by Bethany-Kris
“It’s good to see you, boy, though I don’t know why you’re calling tonight. Have you decided to concede?”
“You gave me something—I’m simply returning the favor. Question for you,” Kaz said before he held the device up so the man had a clear view of Carmine and Andrea behind him. “Who do you love the most? Inquiring minds want to know.”
“Kazimir, what do you hope to accomplish by doing this?” Alberto asked, and though he tried to temper his reaction, Kaz could see that he had caught the man off guard.
And whether he wanted to admit it or not, Kaz had gotten one up on him.
“Simple question, but if you don’t want to answer, I understand.” Kaz stepped away from them, though not very far. “Here’s the deal. Either you die, or I’ll take everything you hold dear.”
Alberto was silent a moment before his laugh cut through the speaker. “And do you expect me to shoot myself in the head, too, then?”
Sighing, Kaz retrieved the gun from his belt, aimed and fired a round into Andrea’s arm.
Over her agonized wail and Carmine’s shouts, Kaz said, “There goes the drawing arm. What’s next, Gallucci? Would you like her to be a paraplegic too? I can start at her knees and work my way up.”
Alberto was no longer smiling. “What do you want?”
“Pick one—choose and I’ll let one of them live.”
Carmine shouted something at his father, his voice desperate and pleading. Kaz knew the choice he would have made, and he knew what he would be shouting at his father.
He would gladly die for his mother.
Was Carmine ready to make the same sacrifice?
Except, whatever he was saying only seemed to annoy Alberto more. “Shut up! Enough of your whining.” But as quickly as his attention was on his son, it was now back on Kaz. “You think to make me weak, Kazimir, but it won’t work. I will put a bullet in each of them myself before I let you use them against me—that’s my promise to you.”
Kaz wasn’t sure who looked more shocked, Carmine or Andrea who immediately started to cry and wail louder than before.
“There has to be something that means the world to you, Alberto. Something you would give your life for.”
Alberto had met his gaze before his hand lifted and he said, “Not anymore.”
He ended the call.
As soon as the screen went dark once more, Andrea’s sobs grew louder, to the point that they were all Kaz could hear.
Neither, Alberto had said …
So be it.
Raising his arm, he fired two more shots, silencing Andrea’s cries once and for all. She hung like a limp doll, blood starting to pool at her feet.
“You’re a dead man, Markovic. You hear me? You’re dead.”
Kaz shook his head in the face of Carmine’s rage and anguish. “You should think very carefully about how you respond to me—especially when I hold your life in my hands. You knew someone would have to answer for everything Alberto has done. You knew this. I knew this. So if we both know, why did he leave you to be found? While he remains hidden away, it only took an hour to drag your ass from bed and get you here. Have you asked yourself why?”
He waited for a response but didn’t get one.
“Alberto doesn’t give a fuck about you, or me, or anyone else—except Violet. So as long as I’m in the picture, he’s going to destroy the city just because he’s a child who’s lost his favorite toy. So tell me, are you ready to die for your father’s obsession?”
Carmine ground his teeth, his gaze cutting over to his mother a moment before turning back to Kaz. “What do you want, Markovic?”
Music to his ears. “Hand him over and swear to no retribution, and I’ll let you leave this room alive.”
Carmine cursed, jerking his head. “You’re asking me to—”
“Take the same deal our fathers made before us,” Kaz cut in before he could finish. “You heard the man. He doesn’t care whether you live or die—do you? Besides, who will your organization fall to with him in the ground?”
“And my mother?” Carmine asked a question of his own.
“I won’t cut off her fingers and toes,” Kaz offered obligingly.
The Italian didn’t look like he contemplated the offer very long. “Fine.”
“Good man.” Kaz waved for one of his men to hit the lever and drop Carmine back onto his feet. “When I finish with him, dump them both out in Hell’s Kitchen.”
“What the fuck, Markovic?” Carmine demanded. “We had a deal!”
“And we do, but you wouldn’t think it would look suspicious if you just walked out of here.” Kaz shook his head, even as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “No, you have to look like you earned it.”
By the time Kaz stopped laying into the man, Carmine was barely breathing.
Alive when he made it out of those doors, Kaz had promised him.
He never said he would stay that way.
Violet moved around the kitchen with ease, making sure to peek around the island occasionally to make sure Anastasya was still enjoying her rocking cradle. The flat screen droned on in the background with some news program she had turned on, though she was more interested in getting breakfast cooked rather than watching television.
She didn’t notice Kaz slipping into the room until he was leaning against the far wall, watching her.
Violet hesitated in her work but continued to stir the scrambled egg mixture as she took in her husband. He’d been … strange for a while, progressively going further inside his head and trying to fix the hell that was all around them. She thought—maybe—she had helped that night in the shower, if only for a short while, but she couldn’t be sure.
