His Mafia Princess To Claim

"See you at 7pm, Vera. Don't be late." Nadia, my manager, says before I leave the gallery to get prepared for the night I have ahead. She has been extra excited all week since we had a private art exhibition booked. An expensive private one. By an anonymous client.

In the art world, anonymous clients were either rich and rude or rich and had a lot of things to hide. I hoped it was neither. It was going to be the gallery's first exhibition, I'd be personally touring clients through my pieces and some of the one's from other artists.

I had been feeling a deep sense of joy – mixed with a lot of nervousness – all week but now, I was just freaking out.

Normally, I was not even supposed to be the one to tour clients around the gallery, anonymous client or not, but I had been specifically asked for. See? All the red flags. But security existed for a reason. It wasn't my safety I was even worried about. What worried me was the same thing that worries every other artistic person. What if I don't do well enough?

I turn my head to the sky as soon as I get outside and let the cool wind caress my skin, taking a deep breath. The day was a beautiful day, bad things didn't normally happen on beautiful days. So, what was the worst that could happen?

I get into my car, along with one of my assigned bodyguards, and immediately call my cousin, Katya. We were always very close. We don't see each other as often as we used to ever since she got married, I try to show my enthusiasm. But I have never been able to fool Katya, she always sees right through me.

"You are nervous, aren't you?"

I sigh. "This tour could be a very big deal for my gallery. But it could also possibly ruin it. I just hope that I don't manage to mess things up."

"You will do fine, and if for any reason you feel like you might freeze, just freeze in the direction of one of your pieces so you could pretend you were lost in an artistic trance."

I laugh slightly. "Maybe I would, just to test if it would actually work."

There's a slight pause where we simply find comfort in each other's presence. Being a member of the Russian bratva did not allow me to start or maintain friendships outside of my family. Not that anyone was lining up to befriend me, but I also wasn't going out of my way to meet other people in the brotherhood. Having relationships, of any sort, outside the family as a member of the bratva was dangerous for the non-member. So, we tend to keep to ourselves.

A notification enters my phone, a message from my father. "Meet me in my office as soon as you arrive. It's important."

My father wasn't really a texter, so the fact that he picked up his phone to text me made the entire situation just seem weird. Plus, he never discussed anything "important" with me. I was his daughter to care for, protect, he sure as hell was not to discuss important issues with me, as he says multiple times, so why would he suddenly want to discuss something important with me.

"Umm... can I call you back later?" I tell Katya even if I'm not willing to let her go.

"Yeah, sure." There's a little resignation in her voice like she doesn't want to end the call either. But my mind was running in a thousand and one different directions. Was something going on with my dad?

The fact that there was definitely something wrong is solidified when I enter the house and see one of the Pakhan's soldiers leaving the house. Dear God.

I immediately start towards my father's door only to pause right in front of it. What was I going to say when I entered? Maybe I should just pretend like everything is fine and I didn't just see the Pakhan's soldier leaving the house. Gently, I push open the door but my plan to act like nothing's wrong goes out the window as soon as my eyes land on him. His dishevelled look catches me off guard, my dad is the most put together person I know. His hair looks like he has run his hands through it multiple times, his tie is loose and that's not the worst of it. The entire office looks like a tsunami walked through it with papers strewn everywhere.

"Dad, is everything okay?" I wasn't going to dwell on the fact that that was a very dumb question to ask. Everything was obviously not okay. I walk towards him and the scrunching of paper under my feet causes him to look up.

His brown eyes meet mine and I would have smiled under different circumstances. I got my best features from him.

My father attempts to start talking, but he hesitates like he doesn't know how to explain the shit that just went down, or rather had been going down for a couple of days. He had been out of the house very early and was getting back really late. The slight bags developing under his eyes prove that he hadn't been sleeping well these past few days. Was he looking like he lost weight?

I really just wanted to know what was going on and if I could help.

"You know how there has been a war going on between the Petrovs and the Bardinis, that war that you said was really silly because no one had any idea why it started or who exactly made us start fighting in the first place?" He starts.

"Yeah." I was completely lost. What did that have to do with anything? It was true that it was a very pointless war though. When people start fighting without knowing why, and pride keeps the fight going for much longer than necessary, it becomes a silly fight and a pointless one too. Nobody simply wanted to back down and call it a truce!

"The men have been wavering in their loyalty.." There was a slight pause and I was certain I wasn't going to like his next words. "They tried to impeach me. They said they needed a Don that could stop the family from getting hurt and knew how to put people that challenge us in their places."

