The Don Shielded Her. So I Became Bratva Queen. novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Your Call

The gun was heavy and warm from his body.

The man on the floor looked up at it and started to shake.

Everyone in the church was watching me.

The Antonov side.

The Pagano side.

Vin, five yards away in the aisle.

I thought about the boy in the clean shirt under the Grays Ferry bridge.

I thought about how easy it would be, and how fast everyone in this city would forget why.

I turned the pistol around and handed it back to Kirill, grip first.

"Not in church," I said. "And not before he talks."

Kirill took it.

Something moved in his face that looked a lot like pride.

"Where?"

"At my wedding feast," I said. "In front of everybody."

I looked at the aisle.

"Vin comes too."

The long dining room at the banya had been set for a hundred and twenty.

White cloths, candles, black bread and salt on a silver tray, bottles of vodka and Benno's grappa in a line down the middle like soldiers.

Nobody sat.

Two of Kirill's men brought the shooter in.

They stood him at the end of the room under the old icons, where everyone could see him.

Both families stood around the walls.

Vin stood by the door with his overcoat still on, because nobody had offered to take it.

Nadia had cleaned Kirill's shoulder in the kitchen and taped it with gauze.

He stood next to me with his jacket off and his white shirt bloody on one side, and he didn't seem to notice.

I walked down the room in my wedding dress, with his blood drying on the silk.

"Who paid you?"

The shooter looked at the floor.

"Look at me," I said. "You shot at me in a church. You can look at me."

He looked.

"A woman. Blonde, but she dyed it. Dark now. Little. She talked soft."

"Her name."

He swallowed.

"Romina. She said her name was Romina. She said the Russian took everything from her and the bride was why."

A sound went around the room like wind.

"How did she pay you?"

"Cash. Ten thousand up front. She said she had more. She said she'd taken it out of a safe."

By the door, Vin closed his eyes.

"Where were you supposed to meet her for the rest?"

"The bus station on Filbert Street. Tonight at eight. She's got a ticket to Florida."

Benno was already moving.

He pointed at four of his dockmen, and they went out the door past Vin without a word.

Vin didn't move.

"Vin," I said.

He opened his eyes.

"Did she empty your safe?"

He nodded once.

In front of every family in the room, the Don of South Philadelphia nodded and said nothing.

At nine o'clock the dockmen came back.

They had Romina between them.

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