Page 74 of Brooklyn Bratva

“She completes me in the way that I’ve heard you tell me your wife did, so many times. I’m not playing games. She is not a child who doesn’t know her own mind, and I never intended to feel this way. Before she came here, I would have agreed with you. But this is what has happened, and you need to respect it.”

“I don’t need to respect a bent cop.”

I shook my head, feeling my tears well over and start to trickle, wet and hot down my cheeks even as I wiped them away. The words were ugly. They weren’t what Ivan was at all. Not really. “Dad, don’t do this. Please.”

“You’re coming with me, Becca. Let’s go.” My father shook his head, but when he tried to grab for my arm, Ivan blocked him bodily.

“What’s the problem, Joe? I’m good enough as a friend, but you can’t have a Russian touching your daughter?”

His face screwed up, and again that finger hovered, pointing violently into Ivan’s face, but we both knew my dad well enough to realize he had no idea what to do with the impulse. He was a thinker and a debater, an academic, a teacher. It would have stunned me to learn he’d ever thrown a punch in his life. “That’s not it and you know it.”

“It seems like that to me. We’re all barbarian’s right?” Some of the anger in Ivan’s face cleared and he drew himself up, that calm expression deepening as though he knew he’d caught my father on a point that would worm into him.

Ivan stepped forward on another growl and the fear of seeing my dad beaten to a pulp in front of me surfaced. I felt it coming like an electromagnetic wave.

“No, don’t!”

Before I knew it, he had Dad pressed hard up against the door, his hand tight around his throat.

As though the pair of them had been communicating via thought alone, Max had his gun turned, the muzzle aimed to the center of my dad’s forehead.

“We can sort this out real easy. Just give me the word, Ivan.”

My blood went cold. I felt sick.

“Stop! Oh my God, stop!”

I swallowed hard, bracing myself against the wall. The whole room was spinning, tears were streaming down my face, and this was a total disaster.

Ivan looked over his shoulder at me, eyes filled with concern, but it barely touched me. I never thought he’d threaten my father. I knew he was capable of it, but that wasn’t how this was supposed to go. They were friends. They were supposed to stay friends, and Ivan definitely wasn’t supposed to think about killing him.

“Put the gun away Maxim.”

My hands were still shaking when he holstered it and took a step back, arms raised above his head in a frustrated gesture as he stalked off towards the living room. I heard the springs of the couch squeak under his weight as he collapsed down onto it, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Ivan’s hand around my father’s neck.

“Let him go.”

Almost as though he hadn’t realized he was still pinning him there, Ivan’s grip released slowly.

I straightened up, swiping the tears away from my face. “I’m going to get my bag.”

“Becca, wait.”

He tried to reach for me, but I turned, twisting out of his reach. “Don’t, Ivan! You’ve done enough!”

CHAPTER 36

Becca

I didn’t speak to Dad nearly the whole way back to Albany. The drive was long, and with every mile that crept by, the urge to cry got stronger. It felt like I’d made a mistake the second he pulled away from the curb. A mistake in going to Brighton Beach in the first place. At least, without seeing how Dad would have felt about me and Ivan first. I should have told him.

He should never have found out like this.

If he’d known, he wouldn’t have stormed in the way he had. Ivan wouldn’t have had any reason to get defensive. Maxim wouldn’t have even seen my Dad as a problem to get rid of.

Now everything had gone wrong. And all Dad could see when he looked at Ivan was some kind of Bond Villain Russian gangster who wanted to chain me up in the basement, or use me to traffic drugs, or ship me off as some kind of mail order bride. I knew the picture he had in his head, and it wasn’t Ivan. But he’d clearly stopped being able to see his best friend.

And I didn’t know what to think.

I hadn’t wanted to leave. Even shaking like a leaf, all I wanted was for Ivan to wrap me in his strong arms and tell me I was all he wanted. All this was the other side of the same coin. He’d do anything for me, and there was no line in that.

But I had lines, and hurting Dad was one of them. If Ivan couldn’t see that, then what kind of future did we have?

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