Page 17 of Bratva Sacrifice

“Ah. You have degree?”

“Yeah. I just got my master’s.”

“Master’s,” he repeats as the car eases onto the ramp to the highway. “This is—advanced degree, yes?”

“Oh. Um. Yes. Six years of college,” I say. For a degree that might not be worth the paper it’s printed on, now. Years of study, years of work, for a dream that I might never attain.

“So you are”—his head cants to one side, as if performing a quick calculation—“twenty-four?”

“Yes.”

He gives a little huff, and it sounds relieved. “Good,” he says, and the corner of his mouth hitches up in a grin. “When you talk about this gap year, I think maybe you are too young for me. Like you are just out of high school.”

Curiosity digs its claws deep. “Why? How old are you?” I ask.

“Thirty,” he says, and his lips quirk with a wry sort of amusement. “But maybe you are still just baby in comparison, yes?”

“No, I—I just—” Ugh. An awkward shrug pulls at my shoulders. “My family—my dad’s side of it, anyway—is really controlling,” I say, and a sigh yanks itself from my lungs. There’s no easy way to explain that I’m living without guardrails for the first time in my life. That, finally, my choices are my own. That it’s equal parts exciting and terrifying.

“Too protective?” he asks. “Like this”—he pauses, considering carefully, searching for the right words—“helicopter parent?”

“If only,” I say on a rueful laugh. “The list of things I’ve been allowed to do is so short, I could probably count them on one hand.” School, mostly. The rare study group, when Papa knew exactly who I would be with, where, and for how long. I’ve always known my leash was short, in danger of being yanked at any moment to bring me to heel. “Papa would flip his lid if he found out I went out with you,” I admit. With anyone, really—but when I try to imagine Papa or one of his men attempting to intimidate Alexei into slinking away, the picture refuses to form in my head.

Alexei chuckles, and his hand drifts from the steering wheel to my knee once more, as if it’s already become a habitual motion. The pressure of it feels like praise. “So this gap year,” he muses. “This is also rebellion for you. From your family.”

Maybe an unforgivable one. Anxiety twists a knot in my chest. “Yes,” I tell him. And then words spill out of me in a fierce rush, like everything I’ve kept locked inside me since I ran has burst through the poorly-built dam I’ve constructed around it. “I tried to be a good daughter. I really did. I followed his rules”—mostly—“and I did what I was told. And I didn’t even complain about it. But nothing was ever good enough, I was never good enough, and I just wanted—” Attention that wasn’t parceled out begrudgingly. Affection that wasn’t contingent upon contorting myself into someone else’s version of who I ought to be.

Just the smallest shred of love. I could have been satisfied with so little.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I can feel my cheeks burning again with the vague shame of having inflicted my pitiful complaints onto this man I barely know. “That was…a lot. I shouldn’t have—”

“You don’t apologize for this, Katya,” he interjects, and his hand squeezes my knee in reassurance. “You don’t apologize for someone else’s mistake.”

It’s such a strange relief to hear it. Like for the first time since my mom died, someone is truly listening. And I’m so absurdly, pathetically grateful for it that tears sting my eyes.

The car glides smoothly across lanes, headed in the direction of the signs that point toward Minnehaha Falls, following the instructions that chirp from the navigation system. Alexei’s thumb strokes my knee.

“You want to rebel?” he asks as he guides the car into the appropriate exit lane. “Then, Katya, today we will rebel.”

Chapter Nine

Alexei

Katya thinks rebellion is drinking a frozen piña colada in a public park at three-thirty in the afternoon. Purchased with her own money, at her insistence. Minnehaha Falls is crowded—Saturday brings out families and small children—and there are at least two dozen people in our vicinity also with drinks in their hands, and other treats as well.

But Katya’s shoulders hunch as she cradles her drink in both hands, frosty fingers concealing it from prying eyes, as if she is doing something she knows she ought not. Her eyes dart between sips, with some blend of guilt and suspicion. Afraid she might be caught doing something wrong, not just by some onlooker, but perhaps by one of her father’s men.

Her head comes only to my shoulder. Her blonde hair in its messy ponytail is mussed by the wind. The day is warm, the sun still heavy in the sky. Summer in this city is not so oppressive as it is elsewhere, but still it is hot enough that Katya has sucked down half of her drink within a few minutes.

“Careful,” I warn, and I let my shoulder nudge hers as we walk down the steps that lead to the falls. “Is stronger than it tastes.”

She scrunches up her nose and slants a chiding glance in my direction. “I’ve had rum before,” she says in an exasperated drawl. “Just…not often.”

I chuckle, and my hand finds the small of her back, guiding her away from a group of children that dart past us on the stairs. “Your controlling papa lets you drink?” I found no evidence of it in her apartment the night she fled. Not even so much as one of those fruity seltzer drinks in her refrigerator.

“Well…” She hesitates, ducking her head as her shoulders sink into a slouch. “Not really. Except maybe a glass of wine with dinner.”

The Italians do like their wine.