My heart sinks. Father has always loved being the Don of the Petrov family, and as a family we had been through a lot. He was always compassionate with us because he knew some of the older ones haven't seen a whole lot of kindness. Plus, the Bardinis are either all psychopaths, sadists or both. "We should put the Bardini's in their place? Nobody challenges the Bardinis, everybody knows that."

"They expected better from me, Kotik. And if I'm being honest I could have handled things a little better." Creases form at his forehead. He looked tired, this entire ordeal was obviously affecting him.

I let the silence sit for a while before asking the question that had been bugging me for a while. Everybody also knows that when a Pakhan's soldier visits your family it is to issue a marriage decree, the old man had a very archaic way of operating, like a marriage solves everything. It was how Katya got married after all. And possibly why my dad was so against it. He had dearly loved my mum, and even when she walked out of our lives, he had always said if he never finalised a divorce with my mum he would never remarry. It might also have been because he simply didn't want to remarry but I guess we will never know.

"So, the Pakhan's soldier..." I pause dreading where this conversation was going. "Did he come to ask you to marry someone from their family?"

I really did not want a step mother that was in my age range, I didn't think the Bardini's had any women around my dad's age. But perhaps, we will make better friends or have a better relationship than my mum and I ever did, not that we even had one.

"No, that's not why he was here." I almost breathed a sigh of relief. The fact that I did not had me wondering if I actually would not mind a step mother. Before I could even ask the reason for the soldier's visit my father gave me my response.

"He came to finalise your marriage proceedings to Nikolai Bardini."

I was stunned into silence and my heart dropped to my stomach. For a couple of seconds, I forgot how to breathe.

A marriage for me? To a Bardini?

Oh, I am so fucked.

I raise the hammer and bash it into the right kneecap of the man I had caught going through files in my office five days ago. He should have known better than to think I would leave anything important there. I had dedicated days to watching him but it did not reveal who he was working for, and I normally was not a very patient man, especially when it came to traitors.

While I loved the element of surprise, his time was up.

His scream is muffled by the cloth I had stuffed in his mouth. But I hear the sound of his kneecap crack through his scream I almost flinch. Ouch, that must have hurt.

"We have been here for just a few minutes and I can already guarantee you'd never be able to use your left arm and right leg." I glance towards the mess his left arm has become. Yeah, he definitely won't be using it again. "Now that you understand the consequences of your actions you may speak to me. Who sent you?" I gently tug on the material that had been stopping him from speaking.

"Please... please let me go." He said between weak sobs. Beads of sweat went down his face.

I hear the trickle of water, tilt my head to the ground before glaring at him. "Taking a piss in front of me really isn't going to help your chances."

Then, one of my men walks over to inform me that Irena, my mother, was waiting for me to attend an art exhibition. She has been talking about it for weeks. I could think of a million things I'd rather be doing with my time than strolling around an art gallery, and that included trying to figure out exactly who it was that the Pakhan had ordered me to marry. I decided it was a task that hadn't required my attention, getting married was a simply necessary evil.

Rising to my feet, I wash off the blood on my hands before taking a look at the rest of my outfit, changing would be more appropriate.

I start towards the door "Chain him." I pause before adding. "Call the doctor to have his left arm amputated, if it starts to rot and he dies you'd escort him to hell." I look at one of the soldiers in the room making sure my words sink in before I leave.

Entering into the gallery, I am immediately filled with appreciation for the way the gallery had been arranged. Every section had a different touch of what evil meant with so many shades of red, black and white, even the decor fit the vibe.

Then I see her.

Her eyes are the first things that draw me in and it's like she calls me with them, drawing me in, the same way darkness does. Her straight brown hair completely stays out of her face leaving every inch of it to be free for me to admire. The long black dress she is wearing hugs her form with a slit that exposes her legs as she walks towards us making the silky fabric float around her, revealing her black stilettos and slender legs through a deep slit on the side. Her soft brown hair falls freely on either side of her face and down to her waist. And I discover rather quickly that I can't take my eyes off her .

"My name is Vera, and I'd be your guide for today."

Vera, I repeat in my head tempted to say her name to know what it would feel like on my tongue.

Her lips keep moving but my attention is no longer on what she is saying, just on how her lips are moving. I feel this urge to possess her, make her mine then I am startled back to reality. I do not form attachments with people.

She leads us round the gallery explaining the history of some pieces and the artists' inspiration behind them. My attention drifts to a particular one.

"Who painted this?" She follows my line of sight to look at the painting I'm talking about.

It had two people in it, only both of them seemed dead and alive at the same time hugging each other in their sleep.