And now, looking at him wearing the same clothes he had the day before, and knowing damn well he hadn’t spent the night in bed with her like he usually would, she thought perhaps she hadn’t helped him at all.
“You hungry?” she asked.
Kaz didn’t reply.
Violet sighed. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer that time, either. She peered over her shoulder at him, only to find he was watching the television. That distance in his gaze never really left, though it killed her to see it staring back at her every day.
They needed their normal back.
She hated her father for taking it from them for even one second.
“Kaz.”
Silence echoed.
It was only then that Violet noticed a row of scratches across the side of his cheek now that his head was turned to watch the television. And his shirt … a reddish, ruddy brown stained the sky-blue silk.
She knew what those stains were—blood.
He’d not come home the night before, and in his frantic state, she’d worried about that but knew there wasn’t much she could do.
What had he done?
So quietly that she almost missed what he said, Kaz murmured, “What will it be that finally breaks you, Violet?”
She blinked. “What?”
“There must be something I will do—something you’ve thought about that disgusts you—that will make you hate me?”
Violet moved the frying pan from the burner, dropped the spatula she was holding and stepped away from the oven altogether. “Why are you asking me that?”
Kaz looked back at the local newscast, his attention gone, his gaze cold, and his expression as blank as white paper. “Is it my apologies that allow your forgiveness?”
“I—”
“Because I can’t apologize for this one.”
Violet’s gaze shifted from him to the television he seemed so interested all of the sudden. The volume was still on low, making the sound of it like unintelligible murmurs floating through the now silent kitchen.
But the scene on the news had changed, she realized.
A body was being wheeled away, a coroner’s van close by the cameras shooting the action.
Even through all of this, Violet’s attention was snagged by the headli
ne streaming across the bottom of the screen with its ‘breaking news.’
Victim identified, it read. Andrea Gallucci, well-known fashion designer of Gallucci Fashions and wife of suspected mobster Alberto Gallucci.
It took several times for Violet to read the headline rolling through over and over before she finally processed it enough to know what it meant, and what Kaz was trying to tell her.
Whenever he thought he might hurt her, he always did the same thing.
He shut down.
His emotions blinked off.
He delivered the pain bluntly and unapologetically.
Violet believed that was simply her husband’s way of protecting himself from her anger, or worse, her hatred.
But this …
This was not the same.
Violet came out of her daze when she felt Kaz’s hand press to her lower back. He’d moved across the room to stand at her side without making as much as a squeak of a floorboard.
She could see it in his eyes—the worry that this would be that one unforgivable thing.
Violet reached up and patted her husband’s cheek softly, wanting him to know it was … fine.
Maybe that was cold of her.
Maybe she should have felt something.
Maybe someone else would have thought they married a monster.
Violet didn’t believe any of those things.
Kaz had been pushed too far by too many things. He’d finally struck back in a big way, and he was only protecting what he loved the most.
She would never fault him for that.
That was no monster.
“Are you hungry?” she asked him again.
Kaz met her gaze, nodding. “Starved.”
“Say good morning to Anastasya; I think she knew you were gone last night as she didn’t sleep well.”
“Sure, krasivaya.”
Violet turned away from the television. Even knowing that it was her mother’s body inside the body bag, she didn’t feel the need to dwell on the events more than she already had. This day had been a long time coming. Standing up on her tiptoes, she pressed a kiss to Kaz’s injured cheek.
In his ear, she whispered, “You did well.”
She would always tell him that—no one else would.
He deserved to hear it.
Death should have made him feel something.
He was usually affected, in some small way that he didn’t notice right away, but despite having killed his wife’s mother not even a week ago, he still felt … nothing. But he was sure, at least until all of this came to an end, he wouldn’t be feeling anything.
Seated at his desk, the dismantled pieces of an AR-15 sat in front of him, all freshly cleaned and oiled. Something about the process was calming—the simplicity of his movements helping clear his mind of all the shit worrying him.
But the end was close, so close that he could almost see it. There were just a few small matters that needed to be dealt with first, and the first was right in his own home.
All day, Kaz had avoided his wife as much as he could, locking himself away in his office. He couldn’t stay gone forever, not when she had Anastasya, but as though she knew something was on his mind, Violet hadn’t called him out on his absence.
He was thankful.
But that feeling wouldn’t last long, not when he finally told Violet what was on his mind—what he had been struggling to tell her all day. Whether she liked it or not, what he would ask of her was a necessary evil.
Deciding it was best to finish his task before he headed out there, Kaz took his time as he reassembled his rifle, placing the completed piece back in its case and locking it away.
Finishing no more than fifteen minutes after he started, Kaz took a breath then took a swallow of the vodka he’d poured earlier. It seared his throat on the way down, but he welcomed the burn—his punishment for what he was about to ask of her.
Violet was curled up on the couch, Anastasya cradled in her arms as she fed. His two favorite girls.
The sight of them made him pause.
