Page 33 of Savage Beauty

“Mama loved Vlad more than she loved me.”

I look at Josie. She’s frozen, her fork halfway to her mouth.

“How can you know that?” she asks. “She used to cook with you, didn’t she? It was your special time, the thing you shared.”

Dulcie and her stories. The Kislev bratva’s power and might doesn’t stop our beloved housekeeper from flapping her trap, but luckily, she never talks about our business. She’s a gossip, but she keeps it in the family, and it’s the only reason she’s lasted so long in our employment.

“Yeah.” I pour some wine and take a large gulp. “God, I loved it. A couple of hours a week, often a Sunday afternoon. Just her and me. When I got older, I didn’t wanna hang out with her. Got too busy running the streets, pretending to be a big man.”

She smiles. “You? Surely not.”

I shrug at her amusement. “I started young, so what? We all did. It’s just the life. But Mama died, and I had never told her how much she meant to me. She didn’t love me the same, and I know it, but she was still the only safe place in my world.”

I’m lost in my memories, and for a moment, the room isn’t there at all. Josie reaches for me, settling her hand over mine.

“I felt the same about my mother,” she says. “My father promised her the Earth, but within weeks of her moving in with him, he was already whoring her out. He got her hooked on heroin, and she was a mess.”

It takes all my self-control not to tense up. I force myself to keep a neutral expression, but klaxons are howling in my head.

I can’t tell her everything. She’ll despise me for it.

22

Sasha

Josie talks as though every word is physically painful. It’s hard to listen to. I knew she was tough, but I never knew how strong she had to be.

“My mom found out she was pregnant. She couldn’t be sure who the father was, but she had to escape. Her so-called boyfriend would claim me as his, regardless of the circumstances, and Mom was scared for our lives.”

She eats a little, and I see the conflict in her. She doesn’t want to tell me more, but I want to possess her secrets because they are part of her. I want to hear her thoughts, feelings, hurts, and dreams, and I refuse to let her keep them to herself.

“Go on,zolotse.” I lean forward, fixing my eyes on hers. “Tell me.”

Josie holds my gaze. “She attacked a client and got arrested, knowing she’d be safer in jail. My father fled the city to avoid getting caught up in it all. I was born in prison and immediately taken to live in an orphanage, but I always visited my mom. The nuns would bring me three times a week. Mom got in with the screws to earn extra visits, so the other inmates beat her up a lot, but it was worth it to her. She got out when I was five and came to get me straight away.”

I finish my food and push the dish aside. “Jesus,” I say. “That’s some commitment. Did she get clean?”

Josie smiles, sadness creeping at the edges. “She sure did. Got a job at the New York library as a cleaner, I went to school, and we lived in a crappy apartment with windows that didn’t open. We got by for a while that way.”

I feel like an asshole. I take my opulent lifestyle for granted and always have. Vlad and I had private tutors as kids, and when we were old enough, we trained in gunmanship and other skills, as is customary for prominent bratva sons. We never lacked any material things. If we wanted something, it would appear like magic.

“Your mother loved you,moya zhena. That’s wonderful.” I stand and clear the dishes away, piling them beside the basin. “Something went wrong though, didn’t it?”

Josie has her back to me, and I see her shoulders sag. She turns in her seat.

“I was thirteen when it happened. I didn’t piece it all together until later.” She rubs her face with her palm. “Mom ran into an old acquaintance who made her a proposition. She saw a way to get us out of poverty, but it was a big risk. She decided to take the chance, and it seemed to work for a while. Then I came home one day and found her.”

I frown. “Found her? Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Yeah.” Josie’s voice wavers. “Mom had been dealing for quite a while, stockpiling her cut to put a downpayment on a better place for us. She wanted me to have better clothes, shoes without holes, and friends instead of bullies. But it got too much, and she decided to shoot up. Just a little to get her through the day.”

I’m shaking. I understand exactly how her mom felt. When I was first getting sober, the same feeling used to hit me at least twenty times a day—the urge to cook up a dose, find a vein, and let liquid oblivion carry me far from everything that ever hurt me.

“I tried to wake her up.” Josie’s cheeks shine with tears, but she doesn’t notice. “I wiped her face with a wet cloth, shook her, shouted, cried. The ambulance came, but no one seemed to care much. I sat alone at the hospital for hours until someone asked what I was doing there. Eventually, a social worker came and took me away. I stayed at a children’s home, and it was two weeks before anyone bothered to tell me that my mom was dead. ”

My heart aches. I didn’t know my wife and I had wounds in common. She, too, lost her mother in horrible circumstances, but unlike me, she was still a child when it happened. And then she was alone in the world, afraid and unloved. What the fuck do I know about suffering?

“I was placed with a foster family again,” Josie says, “but a different one. Carl and Janine Ellis. They had tons of kids like me and did it for the money, but it was okay at first.” She smiles sadly. “I liked the other kids. I was older, so the Ellis’s made me look after them, but I didn’t mind. I tried to teach them to read, and we’d get books out of the library. I guess it made me feel close to Mom, to be reading again and helping others get lost in stories.”

---