Page 6 of Bratva Sacrifice

She must be Papa’s wife. I didn’t expect her to like me…but I think, if there were a weapon close to hand, I would already be dead.

She’s not the only one. There isn’t a friendly face in the crowd. I can feel eyes boring into me with a severity that makes my cheeks flush and the back of my neck go hot. It’s like I can feel the word bastard hanging in the air; a judgment that has hung upon me since birth, one I have to push through with every step I take forward.

The jarring squeak of my sneakers on the immaculately polished floor brings forth a muted, censorious mutter from someone in the rear of the crowd. Like I’m an embarrassment to them. A low-class nobody with poor manners, who somehow summoned the audacity to invade their home. Their family.

Papa clears his throat, attempting to ease the tension as he shifts his voice toward joviality. “Come, come,” he says, extending his arms to me. “This is your family, piccola. Allow me to introduce you.”

I think I’ve made a mistake in coming here. My heart feels like a caged bird trapped in my throat, beating wildly. It was just me and mom for so long, and I’ve been so lonely since she died. I wanted so badly to believe that I would find a new family tonight, that the circumstances of my birth would be overlooked. That I would be welcome.

That is not going to happen. And now—now I don’t know why I’m here at all. Why Papa invited me to come to a family dinner, as if I belonged here with them.

Papa lurches forward and seizes my cold hand in his. His hand is cold, too. Clammy, like a dead fish. Fingers uncomfortably tight around mine, as if he knows that I’m a second away from sprinting for the door. “My wife, Francesca,” Papa says, as he gestures to the woman at his side.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to her, how I’m meant to greet her. She’s Papa’s wife, but not my mother. I’m certain she doesn’t even want to be my step-mother. I’m only the physical reminder that Papa betrayed her.

“I—I—” My tongue tangles around a handful of words. “I’m so sorry about—about Nicky,” I manage to say in a jumbled rush of words.

The room turns about ten degrees colder in an instant. The hairs at the nape of my neck prickle. Francesca’s mouth pinches into such a tight purse that her lips go white. A sneer curls at the edge of her nose, twitching against her right nostril. Her head jerks toward Papa, and she snarls something in rapid Italian, which I don’t understand.

“Basta,” Papa hisses back, his face like a thundercloud.

Another riffle of tension throughout the room. “Careful, Guilio,” says a man whose dark eyes cut through me like a knife. “Francesca might be your wife, but she is still my sister. Bringing your bastard into her home is an insult to her. For any reason.”

My face burns hotter at the words. That ominous undercurrent I’ve been wading through makes more sense, suddenly. The crowd isn’t comprised of just Papa’s family—his wife’s family is also present. Their enmity isn’t reserved solely for me, the pretender to their sacred circle. It’s for Papa, too.

I wonder again—what am I doing here?

Papa ignores the jibe, but his fingers clench even more tightly around my hand. “Come,” he says again to me, gruffly, as his cheeks burn a ruddy hue. “Your uncles, cara mia. My brothers, Lorenzo and Matteo.”

They’re both older than Papa, tall and powerful where Papa is square and squat. Neither look welcoming. Instead they look at me with…not contempt, but indifference. I’m beneath their notice, not any true family to them.

“Is this one as useless as Nicky was?” Matteo asks Papa, and I feel myself bristle at the question. A surge of anger slides up my spine, pulling my shoulders straight.

Papa’s wife gives a high, sharp wail of grief and buries her face in a handkerchief, and I forget my own offense for the moment. I can’t imagine how awful it must be for her, to have lost her only child. How it must feel like I’ve replaced him. Under similar circumstances, I don’t know if I would have it in me to be kind, either.

“My Catalina is a good girl,” Papa says to his brothers in a voice that reeks of supplication. “Pretty, like her mamma. And so smart. She just got her master’s in—what was it, Catalina?”

“Early childhood education.” My voice comes out whisper-soft, as if even it is afraid to trespass in this place it doesn’t belong. I’m a little annoyed with the question. Papa paid for my undergraduate degree and my master’s. But he’s never cared what I studied, or why. He’s never asked even one question about my education.

Papa’s tepid praise elicits nothing more than boredom and vague disdain. “Feh,” says Lorenzo, dismissively. “What a waste of money, to educate a woman. They’re good for only two things. Fucking and cooking.”

A riffle of masculine amusement slides through the room; the sounds of agreement from the men present. Either the women present are accustomed to such blatant sexism, or they don’t dare to disagree with the men.

I wonder if I would be just as still and silent as them, if I had been raised in this family. And I do dare to disagree. “It’s not a waste. I’m going to be a teacher. I’ve already accepted a position teaching third grade at—”

“Hush, Catalina,” Papa snarls, and he squeezes my hand until it hurts. “Now is not the time. Tonight, we are discussing your future in this family. You’re a Russo, and that means something.”

“It means there are certain obligations,” Matteo says. “Something Nicky never bothered to learn or respect. But the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, eh, Giulio?”

Francesca makes another keening wail of grief. “My Nicky was a good boy!” she sobs. “A good—”

“Thief,” Lorenzo sneers. “I don’t give a fuck who else he was shaking down, but your fuck-up of a son stole from family. He could have gotten all of us killed. We’re lucky it was Morozov who discovered it, and that the price for his silence isn’t beyond our means to pay.”

Papa swallows audibly. “We can discuss this over dinner,” he says, in a rough, scratchy voice laden with discomfort. “Our cook made ossobuco with polenta.” He gestures to an open doorway, as if to shepherd the crowd through into the dining room, but nobody moves. My feet feel stuck to the marble floor.

I don’t like the way everyone is staring at me. Like there’s some sort of knowledge hanging in the air just above my head, and I can’t see it. A secret everyone knows but me. “What’s the price?” I ask. “What did Nicky do?”

Papa draws in a massive breath. “Catalina—”