Page 72 of Merciless Queen

“The Bratva and Cosa Nostra have been in a battle for some time. Long before either of us were born. Hell, I think our fathers inherited the history of hatred and continued it. Couldn’t begin to tell you why because I honestly have no clue. A woman? Land? Trading goods? Who knows.” I shrug because past reasons might have influenced her father’s decisions but different ones decided mine.

Vanessa’s slowly nodding. “Yeah, that’s the only history my people dug up when looking into the Cosa Nostra. Nothing recent, though.”

“It’s purposeful you didn’t. Anyway, whatever round of battling our fathers were on, mine started it. Or, continued it.” A decision I wish he never made because if he didn’t, none of what came after would have occurred.

Vanessa remains quiet, which says more than words could convey.

“My father sent soldiers into Moscow and shot up one of his bars, taking out both civilians and Bratva soldiers. Not sure why that particular place. He only told me he knew your father’s emotional investment in it, so he felt it would do the most damage.”

“I know the bar,” she interrupts, nodding. “He never spoke about what happened to it, and truthfully, I never asked. It was a sore subject for him because it was the place he and my mother first met, after their arranged engagement. He bought it aftertheir wedding. Someone in your organization must have learned of his attachment to it.”

Life for a life. If Padre destroyed the place that held Ursin’s earliest memories of his late wife, then Ursin decided my mother was the best revenge he could get.

“A few weeks later,” I continue, “your father led an attack on this place. Stole my mother right from her bed and took her to Russia.”

Vanessa’s face whitens.

“He kept her for a few days, but it was a few too many. The destruction was done. The horror was lived. And my mother returned an abused, changed woman, raped by your father. A month passed before she learned she was pregnant, and it threw the entire organization into chaos. The child was either a bastard of an enemy,” I quote words said by others that I overheard as a nine-year-old boy, “or a potential Cosa Nostra heir. All came down to the timing of a few days’ difference.” I grimace. “She insisted on keeping the child, no matter the outcome, even when her own family andmio padrepleaded with her to not. She didn’t listen, and everyone turned against her.” I look down at my feet, despising the next two words. “Including him.”

My father wasn’t like Ursin Volkov. He was never abusive to Madre. Never cruel. But he was a cold-hearted capo and it was a generational trait from his father, his father’s father, and so on. He strived for the best organization and lost a lot the day his wife was taken from him. More, when she was returned, but his biggest fault—one even I recognized then—was that he didn’t understand that Madre had more stolen from her than he ever would.

“My sister was the only good that came from your father’s violation. Once Madre gave birth, it was easy to tell from physical traits alone whose DNA was in her. Padre kind of…lost it.” I pause, considering how to phrase the scenes I observedthrough a child’s eyes. “He couldn’t see past what happened. Couldn’t see past his own role. Stopped viewing my mother as the woman he was in love with.”

His love for her ensured she was set up and cared for in the smaller villa in Ostia, protected from everyone and everything, including herself, but his greater love for his role separated them.

In some ways, what he did was worse than even Ursin’s crimes. Abandonment by the one person who should have been by herfor better or for worsewas a pill she never quite swallowed, even up to his death.

“They divorced?”

I shake my head. “For her protection and good name, they remained wed, but he moved her out after the birth. Besides, she wanted nothing to do with the Cosa Nostra anymore. Simply being in her bedroom traumatized her, so it was probably for the best.” I pause, swallowing around the rough truth. “I spent so much of my life looking up to my father, wanting to be him…But what he did—how he hurt her—I hated him. Fought time and time again to convince him to reconnect with her, bring her home, and rebuild our family.”

“I’m sorry, Zeno.” Based on her tone, I think she really could mean it.

All these years later and my family finally gained an apology from hers, but it was never Vanessa’s to give. And not mine to accept. That’s the fucked-up part.

“For the course of her pregnancy, Padre never retaliated against the Bratva. I think the entire situation made him numb. Madre was torn between wanting your father dead and to forget the entire thing. After the birth, it seemed to wake him up and it sparked four years of ongoing war. But both sides were so evenly matched. For every hit your father sent our way, mine returned with equal force. I was only ten when it began, so Idon’t recall everything, but his second-in-command told me that it felt endless.

“Then,” I sigh, memories heavier now than they’ve ever been, “that’s when the tides changed. I don’t know what, or how, but your father managed to get the leg up on the next round. He stormed one of our bars, destroying everyone and everything in his wake. Padre’s men stood no chance against his battalion. And then…he murdered my father.”

Vanessa winces, and with a knowing gaze, states, “You were there too.”

“Wept over his dead body and everything,” I reply bitterly with pinched lips. “Witnessed it. Was forced to kneel beside him byyourfather.”

She rolls her lips together, a sudden awkwardness filling the space. “If the two organizations were so equally matched for all those years, how’d my father manage the attack?”

I shrug, shooting her a pointed glance. “Wouldn’t you know something about that? Your father never had hidden records or anything of the time?”

She snorts. “Papa wasn’t one to write anything down. He didn’t exactly keep a journal.”

Figured as much but it was worth asking. “We assumed he struck a deal with someone for the extra manpower. Trained more soldiers or something. In the end, does it matter?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but one she still ends up answering, her tone muted, expression downtrodden. “Guess not.”

“He left me alive,” I continue. “Claiming that he wouldn’t harm children.”

She snorts again, looking out the window. The skin around her eyes tighten, and I wonder if she’s thinking about her own past, when she was the same age.

“I vowed to him that his entire family would be brought down. The Volkovs destroyed us. My mother. My father. Me. Icouldn’t do anything for years, not until the organization was under my control. We had our hands tied: weren’t allowed to attack.”

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