Page 6 of Zafira

“Correction, Vanya.” Bogdan turned. None of the emotions at seeing her lovely face showed on his. Vanya, all of the Guzun siblings, really, were like his own children. He had missed her the most since she had been like an added attachment to his leg whenever he was around her growing up. “I own the most successful fishing trawling business on the Miami coastline. I supply fish and seafood statewide.” His smile was sardonic. “Even to Moldova.”

“But are you happy, Bogdan?”

He suppressed a smile at her tenaciousness. Vanya had come here with a goal, and it was more than evident she wasn’t leaving until she achieved it.

“I am content.”

“See! You’re not happy,” she cried out, elated.

“Leave it, Vanya. Happiness is overrated, and only you yourself are responsible for your own. Over the past year, I’ve often asked myself what it means to be happy and—”

“It’s when—”

Bogdan’s raised hand cut her excited interruption short.

“Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, defines happiness as ‘the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.’” His expression turned grim. “The reality is, going back to Moldova isn’t going to bring me any of those. I’ve been fooling myself for years. I’ve never been truly happy, especially over there.

“No, Vanya. I appreciate you coming out here, but I am right where I belong now. There’s nothing for me in Moldova.” A humorless cackle escaped his lips. “I find I rather prefer being a fish mobster than a human one. At least there are no broken families left behind when I chop off a fish’s head. Well... some would debate that, but you get my drift.”

In the world of the Bratva, Bogdan was known as ubiytsa smerti, the death slayer, a moniker he had earned early on as the advisor to the Pakhan of the Guzun Bratva. He was respected because he was truly a nice man with a dry sense of humor. However, he was feared more because, as an assassin, he showed no mercy to those who opposed or hurt any of the Guzun Bratva family.

Strangely, since it had become a way of life for him most of his adult life, it was this aspect that he hadn’t missed over the past year. In fact, he reveled in not having to kill or look over his shoulder for the next stupidly brave one, wanting the accolade of beating the ubiytsa smerti.

“If you don’t want to go back to Moldova, then at least come and live with us in Andrei’s castle in Russia. Just come home with us.” Vanya caught his hands as she entreated earnestly, “We need you.”

“I’m not going, Vanya. Accept it.”

With a heavy sigh, Vanya turned to Andrei. “You have to tell him. It’s the only way.” Her eyes locked on Bogdan as she gestured to the big man who had been watching him with burning eyes. Andrei always had a way of shrinking the biggest man to the size of an ant. Where Bogdan was the slayer of men, Andrei’s gaze was the slayer of confidence. “He needs you the most.” Her hand curled around her belly. Bogdan’s eyes narrowed as, for the first time ever, he noticed a tender smile of expectation cross the fearless woman’s face. “As does your... grandson.”

“My what?” Bogdan’s fists landed low on his hips. “What nonsense are you spouting, Vanya?”

“You are my father, Bogdan.” Andrei spoke up for the first time. “Remember, I went to the homeland statistics department and the lab that did the DNA test years ago when my uncle claimed Viktor was my father?” His eyes darkened. “I found out they did four different tests. Only one sample showed a ninety-eight percent match to my DNA. I personally had it verified again after Janos died.

“Vanya is right. You are about to become a grandfather. I need my father in my life, especially now that I’m about to become one. I never had a real father. The one who claimed me as his son was a shit face, Uncle Janos was worse, and Viktor... well, we both know how he was. I need an example to guide me when my son is born. You were there for the Guzun family when their father died. I need you in my life now.” Andrei walked closer. “I finally realized why I was always so drawn to you. Why I felt a deep connection from the first day we met. My soul knew who you were. Please, come home with us... Tata.”

“I can’t be... I’ve never... I believed Janos was lying about Dimitri Balan not being your father at the time purely to hurt Zafira. I didn’t have sex with Nikita that...” Bogdan’s words became strangled in his throat as he cast his mind back to Viktor’s bachelor's party. “I haven’t thought of that night for so long because I was having the worst time of my life. Celebrating the joy of my best friend getting married while my heart was crushed about losing the woman I loved. I chose to lock it from my mind because it was after that night, and upon our return home, that I was thrown in jail.”

“In jail?” Vanya’s brow furrowed ominously. “Why don’t we know about that?”

Bogdan sighed. “Apart from Viktor, his father, and Zafira’s father, no one knows I was incarcerated for a year for no reason. When I returned and found your mother happy with a little baby boy as a sign of her love for her husband, I chose not to tell her.”

Leaning against the balustrade, Bogdan’s eyes turned smokey as he watched the people having fun below.

“Everyone seems so happy and carefree,” he muttered. “I forgot what that feels like.”

“You can be happy, Tata.”

His body shuddered in reaction when Andrei laid a hand on his shoulder. A gesture he had performed many times over the years, but this time, it felt different. It shook Bogdan to the core... knowing it was his son, his own flesh and blood, comforting him.

“With us and our son... Boian Bogdan... Rusu.”

“Rusu?” Bogdan’s voice cracked as he stared at Andrei. That they were naming their son after his father and him made his heart swell to bursting point. A happiness he was unfamiliar with filled his soul as for the first time, he identified similarities in Andrei’s features and his own. He was happy to notice that Andrei had invested in plastic surgery, and only a thin scar remained under his eye from the harrowing shot that had almost cost him his life.

“Now that I know who I am, Vanya and I want to start a new beginning for our children, so we chose to do so with my real surname,” Andrei continued. “I can now finally be who I was born to be, and it’s a tradition we want our descendants to continue. That’s why we changed our surname to Rusu and decided to name our firstborn after my blood grandfather and you... my birth father.

“I don’t know what to say... or feel. All of this is so sudden and...” He turned away as, for the first time in his adult life, he struggled to keep his emotions under control. “I was so focused on keeping Viktor from fucking Nikita that I forgot that I ended up with her.” The hand he ran over his face trembled. “I did have sex with your mother that night. In fact, I was the last one who did. I kept her busy so she would leave Viktor alone.” His breath escaped in a broken exhale. “Jesus Christ, is it real, Andrei? Are you truly my son?”

“Yes, Bogdan Rusu, you are my birth father.” Andrei’s smile silenced all doubts Bogdan might have mustered up. “I will show you the DNA results to set your mind at ease.”

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