Page 33 of Cruel Bet

“I came in because you were screaming. I thought someone had broken in, but you were just having a bad dream, so I calmed you down.”

“How?” she asks.

“I held you, Arianna.”

A soft flush reddens her cheeks. “Thank you,” she murmurs.

“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to stay, I must have fallen asleep.”

“I’m glad you did,” she says shyly.

“What was your dream about?” I ask gently, sensing that there’s something fragile and tender between us here and she might finally start opening up. She hesitates, still uncertain around me. For all of our conversations and sex, we’ve not ever spoken about deep, meaningful things. Neither of us are willing to share too much of ourselves.

“Something my father did to a friend a long time ago.”

She stops and I think she isn’t going to elaborate further. But then she takes a deep breath and continues.

“When my sister and I were young, my father brought a girl from Bulgaria to be our maid, I say brough, but she was trafficked. She was only a year older than my sister, a child herself. We became close, she was like family to us. My father learned to use that to make us behave. If my sister or I ever acted out, he would hurt the other or Maria to punish us. That was more effective. By that point, we’d grown used to his beatings. But watching someone you love being hurt, that’s a different kind of pain. When I was sixteen, I tried to run away. I begged my sister and Maria to come but they were too afraid. I should have known Father would punish them for my mistake.”

I tense my jaw and clench my fists, trying to calm the rising rage I feel against De Luca. I knew he was a bastard, but to do that to your own kids is a new low.

“They tortured Maria. They couldn’t touch Adelina, not with the wedding suitors lining up to meet her, but Maria was fair game. She tried not to tell them where I went, but they broke her. When they brought me back home, she was almost unrecognizable. Father took great pleasure in telling me that he’d sold her off to a brothel. She can’t have survived long.Knowing it was my fault that she’d been sentenced to such a horrific fate has haunted me ever since,” she says, a tear escaping and trailing down her cheek.

I reach up to wipe it away, “It wasn’t your fault.”

She brushes my hand away and shakes her head. “It was. If I hadn’t run away, Maria and my sister would still be alive. Adelina was married off to De Stefano early because of it, to take the last person I cared about from me.”

“How long ago did she die?” I ask.

“More than seven years, I miss her every day.”

“I lost my mother almost seven years ago,” I surprise myself by admitting.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, moving closer and leaning her head back on my chest.

I know it’s an empty platitude most people say, but she says it with such feeling, like she somehow feels responsible. Seeing how much she cares makes me open up and talk about it. Something I haven’t ever done before. The fact that I don’t need to look her in the eye as I tell it, that I can just feel her and look away, makes it easier.

“We were sitting having lunch at a café for her birthday. As usual, my father was busy with work and running late. I didn’t see the shooter until it was too late. He fired twice. One hit me in the shoulder. I killed him before he could fire again. My mother wasn’t so lucky. She died in my arms. The hit was most likely against me and my father, she was just collateral damage,” I add bitterly before continuing.

“The man who did it had a Tanaka Yakuza tattoo. They were our closest allies, like family to us. Her death and the betrayal broke my father. He hunted down and killed all of the Tanakas in New York, apart from Endo and Kimiko. I convinced him to spare them. They’d lived with us since they were young after my parents adopted them both when their father died as part of our alliance with the Tanakas, there was no way they had anything to do with it.”

“My father became delusional, paranoid. He turned against everyone close to him. He became convinced that it wasn’t just the Tanakas who plotted to kill us. He believed his own brother had been involved and had him tortured. Dimitri was lucky to escape with his life, he managed to overpower and kill the man, but not before losing an eye.”

Arianna’s mouth pops open in an ‘o’ of surprise. “I didn’t realize Dimitri was your uncle. I should have known, you’re so close. So he wasn’t…?” her voice trails off, uncertain of how to phrase it.

“No, he wasn’t involved. I’m certain of it. He spent twenty years in prison and never once gave up my father or the family. He was nothing but loyal. He would never have betrayed the Kuzmin family. Heck, he was still in prison when my mother was killed.”

My jaw clenches, reliving the rage I felt back then.

“When my father decided that I too could have been involved, that I would kill my own parents to become Pakhan sooner, I knew he’d lost his mind. No amount of reasoning would work. Things became physical. I had no choice but to defend myself. I killed him. I killed my father.”

I say this emotionlessly, I’m numb to it. I don’t regret it. I would do it again if it meant saving my life and the lives of everyone else my father was on a warpath against. But it haunts me.

“I’m so sorry, Nikolai, I had no idea…” she trails off.

I don’t blame her. What the fuck can you say when hearing about my shit show of a life.

“I became the leader of the Kuzmin Bratva at only twenty-one. I argued that Dimitri would be the better leader, but he disagreed. He said his partial blindness and age would make him seem weak. That we’d lose everything. So, with his guidance, I threw myself into building the family business, to repair the damage my father caused. The upside of murdering my father is that our failing Bratva became pretty fucking powerful under my leadership. People tend to not want to mess with someone who killed their own father. Most don’t know the reasons, only that I did it,” I state blankly, trying to dismiss and minimize the situation.

---