But today I have absolutely no desire to get out of the thrift-store futon I call a bed, because today marks a darkly momentous occasion: my eighteenth birthday.
On television, there are so many young women looking forward to this milestone, longing for freedom and maturity in a way I’ll never really comprehend. But maybe it’s just because for all these years I’ve gotten all the maturity and freedom I could ever want for a whole lifetime. Not that freedom means much when you have two tiny twin sisters who need to be fed, bathed, clothed, entertained, and looked after. When Daisy and Sunny were just babies and I was barely more than a child myself, there were dark times when I considered taking them to a church or fire station and just leaving them there. Not for lack of love, of course, but because I simply thought they would be better off with someone else, someone older with more time, money, and experience than me.
It’s been a grueling, uphill battle, trying to keep all my ducks in a row all this time. And it’s not like my good-for-nothing, gambling boozer of a father has done anything to make our lives easier. He’s our legal guardian, naturally, as the state somehow still sees him as fit for fatherhood. But Frank Barnes is little more than an occasional visitor who blunders around our tiny, shotgun-style house in a drunken rage, bellowing obscenities and chucking whatever heavy object is closest at me. The one saving grace I can thank God for is the fact that for the most part, my father’s violence is generally only targeted at me. I’m bigger and stronger than the little ones, so if one of us is going to have to bear the torture, I am relieved to have it be me rather than either of them.
And I know why he hates me more than them… It’s because I look the most like him, and he absolutely despises himself. I am sure he knows deep down how much of a sorry loser he really is, and it’s eating him up inside just as much as the alcohol and endless debts are.
Daisy climbs onto the futon to straddle me and bat me gently with a patched-up throw pillow while Sunny pokes my arm repeatedly, both of them giggling. I have to summon every ounce of self-control not to let my mouth break into a grin, but I’m committed to my Sleeping Beauty act. I know the longer I stay asleep, the more frustrated and ridiculous my sisters will get, and I can’t resist working them into a mini-frenzy trying to get me out of bed.
“Rosie! It’s morning!” Sunny whispers plaintively, slumping her pointed little chin onto my shoulder. “You have to get up! I’m hungry.”
“And it’s your birthday,” Daisy adds brightly, trying to entice me out of bed. She wouldn’t understand that my birthday is exactly the reason I don’t want to get up.
It’s yet another reminder of how off-course my life has gotten. I graduated high school a couple weeks ago in May, after transferring halfway through my senior year from down South. Originally, we are all from Mississippi, a tiny town near Biloxi. But my dad’s gambling debts got him into hot water and he forced us all to climb into our piece of shit grey van and move up here to New Jersey.
Of course, instead of realizing that maybe, just maybe, his gambling problem has become too much for anyone to handle… he simply moved us right into another little town near a casino hotspot. We’re within thirty minutes of Atlantic City. Typical. I don’t know if he’s just stupid, or if he really, truly just doesn’t care anymore. I suppose it’s probably some of both.
He’s always been prone to rash decision-making, but ever since Mama died, what was formerly just a lovable personality quirk has blossomed into a fully-grown, crippling issue. It wasn’t always this bad, though. When I was a little girl, I was pretty happy, believe it or not. Granted, we never had much money or anything, but we lived a fairly good life down in Mississippi. I was young enough to be oblivious to my parents’ problems with money and alcohol, especially since I spent the majority of my time running around through the marshy woods, playing barefoot and free surrounded by nature. I was always a bit of a loner, preferring to make up stories and have adventures with my imaginary friends rather than mingle with the other kids in our trailer park. Besides, most of them only wanted to sit around and watch TV, try to sneak money and cigarettes from their moms’ purses.
And even though we lived in a trailer, my mom always did her very best to make it feel like a real home, decorating it with bright colors and aromatic flowers and herbs. We had a lovely garden out back, where she grew tomatoes and thyme, teaching me how to take a seed and nurture it into a successful bloom. I think she is the one who taught me patience and compassion, who showed me how to be kind and quiet when life required it. If not for her, I don’t think I could have managed taking care of Daisy and Sunny all these years.
And even my father was a better man back then. My mom, Susanna, kept him in high spirits with her constant singing and laughter. She sounded just like Judy Garland when she sang, and even her laugh was lightly musical. I remember her always dressed in colorful, heavily-patterned dresses she stitched together from rummage sale fabrics. Even though it might have looked garish or costume-like on someone else, my mother always managed to pull it off perfectly. Perhaps because it suited her personality so well. She was a ray of sunshine, making the best out of even the darkest situations. She knew how to repurpose everything, how to turn a dud into a dream without fail.
Ever since she died, it’s like even the sun can’t muster the same quality of light anymore.
I was ten years old when she passed away, just a little girl playing with a knock-off Barbie doll in the hospital waiting room while my dad paced back and forth. We were awaiting the long delayed births of my little sisters, and up until the very day they were born, the doctors were certain that all was well. But when my mother kept bleeding hours and hours after the twins emerged screaming and kicking, it became quickly evident that there was something very, very wrong.
