Page 62 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
That should ease me. It doesn’t. Every comfort in this place carries a shadow, and every shadow has Dimitri’s name written in it.
I keep the photograph hidden under the mattress. Some nights I take it out, running my thumb over the blurred edge where the date stamp bleeds into gray. My father’s face stares back at me, caught between exhaustion and defiance, flanked by men whose eyes are as dead as their guns.
It anchors me, reminds me of who I am and where I came from.
It curses me too. There’s no denying it anymore; he hadn’t been innocent. Richard Vasile had been part of this world long before I ever set foot inside it.
The knowledge doesn’t free me. It chains me tighter.
When the lights go out and the house sinks into silence, I lie awake with the image of Dimitri in my mind. The night he found me in his study replays endlessly—the weight of his stare, the silence stretched too thin, the fury contained in every measured word. I wonder if he knew even then, if he already carried the truth I hadn’t pieced together yet.
Maybe he’d been watching me fumble toward it, letting me trip over scraps of my own bloodline until the picture was whole. The thought gnaws at me, sharp and bitter, until I taste metal at the back of my throat.
I tell myself I’ll confront him. That I’ll demand answers, force the truth from his lips the way I should’ve from my father’s.
Timing always slips through my fingers. My courage burns hot when I’m alone, when the walls echo only my breathing. It falters the moment I hear Dimitri’s voice carried through the corridors, deep and certain, cutting through the quiet like it belongs there. Every time, my resolve crumbles.
So I wait. I fold the photo back under the mattress, smooth the sheets until the secret lies flat, and tell myself tomorrow I’ll be braver. Tomorrow I’ll open the door, step into the hall, and ask him what he knows.
Tomorrow never comes.
The house is restless tonight. The storm presses hard against the windows, thunder rolling through the walls like distant artillery. I settle my son into bed, smoothing his hair until his breathing evens out, then slip into the corridor, unsure where my feet are taking me. The halls are hushed, every door closed, the silence broken only by the low rattle of rain against the glass.
I pause when I hear it—a faint clink, ice shifting in a glass. The sound carries down the private hall, alien against the quiet. A sliver of lamplight cuts across the carpet, leaking from the half-open door to the library.
My pulse stutters. I should turn back, retreat to the room where secrets can’t reach me. Instead, I move closer, each step heavy.
Dimitri sits inside, the lamplight painting his shoulders in gold and shadow. Papers are spread across the desk in neat rows, his fingers resting against them like they’re another weapon.
A tumbler of vodka sweats beside his hand, half empty, the ice cracking faintly as it melts. He doesn’t look up at first, the storm outside rattling the windows, filling the silence between us.
I step inside before my courage can break. My voice comes sharper than I intend. “Did you know Richard Vasile?”
His head lifts slowly. Our eyes lock. The room holds its breath.
The silence stretches until I think he won’t answer. Then he does, voice low, even, but edged with something harder. “Yes.”
The single syllable lands heavy. He doesn’t stop there. He speaks of my father as if reciting history—how Gabriel Moreno had him in his grasp, how Richard moved money through channels no one outside the families could ever trace. Trusted, important. Until betrayal carved his fate. Until loyalty snapped and secrets bled through cracks too wide to mend.
Each word strikes like iron.
My throat tightens, hands curling against my sides. I want to argue, deny it, insist he’s wrong. But the photographunder my mattress says otherwise. The files I saw in his study whisper the same. The truth doesn’t soothe me; it guts me. My father hadn’t been a victim, swept into violence he didn’t understand. He’d been part of it. This world. The one I now live inside.
The air feels colder. I can’t breathe past the weight pressing down.
Dimitri leans back in his chair, the leather groaning softly, his gaze fixed on me with unnerving calm. He studies me like he’s been waiting for this moment, like he already knew what I’d ask. His glass catches the lamplight when he tips it, the vodka shifting clear and sharp.
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
The question cuts deeper than any revelation. It sounds like accusation, heavy and unforgiving. But there’s something else in it too, quieter, harder to name—an opening, as though he’s inviting me to step closer, to stop clawing at shadows when the truth has always been in his hands.
My lips part, but no words come. The storm outside lashes at the windows, thunder breaking across the sky. Inside, the silence closes in, waiting for me to decide whether to answer him or to run.
The urge to laugh claws at me, bitter and sharp. Ask him? As if it were that simple. As if I could stand in front of the man who cages me, who wields silence like a blade, and expect something other than pain. My throat works around the words before I can stop them.
“Because I didn’t trust you.” The admission tastes like blood. My voice lowers, rough. “Well, and because I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.”
He doesn’t look away. His eyes hold mine, unblinking, weighty as stone. The silence between us thickens until it suffocates. My heart slams against my ribs, breath sharp and shallow, but I don’t retreat. If he wants truth, he’ll get it. Even if it destroys me.
