Page 16 of Brooklyn Bratva

I didn’t know what to say to him.

Congratulations! Your daughter grew up to be a real looker. I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off her and if you try and stop me, I’m going to flay you alive.

That wasn’t going to go down well. Not when I was supposed to be his best friend.

As much as I knew I wanted her, the thought of having his daughter sounded like some kind of betrayal to him, given everything he’d done for me.

I didn’t know her properly, and I wasn’t pretending to. All I knew about who she really was came from the occasional proud fatherly moments Joe lapsed into. I knew she was smart and hardworking. A good kid. No – she wasn’t a kid. She was a good person. A good woman.

But beyond that, there was a sense of familiarity and a sense of comfortableness that I felt around her. She set me at ease. Being with her, already I felt like I could be myself in a way that I wasn’t able to be so much of the time.

And my attraction for Becca felt like the most natural thing in the world. How could it be wrong? He should take it as a compliment. He’d come around. I’d make him.

I hadn’t ever pictured what it would be like to have a family here. To have a wife. Now I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. Instinctively I knew Becca would be the kind of mother any kid would be glad to have. I wanted that for my flesh and blood. And I would protect my family with everything I had at my disposal, the way I always done. I’d make as many sacrifices as necessary.

I gulped another mouthful, relishing the burn of the vodka as it hit the back of my throat, and the screen of my cell phone finally went dark again.

Joe had given up. Tomorrow, I would talk to him. Or perhaps the day after that.

CHAPTER 7

Becca

We were in the middle of one of Mrs. Kovalenko’s TV shows when my phone started buzzing, and I got up to excuse myself from the subtitled Russian soap opera, going back to my bedroom to answer it.

“Goodnight Mrs. Kovalenko. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She barely looked up from the screen, absolutely transfixed. She’d dished out so much food for dinner, and I’d had to beg her to let me do the dishes. Staying here felt like it was going to be more her taking care of me than the other way around. “Sleep well Becca.”

I smiled, watching her from the doorway for a minute before I picked up the call and turned away.

“Hi Dad.”

“Becca! Sorry for calling earlier. I just wanted to check you got there okay. How’s the apartment? How was the trip? I thought you might still be out with Ivan.”

I laughed at the barrage of questions.

“I know, Dad. You always want to check in with me. Yes, and good. And real nice actually. And… it was fine right up until I managed to get mugged. We’ve been watching this Russian soap opera. And I’m just going to bed now.” I cringed, hoping to slide that bit past him by speaking quickly, knowing it was better I told him than Ivan did, but braced for his overblown reaction all the same.

“Mugged! What? What happened? Honey are you okay?”

“Yeah. No – I am. I’m fine, I promise. Ivan caught the guy and got my phone back. It was amazing. He turned into my personal superman or something.” I was still glowing with the memory of how he’d chased them down for me. It felt surreal. Like something out of a movie. But Ivan really had risked himself by running after them just to get my phone back for me.

There was a pause. “Dad, don’t freak out. Ivan said you would. Nothing bad happened. I’m fine, and you can’t protect me forever. You should have seen the guys when he started chasing them down. I thought they were going to wet themselves!”

The tension in my Dad’s voice dropped away on a laugh, clear relief bleeding into his voice now that he knew tragedy had been averted. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? I wouldn’t want to be a criminal in his precinct, would you? I’m glad he’s there to look out for you.”

“Yeah. Me too. I guess I don’t look like a local anymore.”

“Honey, there’s a reason we left the city you know.”

“Yeah, housing prices,” I teased. “And that Head of Languages job that opened up.”

It had been quite a shift, leaving all of my friends behind when I thought we’d be finishing High School together, but it wasn’t like I had much choice. Dad had the opportunity he’d been waiting for forever in that job, and it meant he wouldn’t have to cobble together full time hours, and supplement it all with private tutoring just to make enough for us to get by.

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