Page 48 of Stolen By The Bratva King

I don’t remember reaching the cabinet or taking the pistol, but I do remember the second gunshot setting the ceiling chandelier jangling above me.

I hurled myself into the kitchen and pulled pots and pans out of a cupboard, listening to the heavy feet of the intruder as they moved through the house.

A voice I didn’t know, speaking a language I didn’t know. “Piccolo stronzo? Where you hiding?”

I curled up in the cupboard like a pillbug and sobbed into my knees.

Was Mom dead, too? Why wasn’t I running to save her?

Papa’s words came to me all too clearly: be a man, Leon. It’s your job to protect those you love, even if you have to die to do so.

But I couldn’t move. My arms were limp, my legs numb, my breath so sparse that my vision was graying.

With every second that passed, I was letting them down.

“You hid in your kitchen cupboard? I’m missing something here. How old were you?”

I blink, returning from the dark place to see Emery leaning forward, her eyes on me.

“I was six,” I say.

“Six? Jesus, Leon! You were a little kid. How could you possibly be expected to stand up to someone who broke into your home and murdered your family?”

“A lot of people said the same.” I knock back the rest of the vodka. “It made no difference. I felt responsible and still do.”

“So did the guy get caught?”

“You won’t believe this, but when I opened the cupboard, he was standing over my father’s body, preparing to spit on him. My anger and fear spilled over, and I fired; by some miracle, I hit him in the chest. He went down, and I ran to the road and flagged down a car.

My memories are fuzzy after that, but the cops told me they found Reggiani dead and slumped over my father. They said he probably wanted to check if my Papa was dead before coming to my room and shooting me, too.”

“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry, Leon.”

I think about pouring another measure but neck it from the bottle instead. Emery watches me, her brow furrowed.

“You wanna know something?” she says. “My mother died when her boat crashed into rocks just off Cape Agulhas in South Africa. My father was meant to go with her, but I was mad at her about something and wanted to ruin it, so I whined and pleaded with my father to stay with me instead of sending me to the resort’s kid’s club. He always spoiled me and gave me my own way; he and Mom fought about it often.”

I set down the bottle and give her my full attention. “Often the way with rich kids, but not your fault.”

“Mom was real mad and said she’d take the yacht out alone. Dad shouldn’t have let her—the sea was too choppy—but I refused to give in, and Mom was too angry to compromise anyway.”

Her voice breaks, the words shuddering. “Mom glared at me and said, ‘You’re such hard work, Emery!’ I told her I hated her as she walked away, and she looked back but said nothing more. I never saw her again.”

I understand her so much better now. Like me, she’s driven by guilt and regret, but her feelings took her down a different path.

She spends her life trying to help people, as though she’s saving her mother anew every time she pulls a patient back from a code. Outside her work, she wanted only to keep her boat steady and not rock it.

If she made challenges, if she was hard work, people got hurt. That’s what my sweet Emery learned all too well.

I’ve been trying to redeem myself through control and power, but she’s been saving the world, patient by patient, hoping to fill a void that can’t be filled.

We’re two sides of the same tarnished coin.

“I’m guessing you were young, too,” I say.

“I was five, so even younger than you.” She sniffs and wipes her eyes on her sleeve. “I’d do anything to take it back.”

I want so badly to reach into her and take the hurt away, to rewrite history so this tragedy doesn’t make her think this way.

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