My mother died that same day, while the newborns slept in their identical pink blankets down the hall and my father fell to his knees, the wind utterly stolen from his lungs, the light swept straight out of his life. I didn’t understand it at first — how we could all go from blissful and excited to totally devastated. It didn’t make any sense to me. Just twenty-four hours before, I had been sitting beside my mom’s hospital bed playing go-fish with a deck of cards, both of us laughing while the doctors ticked things down in their charts. How could she be so full of life one moment, and then completely still and empty the next?
When the doctors explained that my mother was gone, I heard the horrified, blood-churning wail my father let out, from all the way down the hall. I dropped my Barbie and looked up instantly, unable to process that the sound had come from my strong, silent father. He came stumbling through the lobby with a glazed, wide-eyed look on his face, as though he were incapable of deciding on an appropriate facial expression for the circumstances. He didn’t respond to my questions, totally ignoring me.
It was the first time he pushed me down, shoving me aside onto the sterile hospital tile like I was nothing. But even worse still was the way he fully neglected the twins. He wanted nothing to do with them, blaming them for his wife’s death. It didn’t help that they were born with full heads of tufty blonde hair — barely hours old and already resembling their mother. I, on the other hand, have always been pale with dark hair like my father.
A nurse came out to quietly ask what he wanted to name his new daughters, and he waved his hand to dismiss her, like he couldn’t care less. I piped up and said, “Daddy, you have to name them or they’re… they’re not real.”
I remember still, as clearly as though it happened yesterday, the way his dark blue eyes so similar to mine landed on me, cold and steely. Totally unfeeling. He said, “You name them. I don’t care.”
At first, the nurse had tried to protest, but I quickly jumped in to intervene. Even then, as a ten-year-old child, I knew better than to try and reason with my father when he was angry. It was the turning point. From that moment on, something monumental had shifted in my world. My mother’s light no longer lit the dark shadows of our impoverishe
d little existence. I aged a million years in one instant, turning to the nurse and giving her the first two names I could think of: Daisy and Sunny. Because it was a beautiful summer’s day, almost too beautiful to contain such a horrible outcome.
Thinking back now wryly, I realize how fitting it is in many ways. I, for one, was named Rosalie after my dad’s favorite Thin Lizzy song. He says it was the song stuck in his head the whole time my mom was in labor with me, so it was fate. (I’d say it was probably more like a coincidence than an act of God, but here we are.) And my mom would have loved the twins’ names, as she was always growing things and singing in the sunshine. But it was like the moment I gave them their names, I became their protector. From that moment onward, they were mine. My babies.
For a while, a nurse came to visit us and help us — well, me — learn how to feed, bathe, and change the twins’ diapers. I caught on quickly, knowing that if I didn’t, nobody would. My father was a different man already, going out on days-long benders and coming home only to sit catatonic at the window as though expecting my mom to come flouncing down the little pathway as she always did.
I was grieving, too, of course. But I simply didn’t have the time or luxury of letting my heartbreak paralyze me like my father. I had to raise two tiny little girls, essentially by myself.
“Let’s pour cold water on her,” Daisy suggests, jerking me back to the present moment.
“No, let’s tickle her!” Sunny insists.
Neither one of those options is one I plan on entertaining, so I finally, begrudgingly, open my eyes and immediately capture both girls in my arms with an animalistic growl. They shriek in delighted laughter, folding into my chest happily.
“You have awakened the beast!” I hiss, pretending to gnaw on Sunny’s hands like an animal. She recoils with a squeal.
“It’s the beast’s birthday!” Daisy brings up, yet again. I want so badly to just tell her not to talk about it, to let it go. But I can’t dampen her spirits that way. There are so few reasons for us to celebrate, ever, and I don’t want to take this away from her so harshly.
“Yep, and I think I need a bowl of cereal to get me started,” I say, moving them both aside so I can get up and stretch. The twins exchange nervous looks.
“Um, there isn’t any cereal left,” Sunny admits in a tiny, timid voice.
“We had it for dinner last night, remember?” Daisy quips, fidgeting.
My heart sinks, remembering how we perused the whole kitchen in desperation, hoping to find something edible to quell their growling stomachs. The ache in my own belly reminds me that I skipped dinner altogether last night so that they could eat.
There’s no food in the house.
Yet again.
This is why, instead of preparing for college like most of my fellow high school graduates, I have been trolling through the help wanted ads in the paper for a job. I need some kind of revenue coming into this household that doesn’t simply slither right back out the window and into a slot machine. Dad works long hours at a pawn shop, but the only thing he really spends his money on are trips to the casinos. When we were younger, on the rare occasion that he actually won a little bit of money, he would spontaneously take us out of school and go out for a fancy dinner and night of bowling or a movie. But nowadays, even when he did win, the money just funneled right back onto a blackjack table.
He doesn’t even pretend to care anymore, only coming home to sleep or to make my life a living hell with his rage tantrums and violent outbursts. I want to hate him, and on the surface level, perhaps I do. But deep down, I will always love my father, because I can’t help but recall the fond memories I have of him from when I was a little girl. When things were still good.
“Well, I think I have a little bit of money in the piggy bank,” I say suddenly, remembering the fifteen or sixteen dollars of cash I still have left from the waitressing job I had last summer. “How do we feel about going to the waffle place down the street?”