She blushes and the pinkish hue on her checks compliments her skin well, and I'm wondering what I could do to make it happen again. "I did."

I feel a surge of pride in my chest and immediately know that I was running mad. "What does it mean?"

"That the very person that you might be holding onto could be the one draining the life out of you." She walks towards the piece a bit, the light in her eyes dull before they show her passion again. "If you look closely the woman is more dead than the man, he's giving up the essence of what it means to live to her." The amount of emotion that enters her voice startles me.

"She's also holding on to him because she wants to live again, even if it means killing the person she claims to love. And he doesn't understand that by holding on to her the only thing that's happening is that he's dying along with her." She glances back at me, there's something beneath her eyes like wonder, but she blinks and it's gone.

"Darkness... is always underneath. What you see here is just the surface, and it's what's hidden that matters. But there's not much of what's hidden that we are actually willing to show other people."

I hear genuine curiosity in Ierna's voice as she asks "So you're saying the violence in your work... represents something personal?"

Vera smiles slightly, but it's strained and I wonder if there's evil within her too. "I'm saying violence is personal to everyone. Whether they admit it or not."

The rest of the tour I can tell my mother is pretty shaken up but she hides it well, she never really liked this vibe.

"I'll be back soon." She excuses herself to the direction of the restroom.

Looking at Vera I say something I definitely shouldn't. "Walk with me." And I turn and head for the door of the gallery ignoring the slightly confused look on her face.

She walks me out and we start to go down the stairs in an easy companionable silence. Being in her presence is peaceful, and I did not normally indulge in human presence, it was normally uncomfortable.

This situation was completely abnormal. So, I let my gaze rake as much of her as I can standing next to her, somewhere along the way, she starts to fall. Instinctively, I reach out to catch her, my hands grab onto her slim waist and I draw her slightly upwards. As she stands we hold our gazes, her brown eyes are regarding me with such intensity that, for a moment, it feels hard to draw breath, she's searching my face for something, then I remember that my mask is still on. She can't see what I look like. Then, I remember why I wear the mask in the first place.

I drop my hand from her waist and take a step back from her before I am sucked further into her.

"Thank you." She averts her gaze away from me and towards the gallery to see my mum heading out. "Your girlfriend is here, I should leave. Thank you for coming." She takes fast strides away

I am shocked, she thinks Irena is my girlfriend? I don't manage to wipe the shock off my face until our car arrives.I adjust my mask to properly fit my face before stepping into the car with my mum. The entire ride back home the air was filled with a pregnant pause and I can tell Irena wants something. The second we get down it takes all of thirty seconds before she finally asks the question that has been clawing its way up her throat.

"I want to try again tonight. I won't be scared to see your face again.."

How was I supposed to tell my mother that I might never be able to let her see my face completely? I have been trying for a long time and failing to forget the first time my mum saw me when I was sixteen, two weeks after I had killed my father. She had a panic attack so bad she passed out because I look exactly like the devil that had raped her when she was twelve.

I sat in the corner of the coffee shop Katya and I used to come to when we liked to imagine what it would mean to not be a member of the bratva. To have normal teenage problems and live in a normal world. To be free to have boyfriends,so it doesn't come as a surprise when I drift to my imaginations as soon as I settle into our spot to wait for Katya.

What surprises me is who the sudden object of my imagination is.

I could have left my dream world alone with thoughts of a faceless man, granted the new man is still faceless, but now he has height, an eye colour, a hand texture. I remember the feel of his arms on my waist and feel a small thrill travel up my spine. I wish he wasn't so secretive to have had his face covered. I'd have really loved to see his face.

My thoughts drift to my upcoming marriage, while I would love to say that I was unaffected by the fact that it was drawing nearer and I still didn't know anything about my soon to be husband, I was five seconds from running away from the Russian mafia. Maybe I still could, living with the fear that I could be caught at a time certainly couldn't be worse than marrying a Bardini. But nobody ever left the bratva and lived to tell the story, except my mother apparently.

I had gone on a little hunting mission trying to find out anything about the man I'm marrying but I hear nothing but terrible things that he has done in his time as Capo. Granted, it's always because of something foolish that was done by people who needed to be taught a lesson, it was a little extreme. I heard that he once plucked out both of a man's eyes and had him castrated, sent the parts to his wife with a note that she should keep her husband away from his mother because he hadn't liked how he looked at his mum. What was worse was that he made sure the man lived and word spread round that he no longer could procreate or see, not that anyone needed to be told the second half. He committed suicide the week after.

I am pulled out of my thoughts when I hear Katya call out my name. I notice something is wrong when I smile at her and she just turns up her lips. She looks around fidgeting and I notice a bruise on her hand as she reaches out for the coffee I had ordered for her a while ago.

