61. Bronwyn

61

brONWYN

We lay naked and entangled for a long time, even when we started to get cold, because neither of us wanted to move. But Gennadiy, despite all his money, didn’t seem to believe in heating his house at all and we both started to shiver. Radimir stripped the bathrobe off my arms and pulled me naked under the covers and that was much better.

Outside, we heard the FBI and police finally leave. A freezing gray rain began, hammering the windows until the outside world was just a distant blur.

“Alexei,” I said. It was the first time either of us had spoken in a while.

Radimir reached down and stroked my hair. I was lying on my side with my head resting on his chest so I couldn’t see his face. “What about him?” he asked guardedly.

“Why won’t you get back in touch with him?”

A sigh from above me. “I already told you.”

“You explained who he was,” I said gently. “You told me why you broke apart. But you never explained why you can’t reconnect.”

“It’s been ten years. Why would I want to reconnect?”

I blinked, then craned my head back to look up at him. “Because he was your friend. Your only friend!”

He smoothed my hair again, but I could feel the tension in his hand. “I have my brothers. That’s enough. I told you in New York: people like me don’t get to have friends.”

I raised myself up on one arm so I could look at him properly. “ Everybody needs friends.” I searched his face. Reran his words in my head. “You think you don’t deserve friends?” I said quietly. “Because of what you’ve done?”

He looked away.

“Radimir…” He glared stubbornly at the window. “Radimir, look at me.”

He reluctantly turned to me.

“You think you don’t deserve friends, like they’re a reward the universe drops in your lap? That’s not how it works! Having friends isn’t easy, it’s hard. Asking for help is hard. Admitting you’re wrong when you’ve argued is hard. Being there for someone is hard. And it’s okay that it’s hard, that’s what makes it worthwhile. Do you know what I think?”

He scowled. “I rarely know what you think.”

“I think you’re scared. You’ve lost so much. I think it would hurt if you reached out and he rejected you. And instead of facing that, you isolate yourself.”

Radimir crossed his arms. “You think I’m a screw-up. You think I’m povrezhdennyy . Damaged.”

I looked him right in the eye. “No,” I said gently. “I think you’re a man .”

He glared at me, but I refused to drop my gaze. And eventually, those frozen sky eyes softened, and he rubbed at his face and cursed in Russian?—

There was a knock at the door. Radimir looked up but I leaned in front of him and gave him an imploring look .

He sighed. “I’ll think about it.” Then he turned to the door and raised his voice. “What?”

“It’s Valentin. We need you.”

We dressed and went downstairs. Gennadiy was leaning over the dining table looking at a huge map of Chicago with our areas of control marked in red. “Sorry, brother,” he said when he saw us. “You both deserve a rest. But Spartak’s men are attacking all over the city.” He shook his head grimly. “We’re not going to be able to hold onto everything. We have to save what we can.”

The rest of that day was brutal. Radimir and I spent most of it driving, racing from one emergency to another. A bar that had been smashed up. A crane destroyed at a construction project, setting it back months. A politician who’d suddenly switched allegiances to Spartak and now wouldn’t sign off on a new casino. And of course, the police noticed the upswell in violence and demanded to know what was going on, so we had to work with the cops we had on our payroll to calm things down.

We did our best to cling onto territory but just as Gennadiy said, we couldn’t save everything. We had to choose where to send the small number of men we had: which communities to protect and which to let fall to Spartak’s control. At one point, Radimir had to choose to let a commercial street on the south side go in order to reinforce a street packed with families in the north. Later, we had to drive through that same street and saw cars burning and stores with their windows smashed in. I saw Radimir’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel: his empire was falling.

The only good moment all day was when, that evening, I realized that we’d been working side by side this whole time. Radimir was a master of intimidation and scaring people into submission and I found I was good at reassuring people and smoothing things over. I was becoming the Bratva wife I never thought I could be.

When we regrouped at Gennadiy’s mansion, half of the red, Aristov territory on the map had turned to black. Spartak had swept like a wave through the city: it didn’t feel like a war, it felt like a coup. “We’re not going to last until Konstantin’s men get here,” muttered Gennadiy. “Another couple of hours and they’ll have taken everything. And then they’ll come for us.”

“How did Spartak plan this so well in just a few days?” I asked. Radimir, Valentin, Gennadiy and Mikhail shook their heads despondently. We could all feel us losing. Even Mikhail’s dogs had sensed the mood and were lying quietly, their heads on their paws.

A roar of engines made us all look up. Headlights blasted through the cracks in the drapes, lighting the room up. Valentin peeked outside. “Cars,” he told us. “A lot of cars.”

Spartak. He was coming for us now.

Radimir grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him, then picked up a gun. Valentin turned off the lights and we all moved back from the windows.

I could hear footsteps outside, scrunching through the gravel to the front door. We all exchanged looks. Fuck. We’d misjudged things. Most of our men were out fighting in the city, we only had a handful of guards.

Someone banged on the front door. Gennadiy pointed his gun at it, ready to fire as soon as they broke it down. “Go upstairs,” Radimir ordered, his voice tight. “Hide. They might not find you.”

