Sold to the Bratva King novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Week One

Matvei tears up the sweetener clause in front of her brother, gets her ID back and pays her first wages, and Parker answers by filing for guardianship of his "incompetent" sister.

I woke up because nobody was banging on my door.

For twelve years Lindsey's knuckles had been my alarm clock. Five-fifteen, two knocks, and a word I won't repeat.

This morning there was only gray light and the sound of water slapping brick somewhere below.

The room was on the fourth floor of an old wool warehouse on the Fort Point channel.

It had a bed wider than my whole cellar cot, a window the size of a garage door, and a lock.

The lock was on my side.

I'd turned it four times before I slept. I turned it twice more now, just to hear it.

My red coffee can sat on the nightstand where I could touch it.

I put on yesterday's uniform, because I didn't own anything else, and went looking for the kitchen.

A woman was sitting on the counter eating cereal out of the box.

Bleached hair cropped close, both arms covered wrist to shoulder in ink, a ring through her nose. She looked about my age.

She pointed the cereal box at me, then signed something fast with her free hand.

I didn't know what any of it meant.

She grabbed her phone, typed, and turned the screen toward me.

YOU'RE THE SWEETENER. I'M ZOYA. HE'S MAKING EGGS AND HE'S BAD AT IT.

Matvei Zorin was at the stove in a gray T-shirt, the Bratva King of the Boston waterfront, scowling at a frying pan.

"She's lying," he said. "I'm good at it."

The eggs were burning.

I reached past him on instinct, slid the pan off the heat, and scraped them onto a plate before the bottom went black.

Then I realized I'd just put my hand next to his.

I stepped back so fast I hit the fridge.

Zoya watched that. Her face went very still.

Matvei turned the burner off and didn't come any closer.

"Sit," he said. "Somebody else cooks in this house. You eat."

Zoya signed at him, sharp and quick.

He signed back without looking at his hands.

"What did she say?" I asked.

"She says if I bought a person she's moving to Montreal."

"What did you say?"

"That I bought a terminal and got outvoted at the table."

Zoya laughed so loud a pigeon left the windowsill.

I ate the eggs. They were terrible. Nobody had ever made me breakfast before, so I ate every bite.

Matvei put a folder in front of me. It was the will.

"Your father left the house and Atwater Marine half to you and half to Parker," he said. "Your half sat in trust until you turned twenty-one."

"I turned twenty-one last fall."

"Yes. And the next week your brother signed your name to a power of attorney." He tapped page three of the sale. "Without your half, this sale is paper. Without your name, I own nothing."

"So you need me."

"I need your signature." He didn't soften it. "I still want that terminal, Halle. Now I'll have to buy half of it from you."

At least he was honest about wanting something.

"I want my ID," I said. "It's in Parker's desk. Top right drawer, under the checkbook."

He stood and took his keys off the hook.

At the Milton house, the gates opened for his car the way they'd never opened for me.

Parker met us in the foyer in his Saturday sweater. Lindsey stood on the stairs in her cream cashmere wrap with one hand on the banister.

Kent leaned in the dining room doorway, rubbing his knuckles.

"Mr. Zorin," Parker said, all teeth. "You've brought her back. I knew she'd be more trouble than she's worth."

"I've brought a page back," Matvei said.

He took the sale contract out of his coat and found the clause that called me a sweetener.

He tore it out, slowly, then tore it in half in front of my brother's face.

The two pieces fell on the floor I used to scrub.

"Nobody sells her," he said. "Not to me. Not to anyone. Her ID."

Parker laughed. "It's a family document."

Matvei didn't answer. He just looked at Parker until the silence got heavy enough to sit on.

Two of his men had come in behind us without a sound. One of them opened his jacket to scratch his ribs. Something dark and heavy hung under his arm.

Parker went to the study.

He came back with my state ID and held it out at arm's length.

My own face looked up at me. Sixteen years old. Still smiling, because I didn't know better yet.

I put it in my apron pocket.

Then Matvei counted ten hundred-dollar bills into my hand, right there under the chandelier.

"Week one," he said.

I had never held a thousand dollars. I had cleaned up after people who spent it on a single dinner.

Lindsey's mouth went thin. "You're paying the help in my foyer?"

"I'm paying Ms. Atwater," Matvei said. "In her foyer."

I looked at Lindsey on the stairs.

I didn't say anything. I didn't have to. She looked away first.

Parker was smiling again when we turned to leave.

It was the smile he used to wear when he handed me the keys to the cellar himself.

"Halle," he said. "Before you spend that."

He held up a stamped court document.

"I filed for emergency guardianship this morning. My poor, mentally incompetent sister can't manage money, or contracts, or herself." He tucked the paper under his arm. "The hearing's Friday. After that, everything you own comes back to me. Including you."

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