Page 60 of Blood Oath Christmas
She leans back in her chair, her expression guarded. "That sounds ominous."
"Was Dad involved with the Mafia?"
The words hang in the air between us like a bomb waiting to explode. My mother's face goes through a series of expressions—surprise, fear, and finally, disgust.
"Where did you hear that?" she asks, her voice sharp.
"That's not an answer."
She stands abruptly, pacing to the window that overlooks her perfectly manicured back yard. For a long moment, she doesn't speak, and I can see the tension in the rigid line of her shoulders.
"Yes," she says finally, the word barely above a whisper. "Yes, he was."
Even though I was expecting it, hearing her confirm it still feels like a punch to the gut.
"How long did you know?" I ask.
She turns back to face me, and for the first time since I arrived, I see something vulnerable in her expression. "I didn't know when I married him. He was just this charming, handsomeman who swept me off my feet. It wasn't until after you were born that I started to piece things together."
"What do you mean?"
She returns to her chair, but she doesn't sit. Instead, she grips the back of it like she needs the support. "The late-night phone calls. The way certain people treated him with a kind of fearful respect. The money that never seemed to have a clear source." She shakes her head. "I was young and naive, and I wanted to believe his explanations."
"But you figured it out eventually."
"When you were about five, some men came to the house looking for your father. They were… intimidating. That's when I confronted him, and he finally told me the truth." Her voice grows bitter. "He said he was trying to get out, that he wanted a clean life for us. But you can't just walk away from that world, Ivy. It follows you."
I think about Konstantin, about the way he carries the weight of his responsibilities, the constant vigilance that comes with his position. "Is that why you two grew apart?"
"I couldn't live with the fear," she admits. "Every time he left the house, I wondered if he'd come back. Every knock at the door made my heart race. And then when he died…" She trails off, her eyes distant.
"You said it was a car accident."
"That's what I was told to say." Her voice is flat again, emotionless. "But car accidents don't usually involve three bullets to the chest."
The room spins around me, and I grip the arm of the sofa to steady myself. "He was murdered?"
"I don't know the details. I didn't want to know. I just wanted it to be over, wanted to protect you from that world." She looks at me with something that might be regret. "I thought I had."
I take a shaky breath, trying to process everything she's telling me. "Mom, I need to tell you something."
She must hear something in my voice because she finally sits down, her attention focused entirely on me.
"I'm in witness protection," I begin, and then the whole story comes pouring out—the shooting at Otrava, the FBI safe house, Konstantin taking me from federal protection, our marriage. I tell her everything except the most intimate details, watching her face grow paler with each revelation.
When I finish, she's silent for a long time, staring at her hands folded in her lap.
"Konstantin Mikhailov," she says finally. "I remember him. Well, I remember his parents. Your father and I went to their restaurant a few times when you were very young." She looks up at me. "He was just a boy then, maybe in his early twenties. Quiet, serious. His parents were killed not long after."
"You knew about that?"
"It was all over the Russian community. A terrible tragedy." She pauses. "And now you're married to him."
"To protect me," I say quickly. "It's not… I mean, it started as just protection."
But even as I say it, I know it's not entirely true anymore. What Konstantin and I have has evolved into something deeper, something that scares me as much as it thrills me.
My mother must see something in my expression because her face hardens. "Oh, Ivy. Please tell me you haven't fallen for him."