The girls immediately jump to their feet and rush to hug me enthusiastically, both of them murmuring their thanks. It breaks my heart that something so simple could make them so happy. I want to give them so much more, show them a better life. I want them to be happier than I am.
But that’s hard to do all by myself.
Just as we are finally dressed and ready to walk out the door, my father’s van comes wobbling up the driveway. My stomach flip-flops, anxiety settling into my veins instantly. Out of a natural protective instinct, I pull the girls in close, an arm around each of them. I stand tall, my chin tilted slightly upward to show my defiance. I have learned how to stand my ground when I need to.
Frank Barnes all but spills out of the driver’s seat, clearly already at least half a sheet to the wind even though it’s barely nine in the morning. Alcoholism has no clock.
I half-expect him to lumber over and take a swing at me, but instead he simply gives us a wide smile and says, “Happy birthday, kiddo. Got you a big surprise.”
I regard him warily, not trusting him. I have no idea what this could mean. My dad is pretty unpredictable these days, and I cannot remember the last time he gave me any kind of birthday gift.
He straightens up and says, “We’re going on a little boat ride, you and me. The girls will be alright here at home for the day, won’t they?” He addresses the last question in a higher pitch, looking at Daisy and Sunny, who only nod reluctantly. They know better than to question or defy him, even when he’s in a somewhat good mood. The least little thing can set him off.
So, even though I don’t want to leave them behind, I have no choice but to obey and climb into the passenger seat of the van, without a clue where the hell we were going.
3
Konstantin
I look out the plane window to see the Statue of Liberty standing in the water, and I raise my eyebrows. She’s smaller than I imagined her.
“New York City,” says Anton Budurov, the man who twelve hours ago I thought was going to try to kill me. “It’s even more overwhelming from the ground level, I promise you that. And Konstantin, we run this city. You’re going to be a part of something truly beautiful here.”
I boarded this private jet back in Moscow at Anton’s request. He’s a higher-up in the Bratva, and someone I’ve taken jobs from on more than one occasion in my ten years of service, and when such a man makes a request, it’s generally more of an order. At least, that would be true of most men serving the Bratva. It’s been a long time since prison, a decade, and I have come a long way from suffering to take blind orders from notes in hollowed-out books. Now, I’m a man of contracts, but this hasn’t slowed my rise through the ranks of our association.
Nonetheless, a plane ride alone with a man of Anton’s rank could mean any number of things. So I could not have been more surprised when he informed me that I was being sent to America.
“This place isn’t what it was ten years ago, Konstantin,” he says, still in our native Russian, swirling his brandy in his glass while eyeing the city in the midday sun. “It is not at all like Russia. A new beast entirely.” He raises an eyebrow at me with a smile. “All those vices you’re so fond of butting heads with in Russia? This is where the demand funnels it all. America.” He smiles, and it turns into a laugh, while all I afford him is a light nod.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Anton says with a smile, wagging his finger at me. “You’re wondering how all this bluster and speech tells you why a hitman’s services are required by us here. Well, my friend, there are two answers to this. One, there is always need of a hitman in New York. Two,” he flashes a grin at me, “you aren’t being brought here to be a hitman.”
I raise my eyebrows at this news. Anton is not the kind of man to beat around the bush, generally, his balding head, square face, and sharp eyes always direct and to the point. It bodes ill when such men speak cryptically.
“No?” I ask.
“No,” he affirms, laughing at my reticence. “Of course, we ar
en’t exactly going to New York City proper. You’re going to a place where most of us Russians congregate, where our grandfathers’ fathers first put down the roots that would give birth to our Bratva in the US.”
“Brighton Beach,” I say, hardly surprised. It was the hub of Russian activity in the NYC area.
“Yes, my friend,” he says, grinning, “a corner of the state brimming with opportunity.” Despite Anton’s candor, the declaration sits uneasily with me.
I have something of a reputation in the Bratva. I have long known that they have been the facilitators of the notorious human trafficking market in and out of New York City, a vicious trade that buys and sells the flesh of nubile young women for their horrendous buyers’ darkest whims. I have stood against such inhumanity since before my induction to the Bratva. Before even my imprisonment. So when I was brought on as a hired killer, and even now as I work for contracts, my colleagues keep a watchful eye on everything I do. I think this rather silly. My skill is of no question, and I have slain men with such deadly precision that even those made men who rank far above me hear my name and respect what it means. But for me to oppose the slave trade that has brought in so much money for the Bratva? This, they say, is playing a game far over my head, and many of the enemies I’ve attracted over the years have tested me, but my enemies have learned that to do so is to goad death like a bullfighter.
This is why they call me the Bull.
So when men like Anton, who stand close enough to my position to claw his way over me on his path to the top, seem so openly elated, it puts a sour taste in my mouth.
But I know he’ll only keep talking in circles if I don’t humor him. “And what opportunity is there so great that you drag me out of the Motherland for it, Anton?” Some rivals to deal with, I have no doubt. Anton is a man to keep his friends close and his enemies closer, and as long as I am both, I could be the perfect weapon in his hands while I’m here.
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 94