Page 36 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

“I’ve never understood how it’s always cold in this fucking castle,” Dante growls, half to us and half to himself. “We live in California.”

Mateo starts to say something about the wind in the hills and pockets of air pressure, but Dante just growls again wordlessly and we all fall silent once more.

We’ve been doing a lot of that in the days since Father’s death. Just sitting in silence. I can’t decide which I hate more: being with other people or being alone. No one will leave me to my own devices. I suppose I am the don now, though the official swearing-in ceremony has yet to take place. I don’t know when it will happen and I don’t give a shit.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

Still, my feelings don’t matter. I have a Mafia to run and revenge to pursue. It requires my full attention. I can’t simply retreat to my room and stare idly at the picture of Audrey for hours. I taped it together carefully the morning after my indiscretion. I damn near cried while I did it. These weaknesses are worsening. Every time I close my eyes, I think of Audrey and Milaya. They have begun to blur into one person. The fact that they look exactly the same doesn’t help. But there is more to it than that. They have some essence, some aspect of their soul that is just as similar. In just the few scant seconds I spoke to the Volkov girl, I glimpsed it.

It frightened me.

I know what Audrey did to me. What she isstilldoing to me. I have spent years waging a war against the caverns she opened up in my heart. If I let the Volkov girl anywhere near me, the entire structure of who I am will collapse like a cave-in. It will be an ugly wreckage. I cannot allow that to happen. Certainly not while there is still Bratva blood yet to be spilled.

These are my thoughts of late. Idle and repetitive and feckless. Around and around like a cursed carousel at the fair, full of disturbing images that I cannot shake. I want off this ride. That means I need to move, to act, to do something, to feel my enemies’ bones break beneath my hands. That’s the only way to cleanse myself of the impurities that are haunting me. To kill my weaknesses.

I clear my throat. “We need to talk about the girl,” I say in a low voice. The fire crackles.

“Indeed,” Mateo intones without looking up.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. I can see his own thoughts whirring behind his eyes. He does not think like I do, all dark waters filled with churning chum and hints of blood. Rather, he thinks like an ancient clock, full of gears that take their time to wind and click. It can be irritatingly slow, but I cannot deny that his conclusions are invariably trustworthy.

I need his counsel now, if only to forestall Dante. If I thought my inner workings were a mess, then his are something far nastier. Sergio’s death has broken whatever little restraint Dante had over himself. I see it in the idle moments when he thinks no one is looking at him. He stares into the distance like he’s picturing the moment we lost our brother and father, again and again and again. His fingers tap dance on his thigh and he sharpens that knife constantly, even more than before. If he had his way, he would go downstairs and slice the Volkov princess wide open right now, just to see her blood. That would render her useless to us. It would also start a war that I still hope we can find a way to avoid. Retaliation—yes, of course. But full-on war with the Volkov Bratva? It would cost us a great deal.

Leo couldn’t care one way or the other. Well, perhaps that is not fair. He cares about what happened to Sergio and Father, of course, every bit as much as the rest of us. But he doesn’t show it. Those panther eyes betray nothing, not a single drop of emotion. He buries everything so deep inside himself that it never sees the light of day. I envy his self-control. I feel at all hours of the day now like I am about to explode and engulf the Bianci Castle in an inferno of rage and guilt and decades of pent-up frustration.

My thoughts drift back in time as I stare into the fire …

* * *

I was in the closing minutes of combat training under the watchful eye of the Bianci master-at-arms, Antoni. “Again!” he barked, clacking his wooden staff against the ground. My sparring partner and I had been at it for hours already, and I was slick with sweat, my legs leaden, my arms impossibly heavy. I wanted so badly to quit, to go jump into the coolness of the pool and rest my weary muscles.

But then I saw Father watching from the shadows lining one edge of the courtyard, and I knew that I did not have a choice.

The man squaring up across from me, Roberto, was nearly two decades my senior. He was a decorated soldier in the Bianci organization. Today, it was his duty to beat me into the dirt as best he could. Both our shirts were off, so I could see the veins cording in his neck and shoulders, along with the slitted scars along one shoulder; scars that were given to our troops who proved themselves in the field.

He raised his fists, a pained grimace on his face, and began to creep across the dirt ring towards where I stood. After God-only-knows how many rounds, the last thing he wanted was to go again. But like me, Roberto had no choice.

Sighing, I stepped forward to meet him in the middle. I could sense his impatience. He wanted this to end. “Read his intentions!” roared Antoni from the sidelines. I had done that already. I knew what would happen next.

Sure enough, Roberto charged. He faked high, went low, but I was ready. I dropped even lower, and my shoulder found his midsection with a crunching blow. I dug my bare feet into the dirt and elevated hard. He flew over my head and landed in the dirt behind me, the wind whooshing from his lungs. I was on him in a flash, taking him in a chokehold that lasted hardly twenty seconds before he tapped out.

Only then could we relax.

“Sloppy, but sufficient,” Antoni growled. That was as close to a compliment as I ever received from him. He stalked off without another word.

Finally, we were finished.

I helped Roberto from the dirt. He offered me a quiet thanks. Then I hurried away before my father could corner me. I did not care to hear his thoughts on this afternoon’s training, or whatever else he wanted to criticize me for.

I rounded the corner into the rear courtyard. It was mercifully empty. Slipping out of my dirt- and blood-stained trunks, I slid into the pool. I winced, then sighed as the cold water enveloped me. Then, taking a deep breath, I submerged myself completely.

It was silent underneath the surface. For a few blissful seconds, I was cool, quiet, alone. In a life full of endless training for an uncertain future, that was a gift sent from heaven.

But my lungs were begging me to resurface. I knew that there were more lessons awaiting me, more work to be done. If I was going to be don one day, I had to be ready. Even though I was young, scarcely thirteen, I could not slack off for even a day. “If you stop, you die”—Antoni’s favorite expression.

So, with a sad exhale of bubbles, I pushed up from the bottom of the pool and speared back into the warm air of the twilight.

There were fresh towels stacked by the cabana. I took a quick look around and didn’t see anyone. So, shrugging, I climbed nude up the stairs of the pool and onto the deck.

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