Page 67 of Kadra: The Unfeeling

My men.

My sisters.

Maybe I thought of it all wrong.

Maybe they were never my weakness but my strengths.

Because of them, I survived.

This boy and my Russian have given me a reason to fight.

A reason to wage war and come out of it… alive.

Chapter 21

VITALI

OLD MOVIES & VINTAGE SOULS

“Let me see your scars.

I promise to kiss every single one.” — V

“Are the rumors true?” My niece’s voice comes through the speakers of the laptop that sits on my lap. I’m laid back in bed while a black-and-white movie plays in the background. The Wizard of Oz.

“Be more specific, Reyna,” I mumbled absently as I type relentlessly searching the dark web for anything I can find on the fuckers still trafficking kids in the streets of this city under the command of the governor and sick fuck of a son.

As of now we’ve been able to get our hands on most of the pimps running the kids and we sent a message to the ones at the top.

And that’s that we’re coming for them.

They’re getting sloppy, too. Not that I’m complaining. On the contrary, it’s entertaining as fuck for me.

“About the Parisi boss being a man-eating piranha?” My teenage niece asks, sounding a little too eager to find out the answer. Minimizing the search screen, I click on the video chat window to maximize it. There on the screen looking like mafiya royalty is my only niece, Reyna, the apple of my brother’s eyes and New York’s prinzessa looks nothing like us Soloniks aside from her dark eyes the same as her father but everything else she got from her mother to Vladimir’s dismay.

Vladimir likes to joke that she got her brains from me and her mad computer skills. That I don’t deny it. “She makes grown men cry before she takes their lives if that’s what you’re asking,” I answer truthfully and proudly as fuck, watching her reaction.

It’s true too. I wouldn’t wish Kadra as an enemy to anyone. That woman has the power to make Satan cry. I don’t doubt it but she also has the power to make his heart melt. She sure as fuck has that effect on me. Thinking about my golden eye beauty I wonder how she’s feeling. She spent the entire afternoon with Azariel in the garden. It was a bittersweet moment watching them have their picnic. Sweet because the look on both their faces made my heart feel as if it was going to explode inside my chest. The way she looked at my boy so lovingly and what really got me was the way Azariel looked at her when she wasn’t looking. My boy looked at her as if he wasn’t sure if she was real or not.

It was a bitter moment too because I wanted nothing more than to be there with them. Listening to their sweet laughter and those smiles that make the heart inside my chest stop.

Only they can do that.

“Awesome.” Reyna’s voice breaks through my thoughts, and I instantly focus on her. She grins and her eyes shine with mischief. She might not look like us but her smarts and her thirst for chaos is all her Russian side. “When can I meet her?” she frowns as she waits for my answer.

“Soon,” I tell her the truth.

“Good, dyadya.” Reyna’s Russian is very advanced for someone who was born and raised here in the States. Also, her father and I only speak Russian when we’re around her. Vladimir wanted her to always remember her roots. Our roots.

“Is that malen’ kiy?” My brother, Vlad, interrupts appearing on screen. I mentally roll my eyes at how my brother still calls me his little one when the fucker knows I’m as big as him. His large frame doesn’t quite fit on screen. I watch as Vlad leans all the way down so I can see his face instead of his crotch.

“Papa.” Reyna sighs, seeming exasperated as she looks back at her father who has his face ring on her left shoulder. “Do you know the meaning of personal space?”

“No.” My brother answers her in all seriousness, making his kid roll her eyes.

“Are you well?” All traits of softness are gone from his expression and now there is only concern. Vladimir knows what I’m capable of doing. He has seen my depravity firsthand and still he at times looks at me as if I were that same boy on the streets who he had to protect and not the man that I am now. “Is Wednesday treating you well?”

I try not to smile at my brother’s nickname for Kadra. I don’t think she would appreciate it, not even as accurate as it is. Vladimir and I learned English by watching the Addams family on TV when Papa got us off the streets, that is.

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