Oh mamma.
She cleared her throat and inclined her head. “Claudia,” our mother said and I looked at my sister.
Playing it off like I didn’t want to rush over there and embrace her was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. But I couldn’t keep that mask in place when I saw the nasty bruise on her cheek.
“Claudia,” I whispered and was standing in front of her before I even realized I’d moved. “What happened?” I let my fingers hover over her face, afraid to touch her cheek and harm her further.
“It’s nothing. An accident.” My mother was the one to speak and I gritted my teeth as I kept my focus on my sister.
An accident. I felt my blood boil. “Father did this.” My voice was so low only Claudia would hear. And it wasn’t a question.
“It’s fine,” Claudia said in a hard whisper and I knew she didn’t want to talk about it. But she didn’t have to.
Our bastard of a father had hurt her.
I reached out to take her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze, a slight smile covering my lips that I hoped conveyed I’d make sure everything would be okay.
When I exhaled and looked over my shoulder at Nikolai, I could see his focus on me, his jaw set hard. His gaze slid to Claudia, and I saw a muscle under his jaw tick as he no doubt saw the bruise she sported.
“I know Marco mentioned having a word with you before we sit down for dinner,” my mother addressed Nikolai.
He casually placed his hands inside his coat pocket and stared down at her with a blasé expression. “And where is he? He couldn’t greet us at the door? He sent you to be his errand boy?”
Although I didn’t approve of Nikolai speaking to my mother with such a hard tone, at that moment I didn’t care because my sister had been hurt and clearly my mother didn’t see any issue with it, not with her calling it an “accident”. So I couldn’t find the energy to care if she was offended. Which she clearly was by the startled gasp she made.
“Excuse me, Mr. Petrov?”
Nikolai gave her a tight smile. “You heard me. How about you tell Marco we’re waiting in here for him. If he needs to speak with me he can walk his ass to his own sitting room and address me himself instead of sending his wife to do it.”
My mother’s face turned red and she bristled, but she knew better than to say anything else. She smoothed her hands down her dress and nodded once before side-eyeing me and Claudia, and then leaving the room. When she was gone I exhaled and Claudia gave a little laughter.
“Holy shit,” my sister cursed and I held in my laughter at hearing her say it. “That was probably the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”
We didn’t say anything else and only a few moments passed before I heard the heavy footsteps of my father approaching, the sound of my mother’s heels clicking softly following. I pulled Claudia off the couch, my hand still in hers, and together we moved over to Nikolai. Once again I wasn’t ashamed to have Nikolai in my corner. I’d take any ally I could get.
The sitting room doors burst open and I felt my father’s fit of anger before I even saw him. His cheeks were colored beet red, his dark eyes narrowed on my husband. My mother stepped in behind him, turned to close the door, and then moved off to the side where she could clasp her hands behind her back and stay silent like a good little Italian wife my father had shaped.
For so long I hated this life for her, loathed how she’d been beaten and brainwashed, molded into the woman she was today. I’d love her regardless. I was still a little girl who wanted her mother to brush her hair and tell her everything was okay, but I saw things for how they were and how they’d never change.
I could have overlooked, could have ignored when she looked the other way when our father took his anger out on me or Gio. But what I would not stand for, what I would not ever be complacent in, was how she could let him do the same thing to Claudia after seeing how much it had hurt us.
She should’ve been my younger sister's champion. She should’ve protected her. She just should’ve been our mother.
I felt like I was watching a volcano about to erupt as I stared at my father. He all but had steam coming out of his ears.
“You come to my home, insult my wife, and demand things of me?”
I had a feeling this had nothing to do with how Nikolai had spoken to my mother, or how he wanted my father to join us in the sitting room. Maybe there were things going on in the background between the Bratva in the Cosa Nostra, things I’d never be privy to.
Things I didn’t want to know about.
There was definitely something going on between them. That was the only explanation for how my father was reacting right now. Or maybe it had nothing to do with any of that. Maybe there was something else. Surely it couldn’t be because of the Edoardo situation.
“You forget who you’re talking to, Bianchi.” Nikolai didn’t move, didn’t raise his voice. He was a pillar of calm and collected as he stared down my father.
And when Marco took a step forward I didn’t even sense the slightest tenseness in Nikolai.
My father started speaking in Italian, low words of insults and slurs. I felt my eyes widen as he called Nikolai horrible things, as he talked about how the Russian and the Bratva were nothing but dogs.
“Father,” I finally snapped and took a step forward. “You will not speak to my husband that way.” Nikolai’s arm snapped out instantly, a bar in front of me that kept me from going any closer.
I curled my hands into tight fists at my sides and hoped all my anger and disgust for the man who was nothing but a sperm donor, didn’t show through.
“You cannot talk to my husband like that.” The words were pulled from me again. I felt something monumental change in me, one that had me growing stronger. Being that queen Nikolai said I was.
And I would not let this man, who hurt me while I grew up, who was now hurting my sister, do the same to the man I was falling for.
Have fallen for.
My father laughed darkly, his chuckles making my hackles rise. “Is this what the Russians allow?” He addressed Nikolai but he was staring at me. “You let your women fight your battles?”
Now it was Nikolai’s turn to laugh. “A man is only as strong as the woman at his side. For there wasn’t just Satan, but Lilith, as well.”
My father narrowed his eyes before looking at Nikolai.
“And if you have a weak woman beside you, well…” Nikolai shrugged, the unspoken insult speaking loudly.
My mother was weak, subjective to my father’s whims and demands.
My father opened his mouth just as the doorbell rang and for a second no one moved. I didn’t think anyone even breathed. I could hear the soft sound of shoes in the foyer, the door opening, followed by soft, unintelligible voices slowly filtering into the sitting room.
Yet still no one spoke, my father still glaring daggers at Nikolai, my husband’s arm still held in front of me, and my hand still wrapped tightly around Claudia’s.
“Why don’t you just tell me why you’re really here, Russian.”
Although my father had arranged this marriage, it was very clear he didn’t agree with it. Marco Bianchi may be high ranking in the Cosa Nostra, but he didn’t call the final shots, and I was sure me being pawned off to Nikolai had come from someone much higher.