"What happened to you?" I say reaching for her hand. Setting the cup down back she flinches when I touch her.

"Can we leave this place?" It is clear that she is no longer comfortable here and I wonder why our best moments were here.

"Did something happen? Is someone chasing you?" I ask worry clouding my thoughts. If anyone thought they could hurt Katya I was going to find a way to kill them.

"Not now Vera. We need to leave." I rise to my feet and lead her towards my car. My instincts shifted to protect my cousin.

"Are you being followed?" I ask as we get into the car. She nods, tears gathering in her eyes. "Fuck. I need to lose them, get your seatbelt on."

As soon as I see that she is strapped in, I notice a man in a suit approaching us. "Go, he's one of them." She says and I step on the gas.

My mind races with thoughts of what could have happened that would make anyone decide that Katya did something so wrong that she needed to be chased. I drive faster knowing that once I am in the comfort of the walls of my house we will both be safe.

The entire drive home I don't speak, wanting Katya to gather herself however she could before she tells me what on earth was going on. As I enter the gate of the house at full speed my guards still on my tail everyone rises to high alert. The security detail of the house intensifies as my head guard, Arturo, approaches me.

Stepping down from the car I faced him "We were being followed."

"Yes, we spotted the men, Bogdan is on their tail. We will find out who they were soon."

"That won't be necessary." Katya interrupts. "They were Boris's men." Boris was not someone I could hurt. I flinched when I finally processed her words. That didn't answer any questions, it just made me start wondering why on earth were we running from her husband's men.

I get my answers when we walk into my room. I turn to face her, as she slides to the floor with her back against the door.

"He hurts me Katya." She pauses, her voice breaking. "I can't do it anymore." She cries the pain in the sound she makes wringing my heart till I almost feel her pain as though it's my own, only I know I did not know half of what she has gone through. Her tears keep falling and I only realise that I joined her too when a single drop of mine lands on the cold hard floor.

I sit with her and hold her because I know there's not much else I can actually do.

"It started two weeks into our marriage. I think he was holding out hoping that I'd want to be intimate with him soon. Those were the most peaceful weeks of my marriage."

I am stunned. Boris had always come off like he was head over heels for her and he'd never let anything hurt her. "It's been three years, Katya."

"Three very long years. I'm so glad I don't have to see his face again." I don't say anything to that, we both knew marriages in the bratva didn't end that easily, especially ones that were ordered by the Pakan.

She starts crying again and I wish there was a way for me to erase everything that had ever hurt her. "I'm sorry I am laying this all on you, I didn't want anyone to worry about me. I should have just kept enduring it." Her eyes fall to the ground. But I raise her head back to look at me. When I see her eyes I wonder what she had gone through. A mixture of the shame and disappointment that she feels in herself brimming from her eyes.

"Don't you dare say that, whenever you need me I want you to come to me. I will always be here for you." I wrap my arms around her and we stay there for a long time.

A shower, a lengthy explanation to my dad and a crying Aunt Sofia later, night settled, we sat on my bed together under the covers reminiscing on old times.

"You know maybe I should have married Marcus when he asked."

I laugh at that "You said, and I quote, he doesn't look like a man." imitating her voice as best as I can.

"That was because his hands were always sweaty and he didn't seem confident in anything he did."

"Yeah, at least I'd get to live vicariously through you." She laughs lightly. "Whatever you do, don't have an arranged marriage."

I'm still at that, how was I meant to tell her that since this entire ordeal started I had been hoping that the man I had to marry is not anything like Boris? That I was shaking with fear and a part of me was desperately hoping she'd stop talking about what she went through so that the fear I am feeling does not make me explode?

"You are already betrothed aren't you?" Katya had always been able to see through me, she had watched me grow, I don't know how I thought I could have hidden it from her.

I nod because I did not know how else to let her know that I was so scared for myself.

"Who is it?"

"Nikolai Bardini." Katya's eyes widened in shock before muttering a series of curse words under her breath.

"Boris has reasons why he's the way he is. I always thought he treated me the way he did because he loved me, and in his own way, he did." Katya begins. "Russian men are very protective of their women, he'd not hurt you or let anything happen to you." But there's uncertainty in her voice. She's not sure and neither am I.

I remember the rumour I heard about what Nikolai did to a man that looked at his mother the wrong way, and I wonder if he'd be like that to me too. Protect me even from himself. I also hope that he'd be powerful enough to completely annul Katya's marriage because the bubble we were both living in was going to burst.

Soon.