right way. His parents’ death had pushed him one way,
mine had pushed me the other. But our pain had the
same source.
I had to try. “That guy who got shot tonight? His name’s
Josef. He has a three year-old kid. A little girl. We nearly
orphaned her tonight: she would have grown up
wanting revenge. It’ll go on forever, generation after
generation, until someone’s brave enough to say
enough!”
“You want me to just walk away, like you did?” he
asked.
I opened and closed my mouth a few times. Yes, I
wanted to say. After all, that’s what I’d done: distance
myself as much from Vasiliy as possible and refuse to
be involved, even though it meant isolating myself. But
now I thought about it, something about it felt wrong.
I’d never questioned my decision before, but now…. “I
want you to help me figure out how to end this without
people getting killed,” I said instead.
He pulled away from me and paced, shoes crunching in
the snow, then flung his arm out and pointed to the
Statue of Liberty. “This is how it is in New York! Since
the first of our guys came over on boats! It’s been going
on for a hundred years! You think we can stop it? Just
because I’m in—”
He stared at me. Drew in a shuddering breath.
“Because I’ve got fucking feelings for you?” he said at
last.
I couldn’t think about the implications of what he’d
nearly said. Not now. Not with everything that was on
the line. I walked over to him and took his big, warm
hands in my cold ones. “We need to do it because if we
don’t, no one will,” I told him.
We stared at each other, eyes locked and neither willing
to give ground. Then I remembered how he’d convinced
me. “You took me to Little Italy,” I said. “Now let me
show you something.” I gave him a wan smile. “Please?
It’ll be like a date.” God, remember when this was just
dating? When neither of us knew who the other one
was? So much had changed...and so little. Despite
everything, the sight of him standing there, black hair
ruffled by the wind, white shirt stretched tight over that
magnificent chest, still reduced me to mush.
His eyes flicked over me and on each pass his gaze
grew hotter until I was almost squirming. I wasn’t even
wearing anything special, just what I’d thrown on before
running out of the house: a black dress and knee boots.
“Okay,” said Angelo. “Show me.”
28
Angelo
We climbed into my car and she guided me through the
streets until we reached one that was little more than an
alley. I frowned because I couldn’t see a sign or a
doorway.
“Underground,” Irina told me, grinning. She pointed at
the stone steps that led down. “Best place to be, when
it’s cold. We have a lot of underground places in
Russia.”
I stepped out into ankle-deep snow—the street was too
small to have been swept yet. I walked around and
opened Irina’s door for her...and the sight of her took
my breath away. She twisted in her seat to climb out,
her knees pressed demurely together. My eyes locked
on the enticing slice of soft tan thigh visible between the
hem of her tight black dress and the tops of her shining
black knee boots. I was still getting over the knee boots.
How had she known?
The wind was like a huge monster trying to squeeze its
way down the narrow alley, shrieking as it was forced
through metal fire escapes and rattling at dumpsters. It
flattened our clothes against our bodies and whistled
down our necks. I grimaced. I still hated winter. Irina,
looking perfectly comfortable, smiled sympathetically.
“Come on,” she said. “Inside.”
I hesitated when I saw the graffiti in Cyrillic beside the
door. But I followed her down the stairs.
We emerged into a huge cellar. She was right: it was
the best place to be. The thick stone walls stopped the
cold dead: we couldn’t even hear the wind. And in the
center of the room there was a huge open fireplace
where thick logs of wood crackled and spat, yellow
flames reaching up to a big metal hood that sucked
away the smoke. Near the walls, there were small
wooden tables lit by candles, mostly occupied by
couples. Closer to the fire, people sprawled on beanbags
and cushions.
All of them were Russian. I could hear the language all
around me, heavy and brutal, those long “s”s that
reminded me of rusty chains dragging someone down
into dark water, the hard “k”s that were like a gun being
cocked as it’s put to your temple. I had to stop myself
reaching for my gun. My whole being was screaming at
me to get out of there, telling me I was surrounded by
the enemy.
There was shouting behind us. The three guys were
talking in Russian but one...two...three! has the same
feel whatever the language. I spun, expecting an
ambush—
And watched as the three of them chugged their beers
and then drunkenly cheered.
Irina pulled me over to the bar and got us a shot of
vodka each, along with a beer. She clinked shot glasses
with me and I knocked back the vodka: smooth and icy,
with a scalding kick. Then she was leading me through
the sea of bean bags and cushions, right into the center
of a group of people. She sat us down on the one
unoccupied beanbag, me sitting on my ass with her
sitting between my legs. I glanced around, skittish and
pissed. Out of my comfort zone didn’t begin to describe
it. These were the people who’d invaded my country,
stolen my territory, killed my parents….
And for the next four hours, I got to know them.
I met a few guys who worked down at the docks and
another who was in med school. I met a violinist who
went to Fenbrook and a stripper who was sinking all her
earnings into property. I met a couple who were
opening a cafe together and a single mom on a very
rare night out.
I tried to hate them. I tried to remember every bit of
shit that the Saints had said about them. I reminded
myself that they were cold-hearted and disloyal, that
Russians would turn on each other in a heartbeat. That’s
why they bred gangsters who were so power-crazed
and brutal.
But...none of that tallied with what I was hearing and
seeing. The dock workers would have fit right in with
the American guys I knew down there, bitching about
the new safety laws and playing dumb pranks on each
other. The stripper was smart as hell and was going to
have a property empire in a few years if she kept it up,
but she wasn’t callous or mean: she was leasing one of
her places to a homeless shelter at a crazy low rate so
that they could get people in out of the cold. And the
couple who were opening a cafe were just as wide-eyed
and naively-optimistic as any of the hundreds of
American couples who try the same thing.
All of which made the nausea build in my stomach.
They’re just like us.
And all of them were scared. The dock workers had
nearly got into a fight with their Italian co-workers,
because Mikhail’s thugs had shut down their favorite
bookie. The stripper said she didn’t feel safe walking to
her car anymore, because a couple of guys in the crowd
—Italian guys—had called out some vicious shit when
they realized she was Russian. The couple had been
warned away from their first choice of cafe. They’d been
told: that’s too close to Italian territory. Don’t you know