I shook my head and squeezed his hand. “I’m not leaving you.” I tried to sound strong, but my voice was shaky with fear.

Another bang on the door. Everyone tensed, ready...

“ Konstantin sent us!” yelled a voice.

We all looked at each other. It’s a trick. It was a twelve-hour drive from New York. Konstantin’s men wouldn’t be here for at least another few hours, however fast they drove. Radimir shook his head. Valentin cocked a shotgun and pointed it at the door...

“I come with a gift,” yelled the man. “A box of the pastries Mrs. Aristov liked so much?”

My eyes widened. No one else would know about me snarfling the pastries. “It is them!” Before anyone could stop me, I ran to the door and pulled it wide.

The man on the doorstep was craggy and good looking, in an older man sort of way, his hair streaked with silver. He was dressed in a black suit and tie, and he presented a bakery carton to me with a flourish. “Courtesy of Mr Gulyev’s girlfriend,” he told me with a smile. “I am Grigory, Mr. Gulyev’s head of security.” I could hear the pride in his voice as he said the last part. Behind him, car after car was pulling up, filling the driveway.

Radimir and the others crowded into the doorway around me. “How did…” asked Gennadiy, looking at his watch. “How did you get here so fast? It’s impossible!”

“We didn’t drive,” Grigory told him. “Mr. Gulyev was concerned about your situation, so he had us use his private jet.” He smiled and glanced over his shoulder. “And he sent a few extra men, just to be sure...”

We all stared. Men were climbing from the cars, all carrying stubby sub-machine guns. But there weren’t thirty, like we’d asked for. There were closer to?—

“Sixty-three,” Grigory deadpanned. “It was a little crowded, on board.”

It was a long night. We had to coordinate Konstantin’s men and our men and push back Spartak while also defending the territory we still held. It was slow work, but numbers were on our side, now, and Spartak was caught off guard: he’d thought we were finished. By morning, we’d taken back what was ours and actually started taking over Spartak’s territory. Exhausted and running on nothing but coffee, we started to give each other cautious, hopeful glances. Finally, Valentin said what we’d all been thinking. “We might actually win this. If things keep going our way…”

Gennadiy rubbed his cheek, a full night of stubble rasping. “Even if we win, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back the power we had. Not as long as we’re cut off from The Eight.”

“One thing at a time, brother,” Radimir told him, patting his shoulder.

“I need to go check on the store,” I told Radimir.

A quick shake of his head. “Out of the question!”

I pointed to the map. “Spartak’s never even come close to threatening that neighborhood. It’s deep, deep in our territory. The fighting’s on the other side of the city.”

He frowned and opened his mouth to argue. “Just for a few hours!” I said quickly. “Come on, Jen’s been covering for me ever since the wedding. I can’t leave her on her own anymore.”

He glared for a moment and the protective need in his eyes made me weak. Then his face softened, and he sighed. “Just a few hours,” he warned. “And I’ll come with you, to make sure it’s safe.”

When we arrived, the store was already open. The freezing rain was still hammering down but the warm light from the store’s windows was like a beacon, welcoming people inside. Walking in felt like coming home: I was never normally away from the store for more than a day at a time, and so much had happened since the wedding that it felt like I’d been gone for a month. God, I missed this place! I was buzzing, and not just from all the coffee I’d drunk to work through the night. Things were looking up: the war was going our way and the meeting with Konstantin had sparked an idea. I had a plan that maybe, just maybe, could save the bookstore.

I’d brought Jen a takeout cup of coffee and the box of pastries Hailey had sent over: it was the least I could do. As soon as I saw her, I pulled her into a hug. “ Thank you, ” I told her. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

She hugged me back but without much strength and when I moved back, she looked pale and skittish. “You okay?” I asked.

She nodded quickly. “Just tired.”

I gave her another hug, then turned to Radimir, who was standing in the doorway. His phone bleeped with another message: the war was going our way, but he was still needed. “Go,” I told him. “Everything’s fine here, I’ll help Jen for a few hours: you know where I am if you need me.” Radimir looked uncertain. “Leave someone here to guard the place, if you’re worried,” I told him.

He grudgingly nodded but insisted on leaving four of Konstantin’s heavily-armed men in a car right outside the store. I made a mental note to take some coffee out to them. Radimir pulled me to him and kissed me. “ Be careful,” he told me. His hands stubbornly gripped my shoulders, unwilling to let me go.

I nodded meekly. “You too.” I looked towards the door. “Go,” I said softly. “I’ll be fine.”

He sighed and released me. When I watched him drive away, there was an ache in my chest: it was the first time we’d been apart since we left for New York.

“Okay,” I said, turning to Jen. “Tell me what’s been happening.”

“A delivery came,” she said, and pointed. “It’s in the back.”

I followed her into the back room. “I can unpack it,” I told her. “You sit down, eat one of those pastries and get some coffee inside you, you look?—”

I stopped in shock. Jen had moved aside, and I could see Baba sitting in an armchair. “What?—”

The door slammed closed behind me and I spun around.

“Hello, Mrs. Aristov,” said Spartak Nazarov.