Page 17 of Tormented Heir

DIMITRI

30-YEARS-OLD

San Francisco

I climb out of the car, fumbling for the keys to let myself into my house on the family estate. We live in Pacific Heights, amongst the bankers, lawyers, and surgeons. Jacob isn’t one of them, though. No, my stepfather is an entirely different entity.

As I’ve recuperated here after my surgery, I’ve learned something.

The organization he heads is more like the one I’ve just been discharged from than I’d ever realized. I had judged his work harshly and always thought I’d never be part of it, but as I’ve spent more time with him, I’ve realized I might be a better fit than I ever thought. Particularly now that my beast is snapping at my heels again, and the Marines discharged me.

I’ve been at a loose end since my military career ended, and a few times now, Jacob has asked me if I wanted to sit in on a poker game. I accepted and grew to like the camaraderie amongst his men.

The soothing sound of Russian being spoken, the smell of cigar smoke in the room, and the shuffling of the cards have made those nights like goddamn therapy for me.

They aren’t raucous but relaxed. In fact, Jacob is the very definition of speak softly and carry a big stick.

He wants me working for him, but joining the business would be a huge step away from what my life has been about so far.

A Russian-American who is fiercely patriotic to his new home shouldn’t be considering working for a criminal organization. Still, it wouldn’t be my country if Jacob hadn’t formally adopted me. I owe him. He gave me a steady hand when I needed it. He adopted me. Married my mother. Paid for my rehab.

Shit.

Across the gravel a sleek, dark car pulls up, and my stepsister hops out. I glance at my watch.

She’s home from school a little late today. She has tennis lessons soon, so she’ll need to change fast. Nataliya’s a teenager now, and she’s blossoming into a beautiful young woman. Jacob says he won’t let her date until she’s at least thirty. I laugh to myself as I unlock my door. Good luck with that. Nataliya is precocious and confident, and I think Jacob and Mamma are about to have a real battle on their hands.

I might be able to help. She looks up to me and has always acted as if I’m her hero. That never changed. Not even after the injury.

When everyone else looked at me with pity, she looked at me as if I was stronger than ever.

Nataliya is one of my favorite people on this earth, and I couldn’t love her more if she were my sister by blood.

I throw my gym bag on the table and head to the shower upstairs.

Under the water, for some reason my mind flicks back in time to Italy.

The betrayal of my stepfather. The shit I did too.

I often think back to that day with the farmer’s wife and feel burning shame. I was a fucking asshole. She’d done my mamma wrong, but what I did was bad too. Not taking her jewelry, she deserved that, but the other fucked up thing.

Then not finding the note, and us leaving so suddenly. It’s like a bad nightmare now.

The note.

Stepping out of the shower, I dry off.

Hating myself for doing it, I head to the box in the bottom of my sock drawer. I take it out and open it.

The note sits there, taunting me.

I did find it. Two years ago, while home on leave, amongst Mamma’s old dusty books in the attic. I wasn’t even looking for it, and there it was. In the pages of a Russian novel.

I brush my fingers over it but can’t bring myself to open it. My father wasn’t the strong man Russian Nonna told me about. Anton was right about him. He’d been weak. Sick in the head.

I fear his weakness, the sickness he had, lives in me too.

Reading that note did me no good. I’d rather have never found it. The knowledge of its contents is a poison slowly filling me.

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