The Don Shielded Her. So I Became Bratva Queen. novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Before Sunday Mass
Vin orders Simona home in front of both crews, Kirill unloads Vin's gun onto the bar, and Romina posts a photo from Simona's bed in Simona's robe.
Kirill let him in.
That surprised me more than anything else that night.
He lifted two fingers, and the men at the door stepped aside.
Vin came in with four of his captains behind him, still in the coats they'd worn in my kitchen.
He looked at the cedar walls, the long table, the Russians.
Then he looked at me, eating bread next to Kirill Antonov's sister.
"Get up," he said. "We're going home."
I kept chewing.
Every man at the table had a hand somewhere out of sight.
Nadia put her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand.
"Simona." Vin's voice dropped. "You walked out of my house with a gun at two in the morning and drove to the man who shot at my family. Get up before I lose my temper."
"He didn't shoot at your family," I said. "Somebody shot at me."
"Nobody shot at you."
"I have eight stitches that say different."
"You got hit by glass. It happens." He waved a hand at my arm. "You think I didn't see? You were fine. I made a call."
"You made a choice."
One of his captains shifted his feet.
Vin heard it and his jaw went tight.
He didn't like being talked back to in front of his men.
He'd liked it even less when my father used to do it.
"Vincenzo," Kirill said pleasantly.
It was the first time he'd spoken.
Vin turned to him.
"This isn't your business, Antonov."
"You're in my house at three in the morning, telling my guest to get up from my table. It's my business."
"She's my wife."
"She's bleeding on my tablecloth," Kirill said. "You left her on a floor. Somebody had to pick her up."
Vin's face went a dull red.
He took one step toward me.
Then his hand went inside his coat.
Kirill moved faster than a man that size should be able to move.
He was out of his chair and had Vin's wrist bent back against the bar before I saw him stand.
Vin's gun was in Kirill's other hand.
Nobody breathed.
Kirill dropped the magazine onto the bar top.
He racked the slide, and the bullet in the chamber spun across the wood and rolled to a stop in front of Vin's captains.
Then he thumbed the rounds out of the magazine one at a time.
Click. Click. Click.
He set the empty gun down beside them and slid it back to Vin.
"In my house," he said, "you don't reach for anything."
Vin rubbed his wrist and stared at me.
"This is what you want? This animal?"
"I want a divorce," I said.
The word went around the room.
Even the Russians who didn't speak much English seemed to understand it.
Vin laughed.
It came out wrong, too high.
"You're upset. You had a scare. You'll sleep it off on his couch and you'll be home before Sunday Mass, crying, and I'll be generous about it."
"I won't."
"You will. Because you've got nothing, Simona. No money, no family, no friends. Every one of your father's men answers to me."
"Then you've got nothing to worry about."
He picked up his empty gun.
He didn't pick up the bullets.
"Sunday," he said to me. "I'll leave the light on."
He walked out.
His captains followed him, and the last one looked back at me with an expression I couldn't read.
When the door shut, Nadia shook her head.
"Wow. He's a pig."
"Nadia," Kirill said.
"What? He is. Come on." She took my good arm. "You're not sleeping in that dress, it has glass in it."
She took me upstairs to a little room with a slanted ceiling and a radiator that clanked.
She brought me a pair of her own sweatpants, a T-shirt that said TEMPLE ROWING, and a bowl of soup I hadn't asked for.
"Eat that or I'll be insulted," she said. "My grandmother's recipe. It fixes everything except men."
"Is he always like that?"
"Kirill? He never lets anybody into the house at night." She tilted her head. "He let you in."
She went to the door, then turned back.
"Also, he cleaned your arm himself. He doesn't do that. He makes one of the boys do it, and they're terrible."
She left before I could answer.
I ate the soup sitting on the edge of a stranger's bed.
It was very good.
At four in the morning my phone lit up on the blanket.
It was a notification from Romina's account.
She had never posted at four in the morning in her life.
The photo was taken from above, soft and blurry.
Romina was in my bed, in the master bedroom, propped on my pillows.
She was wearing my robe, the ivory silk one my father gave me the Christmas before he died.
Her bandaged wrist rested on the lapel.
The caption said, "Safe at home. Some people know how to love you when it counts."
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