Page 5 of Bratva Sacrifice

I flop onto my bed and wiggle toward the window, slipping my fingers between the slats of the blinds to peer out.

The car is still there. The car is always there. It’s like I’m a prisoner in my own apartment. I have been ever since my mom died, as if absent her supervision, I require a constant babysitter. And I’m not allowed to do almost anything without permission.

I wasn’t even allowed to attend Nicky’s funeral. I asked—I said I’d stay in the very back, where no one would see me—but Papa just said it wouldn’t be possible. That I shouldn’t meet his family for the first time in such circumstances.

They’re my family, too, though. But there’s no telling Papa something like that. He doesn’t hear it. He only runs my life from a discreet distance. He’s been doing it for years. At first, it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I was even grateful, in a way, to have fewer things to concern myself with when I was so busy with school.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize just how much of my life Papa had taken over, how much control he had accumulated. But eventually it became impossible to ignore, impossible to miss. Eventually I noticed that certain things kept creeping into our phone conversations, references to things I hadn’t told him. Not because I was keeping secrets, but because they weren’t really important—like my study groups, or a cancelled class. But somehow he knew. He always knew. So I figured he must have some sort of controls on the phone he bought for me, the kind parents use to keep an eye on their kids.

But I’m twenty-four. I’m allowed to have some privacy. So I bought a phone of my own; one Papa doesn’t know about. It’s slower and less convenient than my regular high-end smartphone, but I still feel a little less like a goldfish in a bowl with it in my hand.

I don’t think Papa needs to know about my gynecological appointments, or at what point in my cycle I am. I’m pretty sure the fact that I’ve been dateless my entire life has something to do with Papa and his men scaring guys away. That’s humiliation enough, really.

I pull my illicit phone out of my pocket and scroll to Nicky’s contact info. His number is for a burner, too—I know because he gave it to me along with an offer to sell drugs to my college friends. He didn’t want to be my brother, but he was fine with being my drug supplier.

I never used it for that, and eventually he told me to stop texting him if I wasn’t going to buy. I’ve texted him more now that he’s dead than I ever did when he was alive.

Papa invited me to dinner tonight. With the family, I write. I’m nervous.

There’s this whole part of me that I know nothing about. People who share my blood. Family that knows nothing about me. It’s never been exactly a secret that I’m a secret. For a long time I didn’t question it. Lots of kids had absent fathers, or distant ones. I just thought Papa worked a lot, or was out of town too often to take me for the weekend, like other kids’ dads did. I was just so happy to see him when I did. I definitely didn’t know he lived just a twenty-minute car ride away.

I was already in college before I found out I had a brother. That Papa had a whole family that didn’t include me. That I had uncles and aunts and cousins I’d never met. That I was never going to meet.

I understand it, intellectually. Nicky is—was—only a little older than me. But it means Papa was having an affair with Mom while Nicky’s mother was pregnant. It means I’m a secret because I wasn’t ever supposed to be born.

Mom didn’t like to talk about Papa. Now, I think I understand why.

I text Nicky, Did you always know what Papa did? Were you always part of it?

After Papa told me what sort of business he was really in, I don’t think I believed it. I ended up staying in all weekend, watching mafia movies. It’s not like that in real life. It can’t be.

Right?

Surreptitiously, I peer out the window once more. The car is still there. So is the driver.

My fingers fly across the screen. I want them to like me.

It sounds so weird to put it like that. I want Papa’s family to like me. Even if they’re mafia. Criminals. I just want to have a family again.

I just want to not be alone.

∞∞∞

My knees are shaking. I can’t help it. I’m so nervous, I feel like I’m going to pass out. Or at least throw up.

The man in the car outside my apartment was tasked with bringing me here, but the poor guy had to wait another twenty minutes after he knocked on my door while I vacillated between possible outfits. Papa didn’t say whether I should dress up or dress down, so eventually I just decided on a pair of jeans and a nice top. I think it’s probably better to be underdressed than overdressed. Overdressed might give the wrong impression.

But it’s clear as soon as I walk through the front door of Papa’s house—a mansion in a pretty exclusive neighborhood—that I’ve made the wrong choice. Even the staff is better dressed, in their smart vests and impeccably-ironed slacks.

I look like exactly what I am. Someone who doesn’t belong.

The house is decorated as if for a party, but the atmosphere is tense and awkward. My sneakers squeak across marble floors, a shrill sound that reverberates in the thick silence. Someone—a butler, maybe—ushers me along, gesturing toward a room toward the rear of the house, where the ceiling seems to soar up to heaven. There is the sound of muted voices, the faint rustle of conversation drifting about.

But everything seems to pause as I walk in, as if all of the air has been sucked out of the room. It’s crowded—maybe thirty people.

I don’t know any of their names. But I know this must be Papa’s family.

“Ah, Catalina,” Papa says at last, and the thin, brittle-looking woman at his side goes stiff. Her back firms, and her chin lifts. Her gaze sharpens to a glare, and her dark eyes are so full of hate as they settle upon me. It’s a hate I can feel down to the very marrow of my bones.