Page 19 of Bratva Sacrifice

“No,” she laughs, and relaxes a little, her shoulder brushing my side. “The dress code was really strict. Uniforms, with blazers and ties. And your skirt always had to reach past your fingertips.” She demonstrates by letting her arms fall to her sides, wiggling her fingertips against her thighs.

“Then, Katya, tonight you will wear short skirt and we will drink your sweet wine on this date you are not allowed to have.” These tiny things she thinks are rebellion—they are nothing. Less than nothing. Only Giulio Russo’s desperate efforts to squash any hint of defiance or dissent so Catalina’s opinions are only the echo of his own, the thoughts in her head only the ones he places there.

“I don’t actually own a short skirt,” she says with an awkward little shrug. “I, uh—I left home in kind of a hurry. Most of what I brought is just…comfortable clothes. Jeans and t-shirts.”

“This is not problem; this we can buy.” I make a mental note to text Anatoli, ask him about the stores where Katya was window-shopping. Probably they are close to her work.

She issues a small, regretful sigh as we walk beneath the overhanging bows of the trees that offer the sidewalk respite from the relentless summer sun. “I really can’t afford it,” she admits sheepishly.

“This is also not problem.”

“It is for me.” And there, the first flash of her claws. A kitten’s claws; dainty but razor sharp. “You drive a two hundred thousand dollar car, and I work for just above minimum wage.”

“And tips.”

Katya averts her gaze. “Gifts come with strings,” she says, with the intonation of a woman who has long learned what it means to be dangled by those strings, forced to dance to someone else’s tune. Of course she will be sensitive to this; she has only recently unmoored herself from those strings. Now she has nothing and no one—only a job which pays her just enough to live. Only the pitiful comfort of texting her dead half-brother who can never respond, not even to tell her to fuck off, as he so often did before.

A tug on her belt loop draws her closer, near the edge of the path and away from the scant few passersby who have wandered so far down the trail as we have done. Her side is pressed against me; those blue eyes shear to my face, wide and wary.

My hand curls around her hip. A familiar touch, because Katya badly needs to be touched. To feel affection she has lacked. “If I thought it possible to buy you,” I tell her, “this price I would already have paid.”

Her back stiffens in offense, her cheeks puffing up, her lips pursing. Like the kitten she is, with a mouthful of hisses. An inch away from swiping out those claws.

“You don’t have money,” I say. “This is not problem. I do. What good is it if not to use as I please? It would please me to see you in this short skirt you want to wear.” But I don’t have to buy her. She has been bought already. Bartered by her father who is too weak to hold onto his possessions, even those he should most treasure.

She deflates from her pique, her shoulders sinking as she blows out a breath—without a hiss. “You should knock it off with the massive tips, at least,” she says with an abashed shrug. “It’s weird. And unnecessary.”

“I don’t like to carry change.”

“Then at least use a credit card!”

“Is my money, Katya. Why do you think you get to tell me how to spend?” As she fumbles for an answer, I squeeze her hip. “Maybe when you have more money, also you have more time. You don’t feel guilty for leaving work early. Maybe you have time for another date. Maybe you say yes again, when I ask.”

She lifts her head again, startled. “Are you going to?” The words are surprised, skeptical. Like she cannot imagine why I would want to.

“That depends, Katya,” I tell her, and let my hand fall away from her hip. “Will you still argue over such foolish things?”

“It’s not foolish—”

“Da, it is.” There’s a vendor with a cart nearby beneath the shade of a tree, selling ice cream and other cold treats. I pause a moment, turning away from Katya to purchase a bottle of water and to make a point of shoving the remainder of the change from the hundred dollar bill into the plastic tip jar on top of the cart. Like this is not personal. Like this is something I do everywhere, for my own convenience, because I do not carry change. I shove the bottle of water into Katya’s hands.

Her brows draw together. “What is this for?”

“To drink. Is hot.” This is practicality. She has no idea how quickly that piña colada will go to her head. If she makes herself sick in this way, then I don’t get dinner. I don’t get Katya in this short skirt she wants to wear.

She eyes the water bottle in her hand. Then the tip jar, stuffed full of my discarded change. “Okay,” she says. “Thank you.” And she cracks the lid of the bottle and takes a sip. No fight this time, over my money or hers.

Good.

“I will ask again,” I tell her, to reassure her. “But only if I get to see this short skirt.”

Chapter Ten

Catalina

I don’t feel as guilty about the skirt as I thought I would. Or the blouse. Or the shoes. I do feel a little guilty that it wasn’t as hard for Alexei to talk me into them as I feel like it should have been. But I also have the feeling that he’s very good at talking people into things.

I couldn’t wear the flirty little pink skirt with its ruffled hem with my t-shirt. And once he’d had a saleswoman pick out an appropriate blouse—a low-cut silk one with thin straps—then my sneakers became the issue. I settled on a modest pair of black ballet flats instead of the sexy, towering heels that Alexei initially selected for me.