and pulls out a block with squares of color on it. He hands it to me, and instinctively I begin to turn the parts this way and that, knowing it is wrong and that it must be made right.

“Rubik’s Cube,” he says. “We used to love them. We would race.”

I pause. Another trick. I want to finish it. Red squares are where blues should be. The green, the red. It pains me not to finish it.

“Go on.”

I set it aside. “Another life.”

“Don’t you want to know, Tanechka?” He lies down next to me now, on his belly, head propped in his hands. “You used to be curious as a cat. It would sometimes get you into trouble.”

His nearness gives me an unruly feeling—so much feeling. My impulse is to sit up, so that the feeling might shake out of me. But such a sudden movement would reveal far too much. I stay. I pretend to be unaffected.

“You always loved stories and mysteries.” He takes hold of a bit of fabric from my sleeve and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger—unconsciously, it seems. But nothing this man does is unconscious. Best to remember.

“I remember once we had a ring that somebody lost—a ruby ring. So beautiful, with an unusual pattern. Celtic, you thought.”

He doesn’t touch my skin, only my sleeve. Still, he has such a gravitational pull. He continues to speak. The velvet of his voice seems to sweep against my skin. This man who would die ten times to take my pain, admiring and enchanting me. He’s too rich for my blood, too everything, just like the honey cake.

“You called on scholars to identify the unusual design, then you researched designers and stores. You had endless ideas for finding the owner.” He goes on about my quest, praising the inquisitive and resourceful side of me.

I remove my sleeve from his grasp and pretend to study the clouds. It doesn’t matter; he overwhelms me even when we aren’t touching. “What happened?”

“We found the person.”

“From just a ring?”

“Yes. Nobody thought we could do it, but you were tenacious. You and I found her house, just from the ring.”

Something tugs at the corners of my mind. “Was she happy to have it back?”

A pause. “Who wouldn’t be?”

The sun comes out from behind a passing cloud, and I close my eyes, basking in its warmth, basking a little bit also in his admiration.

That’s when I feel him touch my cheek.

I turn and scowl at him, and he withdraws his hand, smiling.

“You’re not doing it right. Keep them shut.”

“What?”

“Come on. It’s a game we used to play.” He pushes my chin, makes me turn my face back to the sky. “Close your eyes.”

I feel happy, and I don’t know why.

“Close them. Do this one thing for me.”

“Fine.” I close my eyes. Again he touches my cheek—so lightly I almost can’t feel it. Unbidden, my lips curl in a smile. I don’t remember this game, but I remember the happy, pure feeling of it. The excitement of it.

“
Pomnish
?” he whispers. “Remember?”

“It’s no use, Viktor.”

“Keep your eyes closed,” he says.

I feel his fingertips graze my cheek once again.

“
Pomnish
?”

I smile again because I know he’ll kiss me there—I
need
for him to kiss me there just as day follows night.

Then I still. This is the game—touch the place you’re going to kiss.

I should stop the game, but every molecule in me is waiting for his kiss, craving his kiss on my cheek, as if I need to finish this thing we have started.

It’s as if he’s communicating with my body, bypassing my mind completely. Is this what it’s like to be hypnotized?

I feel him near.

My breath speeds as something soft presses to my cheek, lightly, quickly, then gone. I open my eyes.

He pulls away with the strangest look—a mixture of grief and joy. “You remember.”

His gaze falls to my lips. He lifts his finger, but I’m too fast—I grab it, bend it, threatening to break it. I know four ways to break this finger, and they array in my mind in order of pain. I squeeze, feeling the delineation of bones, horrified at the knowledge inside me.

Now he just looks happy. “You remember.”

A dark feeling comes over me. “What happened after she got the ring back? What’s the rest of the story?”

He breaks eye contact.

“No.” I squeeze his finger. “Tell me the rest.”

“Will you break my finger, Tanechka? Do you feel it? Just a twist.”

“Tell me.”

“Or you could break it at the middle joint.”

I push away his hand. “Tell me the rest.”

“You found the owner. She was happy to get it back.”

“There’s more.”

“Do I look like a psychic? I can’t predict people’s futures.”

“The woman who owned it—is she…okay?”

He gets a helpless look.

Everything in me clenches like a fist. “Tell me the rest.”

“Tanechka,” he whispers.

“Did I hurt her?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Please,” I beg. “Please.”

His look tells me everything.

I hurt her. Maybe killed her.

A seasick wave rolls through my belly. I dive my hand into my pocket, fumbling for my prayer rope. I clutch it like a lifeline.

“I need to know.” My voice is gravelly, as though dredged up from the rocky depths. “Tell me!”

He shakes his head.

“You wanted me to remember.
Tell me
.”

“You won’t understand.”

My throat feels so thick, I can barely get the words out. “I killed her.”

“Tanechka.”

“Get away from me!” I spring up and begin to run, feet sinking into the soft sand, frantic, pumping my arms, trying to go faster, faster, to outrun everything. I hear him panting behind me. He grabs me from behind and I plant myself, use his momentum to throw him over my shoulder, then I pivot the other way, sand spraying.

Again he comes after me and this time he tackles me, bringing us both down. He rolls, taking the impact with his big body, holding me tightly.

I gasp for my breath as he flips us, him over me now.

“I killed her.”

The weight of him presses me into the soft sand, cool and rough on my cheek. “Shhh,” he says, “you’re okay.”

“I’m not
okay
.”

“You just need to remember who you are. You need to be yourself again.”

“I’d rather die.”

He holds me tight, crushing me with the violence of his emotion. “I won’t let you. Not again.”

“I killed a person.” The knowledge is a wound inside. There’s something warm in my chest, growing so fast I think it might break my ribs. I’m gasping for air, and suddenly the thing in me breaks and I’m sobbing—huge, heaving sobs.

He holds me, strokes my hair. “Shh.”

“How can God forgive a person like me?”

“Tanechka.” He strokes my hair.

I try to push him away, but he won’t let go. I sob in his hateful arms. “I’m unforgivable.”

“Never,
lisichka
. You’re brave. You’re beautiful.”

I sob quietly, bereft.

“I wish I could take this pain from you.” He gasps his words into my hair, clutching me to his breast. “I would die for you a million times.”