Page 53 of Vows of Blood
“What?” he asks. “You think he’s wrong?”
“I’m fairly sure he is,” I tell him. “It just doesn’t make sense, Pavel. Not unless there’s something more we don’t know about.”
“Alexei, we interrogated the one who took a shot at you,” he says. “He admits to being aligned with Pecora.”
“Let me ask you something, Brother. If you had nothing or were about to lose everything that you hold dear and I came along and offered to help you get back everything that you stood to lose, how readily would you stab me in the back?”
“Well, that depends on quite a few things. Do I trust you? Were we enemies before?”
“But you wouldn’t question it right away, if at all, would you? Trust and mistrust notwithstanding, if you’d already agreed, what reason would you have to break the agreement? No one just wakes up one morning and attacks their allies. Not without reason.”
Pavel purses his lips. “All right, so maybe you have a point. But if it’s not Pecora, then who else would dare do any of this?”
I shrug. “Our family has no shortage of enemies, but I would start with whoever has the most to gain by the alliance going to pieces… and who might have knowledge of our inner workings.”
Pavel scowls. “You don’t think it was an inside job?”
I shrug. “I know that whoever is responsible knew where both Father and I were going to be in order to launch their attacks. How would anyone know those things unless they were one of us? These incidents aren’t random. They knew where to strike and when.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “This is bad business. Blame within our ranks is poison. We have to tread lightly.”
“Agreed. I don’t think we need to convince anyone in our ranks except Father. If he knows the truth, then no one will question him if he calls this whole thing off.”
He nods slowly in agreement. He then glances back at our father’s house and sighs. “Papa is convinced, Alexei. He won’t take too kindly to any kind of opposition on this, even if you somehow manage to get proof.”
“I have to try. I don’t relish going to war with the Pecora family.”
Pavel scoffs. “It wouldn’t be much of one if we did. Pecora and his family are weaker than we are.”
“War is war, regardless. Weak or not, a better placed shot would have killed me either way. I would prefer to resolve this matter without losing any of our numbers.”
Pavel looks genuinely disappointed. Perhaps by my position or just by the idea that Pecora might actually be innocent, I can’t say. He pats me on the shoulder anyway and says, “I understand. First, things first. We need to find out who knew what and when, then find out where they were when the raid and the attack on you happened. I’ll make some phone calls and check back in with you with what I find out.”
We shake hands, a strong forearm handshake to signify our personal alliance and trust in one another. For all the ways that Pavel and I have been mismatched as siblings, in the end, he always had my back and that’s the only thing that matters. Especially now.
On my way back to the car, I realize that there’s only one course of action for me now. The one thing that Isabella tried to do on her own. I need to talk to Pecora and warn him before it’s too late.
19
ISABELLA
“What are we doing here, Izzy?”
I can feel Anya’s eyes on me as I look at my father’s front door from the car. When Anya came to pick me up that morning, I told her pretty much the same lie I’d told Alexei, replacing the word ‘panties’ with clothes. And when she showed up to drive me, I told her that there was a little place that I knew of in my old neighborhood.
I think she might’ve suspected something was up when she saw that we were in a residential neighborhood instead of some mini-mall or shopping center. Now we’re parked and she’s staring at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I won’t be long,” I tell her. “Just wait out here for me.”
My hand goes for the door at the same time that Anya’s hand lands on my leg. “Hey. What did I tell you? You can’t pull this shit, okay? You know Alexei will skin me alive if something happens to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen, I promise,” I tell her.
She just stares at me, her eyes narrowing slightly. She looks away for a second, leaning her head to look up at my father’s door. “So, what are we doing here, anyway? Whose house is this?”
I honestly don’t want to tell her. I’d rather keep her as far away from my intentions as possible. As much as I like Anya, she’s never made any bones about where her loyalties lie. But every other lie that pops in my head just sounds a lot worse than the truth.
“Listen,” I tell her, “you can’t breathe a word of this to anybody. You gotta promise.”
