Page 88 of Bound By Debt
Another betrayal? Another secret?
“Ev, the night your mother died,” The night I was burned so badly I had to stay in the hospital for six months, his pause says. “The night your mother died, the fire was no accident.”
Dmitri’s sharp intake of breath mirrors the shock ripping through me.
“Did someone kill her?” I demand, stepping toward the old man and realizing I have nowhere else to go. Instead, I pace the small space. What the hell does this have to do with Vasya?
“You have to understand, Evgeny, your father took in Vasya’s father when he was running from the Motherland. He gave him a place in the Bratva, eventually made him his second-in-command. And then your father found out Vasya’s father was plotting to overthrow him and take over as pakhan. After everything your father did for him.”
“H-he what?” I choke, coming to a sudden halt.
Vasya’s father had been like an uncle to me, just as Ivan had taken the place of a grandfather in my life, even a father after my mother died.
“He was planning to kill your father and take over the Kucherov Bratva. Your father had evidence, proof. And you remember your father, but more importantly his anger.”
I do. All too well. I still carry physical scars beyond my burns as reminders.
“Your father wanted to make it look like an accident or an assassination attempt that killed the wrong person. Vasya’s father had sympathizers, and the last thing he wanted to do was create a martyr to his cause.”
Ivan’s words settle into a terrible, horrifying understanding inside me, heavy and cold.
“Tell me my father didn’t set that fire,” I beg. I feel like a boy again, staring at the roaring flames as my world crashes around me.
Vasya and his parents lived in the other wing of the house, given his status within the Bratva. A fire would look at best like a freak accident and, at worst, like an assassination attempt on my father. If any of Vasya’s father’s supporters suspected anything, they couldn’t prove it without first divulging the betrayal and theirs, as well.
Ivan’s eyes flick away, and Dmitri curses. I can’t drum up a single word. A single thought. A single breath.
“You weren’t supposed to be there, you or your mother. You were supposed to be away, visiting your mother’s family, but you and she both came down with something, and you both came home early. By the time your father found out…”
“Did you light the fire?” My voice is tight with barely contained rage.
“I did not know you were there, Evgeny!” Ivan bursts out, the words rough with emotion and regret, with the confession he can finally make after all these decades. “I did not know you were there. I wish to God I had known. But we didn’t have phones as we do now, and your mother, she did not…”
The old man puts a shaking hand to his ashen-gray face.
“His heart,” Dmitri starts, but I silence him with a single, vicious look.
Ivan finally takes a deep breath, sits up as tall as his bent spine allows, and looks me in the eye. “No.No, it was my fault, Evgeny. I lit the fire that burned down your house, killed Vasya’s parents and your mother, and left you with your scars.”
“And Vasya found out.”
It’s a statement, not a question. This is all Vasya taking revenge for something that happened decades ago when we were children, something I had nothing to do with.
But I know all too well the desire for revenge can twist a man’s mind.
“How did he find out? What is he planning?” When Ivan doesn’t answer me fast enough, I lean forward, a hand on each chair arm, until we’re face-to-face. “What is Vasya planning, Ivan?”
“I don’t know.” The oldvor’s chin lifts. “He did not tell me. I haven’t seen him in weeks. If I had known he was planning any of this, I would have told you.”
I turn on my heel and leave before Ivan can say more. Dmitri’s footsteps fall in behind me.
The car ride is silent as death, the mood inside matching the dark, heavy sky hanging over Los Angeles and shrouding the tops of the tallest buildings in clouds. It starts to rain when we’re near home, a fitting match to the churning thoughts in my head. The only coherent thought I have, the one to which I cling, keeps me from tumbling down that dark hole. Knowing Eva is waiting for me at home, and the thought of holding her, breathing in her scent, of knowing she and our children are safe in my arms.
Dmitri curses. Loudly. “Fuck!”
He hands me his phone before I can even ask. I stare at the headline, trying to make sense of the words for a long moment.
Alleged Mob Boss Found Dead.
