Let a doctor examine me. He’ll find nothing, but maybe that’s the point. I’ve been so wrapped in myself; I haven’t stopped to think about what my parents must be feeling. Their pain.
Their fear.
Extending it any longer would be cruel.
So I nod.
“Good girl.” I’m in his arms before I know it, crushed against his chest as he shoves the tray aside. I don’t resist the embrace. He feels so different from Donatello even as he had back then.
Don was warm and light, his laughter infectious.
Mischa is solid, rigid, but unyielding. A brick wall that won’t crumble easily. A permanent fixture I’m not afraid to trust, relaxing into his grip.
“I know he hurt you,” he says, smoothing his hand over my hair. “I do not know how, but I will make him pay. You say the word, and I will.”
He tilts my face to meet him, inspecting my expression.
Slowly, he nods again. “Fine. You let the doctor examine you, and I will hear what the motherfucker has to say for himself. Deal?”
I nod, but I find myself leaning into him again, pressing my cheek against his shoulder.
And he doesn’t let me go.
16
Don
Meeting Mischa Stepanov, unarmed and on his terms, is one thing.
Looking the part of a fucking sycophantic patsy while doing so is another. I couldn’t stand to face myself in the mirror before leaving the house, but I’m sure I look every bit as ridiculous as I feel. This emerald, piece of shit jacket was Fabio’s idea, and already I’m tugging at the collar, feeling my body strain against the confines of the cotton. To be fair, I figure no designer in the world constructed a suit specifically with this type of meeting in mind. Groveling before a mafiya leader in the hopes of convincing him that I didn’t violate his daughter. Fuck, what a mess.
A glass of whiskey couldn’t soothe my nerves.
Deep down, I’m partly convinced it’s all a trap. I’ll walk into this neutral territory and find a bullet lodged in my skull before I can even utter a greeting. Hell, I’d deserve it for being stupid enough to fall for it.
That fate would be a fitting end, all things considered. Once again, little Safiya is smirking at me from the grave. Once again, because of her, I’ve stumbled, jeopardizing everything I’ve strived to create for myself. I will never outlast her memory.
I feel her presence now more than ever, haunting me down the narrow hall of Fabio’s downtown offices in the heart of the city. Its location makes it difficult to ambush. With Fabio’s connections to the governor, no man would dare mount an attack on him directly.
It’s as figuratively safe as a mother’s bosom, but I’m not naïve enough to trust in it completely. Mischa isn’t known for his strict adherence to the typical rules of engagement, be them explicit or otherwise. The man made his mark by clawing at every bit of his sizeable empire that wasn’t handed to him out of fear. He waged a bloody war against an oil magnate he believed wronged his family, and as the rumors go, his own wife was once his captive, brutalized and scarred for his amusement.
As cold a thought as it is, I have to wonder if the man truly even cares about his daughter’s supposed predicament out of love? Or just anger at what it looks like on the surface? Another man dared to defile what is his, leveling a slight no true leader could ever let go unchallenged.
Though, even I can admit another man wouldn’t show this level of restraint. Antonio Salvatore would have already tried to tear me to pieces were one of his daughters found in the same state.
And what a state it was. The blond, fiery-eyed tigre who just so happens to be mute. What grudge could she have against me?
My brain dances around the answer. It could be the whiskey in my system, or sheer twisted logic, but the more I mull over her, the more solutions come to mind. Like the fact that Mischa Stepanov is the type of man to run in the same circles as Nicolai Baryshnikov, a well-known money lender to the Russian mob. Could Mischa have a fetish for children and procured a girl for himself? My Safiya, raised as his own?
No. I shake my head, laughing at the possibility. My black heart might get some peace from the ending, but it’s too much like a fairy tale to ever be real.
Isn’t it?
Lost in thought, I tug on my tie, and I barely register a man’s voice, addressing me from up ahead.
“You’re properly dressed at least,” Fabio remarks from the doorway of his private office. As agreed, a Stepanov agent lurks at the other end of the corridor, while my men, including Javier, have to wait outside of the building.
“You play this right, and you can smooth this over,” Fabio warns, opening the door. “You can wait in here.”
His office is empty apart from two leather chairs placed directly across from each other, out of range from any of the large windows showcasing a view of the city.
“At least my kennel is well furnished,” I grouse halfheartedly. As agreed, I’m expected to wait on the man like a naughty child called to a headmaster’s office. Patiently, I must anticipate my punishment.
“Don’t fuck this up, Donatello,” Fabio warns. “But I know you won’t. If there is one thing you care about, it’s family.”
He’s right.
And he’s wrong. Safiya Mangenello is proof alone as to the opposite. I’m a selfish fuck, and I always have been. But Vin isn’t like me.
“How long until he shows up?” I ask Fabio as I enter the office and take a seat facing him.
He shrugs, smoothing his hands down the front of his own suit. In a crisp navy blue, he cuts a stern figure befitting any neutral party. “Whenever he fucking feels like it. You’re lucky he even agreed to this.”
“And his daughter? How is she?”
“You probably have a better idea of that than I do,” he says ominously. “Seeing as how you claim you didn’t touch her.”
“I said I didn’t rape her,” I clarify. “And I didn’t drag her kicking and screaming into my room either. She came at me. Besides, I’m still not even convinced the girl I was with is Willow Stepanova. Attacking an unarmed man with a knife doesn’t sound like the actions of some innocent, sweet little pianist, daughter of a mafiya lord or not.”
But it’s starting to sound more and more like the actions of a spurned daughter, alright—just not Mischa’s. Gritting my teeth, I glower from the window and try to refocus on what matters. Making it through this meeting with my hide intact, for one. Doing whatever it takes to keep Vin out of any potential feud.
In short—be on my best goddamn behavior.
“Well, let’s be sure before the man comes, why don’t we?” Fabio reaches into his pocket and withdraws a folded slip of paper. A photograph.
And the woman staring up from the glossy surface renders me silent.
“So, it was her, you son of a bitch,” Fabio snarls, shoving the picture into my hand. “God damn it, Don! I got that picture from her fucking school files. Look innocent and sweet enough for you?”
And by God, she does. Pale as snow, hair like spun gold, eyes that soul-sucking shade of brown. She cleans up nice, the little tigre, her hair in a neat bun and a starched white blouse in lieu of a low-cut dress—but even as she smiles, I’d recognize that stern tilt to her mouth anywhere.