Page 6 of Unwilling Bratva Bride

Frowning, Molly went back to the dish. She was only fifteen, and I didn’t want her to be burdened with the shop. I’d been doing it for years; that wasmyjob, and I would keep her and Ryan out of it if it were the last thing I ever did.

“Dinner’s beef and potatoes, so I need you to grab the flour down for me, Ryan.”

My brother nodded, humming over his shoulder at Mom. “I’ll get right on it when my hands aren’t literally in a sink full of water, Ma.”

She smirked, and I thought my chest might actually crack in half right then and there.

“Umm, I’m going to change, Mom. I need to get out of these shoes.”

With a nod, my mother just kept peeling. “Sure, sure.”

I walked back to the far end of our little apartment and up the tiny set of stairs that went to the attic storage. When the twins were born, I’d given up my room, and Dad and I refinished the attic to be my new bedroom.

The stairs were narrow and steep, and even my tiny five-foot-nothing frame could easily bump my head into the ceiling above me.

Opening the door, I went inside, straight to my twin bed, and sat down. I pulled off the boots because I really did want out of them, and then the flannel was next, getting tossed into the hamper in my closet. The tank was good enough, but with the oven on the house was a damn furnace, so I decided to switch to shorts.

As I pulled off the skin-tight fabric of the leggings, Ivan’s black card popped out of the pocket and fell to the floor. The thick, seemingly innocuous bit of plastic hit the rug by my bed with a gentle thump, and I stared down at it, remembering what he’d said.

A deal. I help your family pay for the past due rent and bring in some new business in the form of my family.

The temptation, like being presented with an apple in hell, made my damn mouth water. I didn’t want to say yes. Ididn’t. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself. Because we really were running out of options. I couldn’t expect my mother to keep this up, and Dad was out on a delivery right now on that damn scooter he’s too old to ride.

It was insane and unsustainable.

Hell, the twins wanted to go to college down the line, and I wanted to help them. They’d researched a few grants, but it wasn’t enough to cover out-of-state housing. They were so smart, too. Molly wanted to go for her teaching degree to help special needs students, and Ryan wanted to study computer science. He had developed a real passion for it, even though we didn’t have an electronic younger than a decade anywhere in the house.

Was I keeping their exceptional skills from the world bynotaccepting Ivan’s offer?

The only things I was good at were running the store and painting. It wasn’t like the world lost anything in my absence, and it wouldn’t cause a massive upheaval in anyone’s life if I weren’t here.

If my folks had enough money to keep the bodega open and not work it, they could find a different kid to work behind the counter. There were plenty in our neighborhood looking to make a bit of money. They didn’t need me in particular, so if I was gone…

“Okay, no. You still have the announcement tomorrow to see if we can get that city business funding. Wait until then.”

I picked the card up from the ground, leaning it against the mirror on my dresser, and went back to my closet to look for the shorts I wanted. I had a few pairs I actually liked, and this time, I was going for the most comfortable.

The deep gray fabric poked up from inside the hamper of clean laundry, and I pulled them out, pulling the cut-off sweatpants up my legs. Mom needed me to get going on those potatoes, and Dad would likely be back soon, so I hurried downstairs to help with dinner.

It was the least that I could do.

***

It had been two days since I ran into a mobster named Ivan in a bar. During those two days, I heard back from the city stating that we wouldn’t receive that grant because we didn’t meet the requirements for a proper dining establishment. There was a tiny area where people could eat, and we served fresh food items, but apparently, that wasn’t enough because we were primarily a grocer.

To top it off, yesterday, my mother’s hands were in so much pain that she’d lost grip strength while holding a pot of boiling water, and it spilled down her leg. She would be in the hospital for the next few days, treating the burns.

Which was a lot of money because our insurance wasn’t covering all of it.

Basically, if anything, the forty-eight hours following my fateful interaction at the bar had taught me one thing—we were not getting out of this mess on our own.

And that sucked. I didn’t want to accept help from an accredited bank, let alone a person who I was fairly certain was a member of a criminal organization or gang. I didn’t have much choice now, though, did I? That was proven in spades by what had happened this weekend.

Sitting on my bed, black card in hand, I sucked in a deep breath, locking eyes with my reflection.

“Okay, so…” In the background, I heard the twins arguing with each other, the nagging urge to do anything to help them go to college swelling higher, “all right.”

I looked at the QR code on the card, pulling up my phone to scan it. It took me to a link displaying a number, so I copied it and put it into the keypad. My thumb hesitated over the green call button, but after another deep breath, I pressed down lightly, and the dial tone started up quickly before ringing.

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