He could have never imagined that he would end up here with a girl from the other side of the bridge—the girl from the other side of the bridge. In a city of millions, she was the only one forbidden to him, but the only one he wanted to keep forever.
Violet spotted him before he could say anything, her lips slowly curling into a smile. “What?”
“I can enjoy you a moment, no?” Kaz asked, stepping further into the room.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You want something. That’s the only time you pour on the charm.”
Kaz chuckled because she knew him well. Taking a seat beside her on the couch, he cupped the back of her head, pulling her forward just enough to press his lips against her forehead then gave Anastasya a kiss as well.
That was when Violet’s smile faded. Yes, she knew him well, and though he hadn’t said a word yet, she knew something was wrong.
“Let me put Anastasya down then we can … talk.”
Violet wasn’t gone more than a handful of minutes before she was settling back beside him, curling her legs up beneath her. “Whatever it is, just tell me.”
“Your father,” he started, “it’s happening within the week.”
She blinked.
He understood her confusion because he rarely spoke to her about anything related to his business. He liked to keep certain things outside of their home if he could help it. But it was important that he explain this detail because she would want to know.
Having Alfie just as determined as he was to see Alberto dead had made the plan rather simple. Kaz had looked over and memorized everything, down to the very last detail; he knew he would be ready for anything.
The clock was ticking down.
“But before that can happen,” Kaz continued. “I need to make sure that you and Anastasya are safe.”
A moment of confusion, then surprise, and finally, anger. “No.”
“Violet—”
She shoved to her feet, taking off in a flurry to the kitchen. “No.”
Sighing as he got to his feet, Kaz followed. “It’s a necessary precaution.”
“You made a promise to me, Kaz,” she threw over her shoulder.
“And this will be the last time I ask this of you, krasivaya,” he said, catching her around the waist with an arm, dragging her back to him before she could get too far. “It won’t be long, a few days at most.”
Violet wasn’t so easily swayed. “Right. You said that last time.”
“And I’m saying it this time.”
She spun in his arms, looking up at him with such sad eyes. “I don’t like this, Kaz.”
Kaz shook his head, drawing her closer before resting his chin on top of her head, waiting until her stance relaxed before he spoke. “I love you and Anastasya more than anything in the world. Don’t ever think that I won’t do everything in my power to keep you safe. Once this is done, and not a second later, the two of you will be right back here where I can spoil you for the rest of our lives.”
A heartbeat later, Violet exhaled and said, “Make sure you come back to us, Kaz. Promise me that.”
He didn’t hesitate. “I promise.”
He’d promised her.
He promised not to send her away again, yet there Violet was, in the backseat of a black SUV, heading toward the private airstrip she hadn’t wanted to see for a long time. Anastasya sat happily in her car seat, watching the dangling toys bounce with the movement of the vehicle, her blue-gray eyes lit up with fascination.
She had no idea of her mother’s heartbreak, none at all.
The baby girl didn’t know that it could be days, weeks, or even months before she saw her father again. One of two people in the entire world who loved her more than their own life, and she didn’t even know.
Violet leaned over to her daughter, letting the baby chew on a frozen teething ring she’d been holding. At just two months old, Anastasya was already getting her firs
t tooth on the bottom. It was barely peeking through the gum, but it was there.
Still, the baby rarely fussed about it.
She was such a good girl—laid-back like her father.
“Do you want to grab something to eat before we hit the airstrip?” her driver asked. “It’ll be a long flight and plane food is garbage.”
Violet didn’t know the name of the man. Kaz had simply waved her toward the car without introduction, and then proceeded to threaten the driver with his life should something go wrong between the mansion and the private airstrip.
“Mrs. Markovic?” the driver asked.
Violet shook her head. “I’m not hungry, but thank you.”
Despite her bad mood, she knew it would do her no good to treat her driver like shit simply because she wasn’t happy. It wasn’t his fault, really. He was only doing his job, and he was, at least, attempting to be pleasant.
That was more than Violet could say for some of the other guards Kaz had put on her.
They were always respectful, but nice was another matter altogether.
“If you’re sure,” the guy said.
“It’s fine.”
Violet stared out the window, watching the road fly by with little traffic slowing their drive. She had a feeling that ‘fine’ would be her mantra for longer than she wanted to admit.
She knew this time was not going to be the same as the last time. The cell phone in her pocket being one thing that was different. She would have access to her husband by way of phone calls. They could talk, and that would help a great deal. She could let Anastasya hear her father’s voice, and they wouldn’t be completely cut off from him and their home.
But she was still heartbroken.
Too many times growing up, Violet could remember doing this very same thing. A car would show up wherever she was—be it school, home, or somewhere else—and that would be it. She would find herself shuffled into the vehicle without so much as an explanation, driven to another state, and dropped at one of their many vacation homes. Sometimes, they would fly out of the country.
Never with her father. He stayed behind.
It was the nature of the business.
It was a part of being who she was.