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He let go of my hand, pulling Max further away from the bar. I heard him mutter something about how they were wrong about something, but then they were too far away to hear anything else.
Turning back to the bartender and the older guy, who I’d figured out was his father, I gave them a sympathetic smile. Not really knowing what else to do, I held my hand out and simply introduced myself by my first name. They were both shaken but trying their best to keep it together.
“We only came here a year ago to start this business,” the older man said in thickly accented English. “We know Lev’s father from Moscow, and he offered us this opportunity after my wife passed away.”
The young guy scowled. “Up until recently, everything was great.”
“What changed?” I asked. “Lev thinks this isn’t random.”
If I pretended to know more than I did, he might be more open with me. It was impossible not to feel a certain kind of kinship with the young man and his father. They were just getting through like Katie and I did after our parents died. We took on one hardship after the next but got by because we had each other.
He nodded, prodding at the cut on his lip. “Those thugs started coming around a month or so ago, demanding protection money.”
“We’re already under Lev’s protection, and we like it that way,” the older man piped up.
“When we refused too many times, this happened,” his son said. He had been putting on a brave front, but now he crumpled in on himself, his shoulders rounding. “I really like it here.” He looked bleakly at the ruined interior, and his father tried to reassure him, but he sounded equally defeated.
I wanted to say something but was at a loss. I’d seen Katie poring over bills, trying to make the math go the way she wanted so we could keep the lights on, but at least we’d never had anyone violently trash what little we had. I wondered if Lev could even fathom what it was like to have to struggle to build a life like they were doing.
He returned, rounding the bar to clap the older man on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be taken care of. If you don’t feel safe upstairs, I can have a residence set up for you in no time. Just say the word.”
The older man and his son exchanged a fierce look. “No one’s going to scare us from our home,” the father said.
“Just as I suspected,” Lev replied. “But the offer stands. And I’ll keep extra security around here. The police will have to be involved, but just tell them the standard story. Break in. You didn’t get a good look at anyone.”
“You’ll make sure they get justice, though?” the young guy asked urgently. He shot daggers at the guy Max had brought down, who was just stirring and moaning now. Max noticed and dragged him by his foot to the back room.
“You can count on it,” Lev told him.
He was treating them like family, ensuring they were all right and cared for. I felt a little ashamed for doubting his abilityto show that level of compassion. My feelings were a jumble because I couldn’t reconcile what I saw with what I had thought the Bratva was about. So far, I couldn’t fault Lev for any of this.
Then I heard a howl of agony from the back room. With a shudder, I slid closer to Lev without noticing I was doing it. His hand found mine and squeezed it, speaking earnestly to the older man in Russian again.
The car waited for us out front, a minor miracle since anyone else’s car would have been at the impound lot. As we drove away from the scene, I rested my head against the back of the seat, closing my eyes. It was a lot to take in. We stopped much too quickly to be home, and I saw we’d pulled up to a diner.
“Wait here,” Lev said, hopping out and returning a few minutes later with a pastry box.
At home, he unpacked the apple pie and brewed a pot of coffee. The remains of our dinner still sat on the table but as I started to take it to the kitchen, Lev stopped me, nodding for me to get comfortable in the living area. He brought us each a slice of pie and a cup of coffee and sat beside me, stretching out his long legs and cracking his neck.
I winced at the sound, rolling my own stiff shoulders and looking down at the pie.
“Try it; it’s the best in the city,” he said, as if he hadn’t just seen what I’d seen.
Now I knew why he had those bruises on his knuckles, and what he’d been doing the other day to get them. His brother’s would be fresh from all the punches he’d thrown at the man they caught, and if I hadn’t been there, would Lev have joined in?
I took a small bite of the city’s best pie, but the buttery, flaky crust tasted flat and dry in my mouth. The coffee was hot and strong and worked better to ease my frazzled nerves.
“So, tell me honestly what you thought,” he said.
I lowered my tense shoulders. I’d kept it together at the crime scene, but the sound of that man’s shouts of pain kept reverberating in my ears. And then I remember how relieved and grateful the old man looked as Lev promised him everything would be fine.
“I don’t really know what to think,” I said, the honest truth. “Is that the end of it, though?”
He laughed bitterly. “You have no idea. It never ends.”
He set aside his plate, which had been resting on his lap, and looked at me. There was yearning there, and a hollowness I wished I could fill. All I’d learned tonight was that Lev cared about the people under his care. But I knew that already, didn’t I?
I set aside my plate too, and braced myself. “I’d like to have an idea,” I told him, with no idea of revenge in my head, only curiosity and a desire to ease his burden a bit. “Tell me,” I urged. “Let me in.”
