Page 70 of Broken Sins (Volkov Bratva 3)

“Whatever you want it to be, princess.”

We just breathe and look at each other for a beat. I eye the flask.

“How much have you drunk tonight?” Glancing out the window, I notice that it’s completely dark out now. How long was I meditating? I feel like I time traveled several hours into the future.

He shrugs again and waggles the flask in front of his face at eye level. “This much, times a few.” He taps one finger against his temple. “Keeps the demons quiet, you know?”

I can’t quite decipher what’s happening behind his eyes. That’s strange. I’ve only known him—“known” being an extremely loose descriptor for the relationship he and I have—for a little while, and yet it’s always been obvious to me that Dante wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s not like Mr. Magic 8-Ball Vito, where you have to shake him up before he tells you what he’s thinking and feeling. With Dante, his eyes are a billboard, announcing to the world exactly what’s happening inside his skull.

Right now though, it’s unclear. The ever-present pain is still there, but it’s more muted than usual. I almost want to say that he looks a little bit sad and lost. That is stranger still. When I first woke up chained to the table in the dungeon, he was obviously a man driven by a singular, deadly purpose. Now, he is … something else. Something less certain.

“Keeps the demons quiet,” I repeat. “Yeah, I know what that’s like.”

I sort of do and I sort of don’t. I know damn well that I’ve had a privileged life. My mom and dad kept me safe from everything. There were no real dangers in my world—none of consequence, anyway. But there’s no such thing as running away from trouble. No matter who you are or where you’re from, everyone has problems. I’ve been a songbird trapped in a gilded cage since the day I was born. That’s a demon of its own. So when I say I know what he means … it’s not entirely false.

Dante drops his flask on the carpet at his side and withdraws his switchblade from a different pocket. He starts flicking it open and shut. I feel the first cold finger of fear creep into my belly.

Has he come here to kill me?

Drunk as he is, he must see the fear in my eyes when he glances up at me, because he smiles, flicks the blade closed, and offers it to me. “Would you like to hold it?” he asks.

I hesitate. Is this a trap? I’ve seen enough cheesy old spy movies to know that villains love nothing more than to taunt the protagonist right before they try to end it all. Maybe he wants me to stick my hand out so he can slice my wrist open and watch me bleed out right here.

That seems like a dumb idea though. They’ve invested way too much time and effort into me to just kill me right here. They’ve done too much, said too much, showed me too much to bleed me out like a stuck pig. Besides, Dante’s eyes aren’t violent right now. They’re glazed over, harmless.

I decide to trust him.

“Okay,” I say. I hold my hand out carefully and take the knife from him. Our fingers graze just barely, but it’s enough to send a shiver racing down my spine.

I look down at the weapon in my hands. It has a black leather grip, grooved where your fingertips go. It’s a little heavier than I expected.

“Press the button,” he tells me.

I do as he says. I have to suppress a little shriek as the blade whips out and clicks into place. The razor-sharp metal edge gleams in the light of the chandelier overhead. I turn it back and forth, then touch my finger to the point of it as gently as I can. The tiniest bead of blood emerges when I apply pressure.

I remember him running this down my torso and tapping it against each nipple while I lay helplessly chained beneath him. I remember the anger roiling in his eyes. And, most of all, I remember what he said to me.

You cost me everything, princess.

I fold the blade away and look back up at him. He has his head tilted to one side. I count six piercings—nose, eyebrow, lip, two in one ear and one in another—plus the inky swirls of tattoos rising up from beneath the collar of his plain white T-shirt. A random thing my dad said in passing years ago comes back to me out of nowhere. We were walking through Greenwich Village in the city and saw a man with dozens of facial piercings and thick tattoos all over his face. Dad saw him and muttered, “That’s a man who’s hiding from something.” It seemed like a harsh judgment to me at the time. Maybe he just liked tats and piercings, you know? I still don’t think it’s true for everyone who has those things. But when I look at Dante, I can’t shake the feeling that he is hiding from something very bad indeed. Pain, maybe. Or just his past, like the rest of us.

“You told me—back on that first night—you told me that I cost you everything. What does that mean?”

I try to keep my voice quiet and respectful. I don’t want to send him into an angry frenzy. God only knows how short this man’s fuse is. And with no one here to save me, setting me off is the last thing I’m interested in doing. But the question is burning inside of me. It feels like getting his answer will be the key to finally unraveling the last vestiges of mystery cloaking this place. Questions like who these men are, what they want—I know bits and pieces, but it all comes back to this. They blame me and my dad for something.

What happened to them? What was stolen?

Dante blinks, then looks down at his hands resting in his lap. I wonder for a moment if he’s too drunk to answer. Then he starts to speak.

“Did you know I played the violin when I was younger?” he asks. “I was good. It came naturally to me. Dunno why—no one else in my family has a musical bone in their body. No one gives a shit about music either. But I did; I cared. I was good at it. Our schoolteacher had a friend who was a music teacher out near Malibu, and she used to take me there for lessons a few times a week. Never told my dad about it, or any of my brothers. Dad wouldn’t have liked it. ‘Waste of fucking time,’ ‘won’t have my boys being pussies’—that’s the sort of thing he would’ve said. And my brothers just didn’t care about that kind of thing. But I was a wild kid, and the music calmed me down for whatever reason. It makes me laugh now to think about it. Signora Arianna might’ve gotten her throat cut if Pops found out she was doing anything behind his back. I wonder why she took that risk. Pretty fuckin’ stupid thing to roll the dice on if you ask me.”

He pauses. I realize I’m holding my breath. It seems like an innocent story, albeit a super strange one. Why does it feel like it’s so important to him? Why is my heart beating so fast? What does this have to do with me, with my question?

He looks up from his lap and makes eye contact with me. “But one day, Sergio found out about it, and he decided he wanted to play too. So Signora Arianna got him a violin. And he was better than me right away. God, I hated him. I hated that shit more than anything! But he was fucking beautiful when he played. A goddamn prodigy, I swear. Wildest thing. This sad-faced little kid, pale as hell, crazy purple eyes like a demon, but he coulddothe damn thing. He could play. We’d sneak out to the garden house, far away enough from the castle so that Dad couldn’t hear us. We said we were going to practice, and I guess we did sometimes, but mostly I just made Sergio play. He couldn’t read sheet music or anything. He just had a feel for it. I’d sit and watch him play violin in that cramped, dusty little shed, with cockroaches and rats and snakes moving around in the corners. It was the only time I ever wanted to be alive.”

I notice with sudden horror that there is a tear sliding down his cheek. One sad, lone wolf tear. It hits the edge of his beard and disappears. I can’t look away from him now, as if he has my head locked in position. I can hardly blink. I can hardly breathe.

“Then Dad found us one day. He beat the bejesus out of both of us. That was back when he was still fit enough to do something like that, rather than have someone else administer the beatings for him. He beat us real good. I’ve still got a scar somewhere from that one, I think. Afterwards, he made us throw the violins in the firepit and watch them burn. Neither of us ever played again.”

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