Page 18 of Vows of Blood
Dmitri lowers his head in defeat as my brother’s drunken voice sails over the heads of the patrons. He winces and looks at me. “How much has he had already?”
“Lots.”
Pavel stumbles over and pats Dmitri hard on the back. “Dimmy-dim-dim,” he slurs. “I thought you were dead, man.”
Dmitri doesn’t look at him. He sips his beer in an effort not to appear as bothered as I know he is. Hehatesit when Pavel calls him Dimmy-dim. “Nope,” he says. “I was just in Europe. Traveling.”
“Yeah? Did you go to Paris? I hear a lot ofpedikslove Paris. Did you meet a lot ofpediksand suck a lot ofpedikdick?”
Dmitri puts his beer down and stands up. I jump between them. “Dmitri, he’s drunk. Ignore him.”
“I’m not…” Pavel half hiccupped and half burped, then started again. “I’m not drunk. I can’t help it if you like hanging out with a cocksucking fa?—”
“Okay, that’s enough.” I grab him by his arm. “I’m taking you home. See you later, Dmitri.”
“Right,” he says as I practically drag my brother out of the club. When we get outside, I push him toward the parking lot. “Walk.”
He stumbles, still maintaining his footing miraculously. “Hey, what’s the big deal? I was just messing with him. I don’t care whose dick he’s sucking.”
I hate this side of Pavel. I shouldn’t have come. I know when he drinks too much, he gets off on starting trouble. And with his history of bullying Dmitri, I really should have seen that exchange coming.
I get Pavel in the car, wrestle his keys away from him, and drive him home. He’s passed out before we’re even halfway to his apartment.
Seeing Dmitri again felt good. When we were teenagers, we moved like a team. He was smaller than the rest of us boys, a little shorter and thinner, but he was smart. When he couldn’t fight his way out of a problem, he could out-think any bully he came up against.
Except Pavel. There was something about him that always got under Dmitri’s skin like no one else. The two of them have exchanged more bloody noses and black eyes than I could ever hope to count. And from my brother’s perspective, he was just toughening him up, but Dmitri never saw it that way.
Now that he’s back in town, he’ll need to take his place among those under me again. He was a decentkrysha,but I liked him better in more intellectual settings. Anything I ever asked him to do, he did and did itwell. I could use him on my team in the coming days now that we are aligning with the Pecoras. That’s going to mean that their enemies will now be our enemies and their problems are now ours.
If I ever find out whose idea it was to let Damon Pecora in on our drug trade, I’m putting a bullet in their head myself.
7
ISABELLA
“You look beautiful,” Anya says as I look at myself in the mirror. She’s standing behind me, holding my veil in her hands. It’s T-Minus twenty minutes before I’m to walk down the aisle and at the moment, it’s just me and my ‘maid of honor’ in this room. A minute ago, there were dozens of people all around me. Bridesmaids, hair dressers, makeup artists, dress fitters. You’d think I was royalty or something with all the commotion.
“Thank you,” I say, trying to sound grateful. I have a million other things I want to say. About this dress that was meant for my sister, about how I’m not really supposed to even be here… It all seems futile. It’s like I’m stuck in someone else’s dream.
She takes a step toward me, then stops as her eye catches something about my veil. She holds it up to the light, then tsks. “You’ve got a tear in this,” she says. She sets it down and starts looking around the room. “Do we have any needle and thread? Dammit.”
I watch her as she looks through the desk on the other side of the room and in the cushions of the couch by the windows. Finally, she sighs. “I think there’s some downstairs in the Priest’s office. I’ll be right back.”
And before I can say anything, she’s gone. I look back at myself in the mirror.
I’m doing my best not to cry. It took them hours to put all this makeup on. It would be a terrible look if I walked down the aisle with raccoon eyes because I couldn’t keep from crying. I’m not even sure why I care so much about what I look like. It’s not like this is a marriage I want.
I look at my reflection in the mirror. Here I am, wearing a wedding dress that had been meant for my sister. Ironically enough, the dress fits me well. The mermaid design clings to my hips perfectly where it was a little big on my sister. It didn’t even need to be altered. It makes me think that I was always intended to be in this space.
Ugh, that’s a horrifying thought.
I turn away and walk over to the couch and sit down. My bridesmaids are a mix of cousins that I barely know and women from Alexei’s family. My maid of honor is one of my future husband’s cousins, though she just left to find thread for the miniscule rip in my veil. I glance over at it as it lies on the couch next to me. You can barely even see it. And I couldn’t give a fuck if it was ripped to shreds. This whole thing is a farce, anyway.
I should have done what my sister did and run. Dad’s had me living at his house and under guard since this whole shit decision came down, but I’m sure I could have climbed out of a bathroom window at some point and just split.
The thing that stopped me was that I just don’t have anywhere else to go. Everybody in Fortune is either indirectly or directly connected to one of our families. I don’t even know how Anya has been able to stay away as long as she has without anybody having seen her. She must have driven to Canada the day she left or something.
I wasn’t afforded that kind of opportunity. No cars with full tanks of gas have ever been at my disposal. So here I am, sitting alone in the dressing room of a church…
