Page 131 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

What little kid would be? I’m taking him away from his dad. I can look at Dima and his job and see the danger, but Lukas just sees his father. Even if he isn’t old enough to know what that means yet.

Or maybe he does know, on some deep, cellular level. He always grins when Dima walks into the room. He settles for Dima easier than anyone else. When Dima talks, Lukas presses himself against his chest and falls asleep.

Now, he’ll only have me. Forever.

I have to remind myself that I’m not alone. Not with Lukas. He and I will be our own family. We’ll take care of each other.

That was my original plan, anyway. But no matter how hard and fast I’ve tried to run from my past, there’s no escaping one truth: I also had a familybeforeLukas. Before Dima and before Jorik, too.

In the beginning, there was me…

…and there was Mom.

Still clutching Lukas like he might fly away if I let go, I walk down the path between the gravestones. It’s a gray, windy day outside. My hair flaps across my face.

I pause at the headstone I came for.Elira Georgeovich,it reads.Beloved Mother.

I sink to my knees on the grass. “I always liked your name, Mom,” I whisper—as if she can hear me.

“Elira” is Albanian for “the free one.” Something about that always sounded so nice to me. Even back then, when I was too young to know better, there was an airy appeal to the idea of freedom. Of leaving all your shit behind and flying off into the blue sky.

And I liked yours,comes a voice in my head.

I shiver. She’s been dead for almost twenty years and I can still imagine exactly what my mother sounds like. Maybe it’s the stress or maybe I’m going crazy, but the wind in the trees overhead makes me think I’m hearing her right now.

Fuck it. The whole world is burning to ashes. Even if I sit here in an empty graveyard and have a conversation with my dead mother, I’m far from the craziest person I’ve met in the last few months.

Aryana means “the noble one,” you know,Mom says.

“I know,” I sigh, rolling my eyes. “You used to say that all the time when you were high.”

It made me cringe back then. It still makes me cringe—but for different reasons.

When I was a little girl, Mom used to get high on her own supply. Those were the only times she told me she loved me.You’re my beautiful little princess,she’d say.That’s why I named you that.

Now, though, it makes me think of what Dima called me.His queen.Did Mom’s princess turn into the don’s queen?

“No,” I say out loud. “Fuck that. I’m no one’s queen. I’m not noble. I’m not special. I just want to be normal.”

A single tear rolls down my cheek. It’s all I’ve ever wanted—to be normal. To be the free one.

“But you’re the only ‘free one,’ aren’t you, Momma?” I snarl sarcastically. “You died and left me behind. Left me trapped. Left me to fend for myself.”

I touch the scars on my jaw—the ones she gave me when she brought our house crumbling down on our heads. The salty tear mingles with my fingertips. God, the memories of my world crashing on top of me are so fresh that it’s like they happened yesterday. What a sick and twisted metaphor for my whole fucking life.

Lukas is playing in the grass at my feet. He’s weirdly quiet now, almost as if he recognizes that his mother is on the verge of losing her mind.

“What am I supposed to do, Mom?” I say as I stroke Lukas’s velvety cheek with the pad of my thumb. “You left me and it broke my heart. Is taking Lukas away from Dima the same thing? Is it wrong to separate a child from their parent? Am I cursing him or am I saving him? I don’t know what’s right. And I’m so, so tired of trying to do the right thing all the time. It hasn’t gotten me anywhere good. So please, just tell me what to do.”

The wind swishes through the trees again. But this time, I don’t hear a voice in it. No Mom. No nothing.

“Come on, Mom,” I beg. “Please just give me some stupid sign. Tell me to run. Tell me to stay. Tell mesomething.”

More silence. A lone raindrop hits the ground next to me. I close my eyes and let my chin fall against my chest.

Then: “Arya?”

I look up in alarm. That wasn’t breeze in the leaves or my own fevered imagination. That was a real person. “Mom?” I say hopefully. “Mom, is that—”

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