Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1) (9 page)

“You can’t save him from me, Kazimir,” Vasily returned in a
dark voice. “You shouldn’t try.”

Kaz nodded, his lips turning down at the corners. “Maybe
so, but then who would save you from Vera?”

Vasily had chosen wisely in a wife. She was quiet, knew
when not to ask questions, and kept her opinions of how he treated their
children to himself—even the twins took after her in their quiet manner.

But Vera, on the other hand, she didn’t bend to Vasily’s
whims. If she thought he was wrong, and that was more often than not, she
called him out on it, but only in regards to his parenting. When it came to the
Bratva
, she let him run it as he saw fit.

Unlike with Kaz, Vasily was careful to mind his words
around Vera in regards to Ruslan. Maybe he was trying to mend the relationship
with his eldest daughter, but even Kaz knew that he wouldn’t be able to fix
something that wasn’t there.

“Give him today,” Kaz said from his position at his
father’s side. “Tomorrow, you can hate him again.”

For the first time in what felt like ages, Kaz thought he
saw his brother’s shoulders relax, like the weight of his burdens had finally
been lifted.

... if only for a short while.

Violet kept her attention focused entirely on the textbook
in her hands, and not her father sitting across the room behind his large desk.
She knew he was watching her, he always had at least one eye on her.

Earlier in the day, her father had called with a simple
request for her to come over and have lunch with him. He offered nothing more
when he called, and made it clear his request was not up for debate. Violet
dropped the lunch plans she had with Amelia and Nicole, and found a driver
waiting outside of her Manhattan condo, ready to drive her across the city to
Amityville.

After eating lunch with her father, Alberto invited Violet
up to his office to sit and talk for a while. She ended up on the couch
studying while her father scribbled on papers in a folder. Very little talking
was being done at all.

It was unnerving.

“How has Gee been treating you?” Alberto asked.

Violet finally lifted her gaze from her reading, and found
her father had dropped the pen he had been writing with. Gee was her driver—her
new not-so-much best friend.

“Fine, Daddy.”

“He says you’ve been following the rules and only staying
in the upper part of Brooklyn.”

Violet shrugged. “That’s what you wanted.”

“Only when he drives you, right?” Alberto pressed.

“Of course.”

She was not planning to defy her father again. Her lesson
was well learned. Even driving anywhere now was impossible to do by herself,
because Gee had been given the second set of keys to her car and was not
permitted to hand them back to her until her father allowed it.

“Have you seen the Russian since the club incident?” her
father asked.

Violet hesitated before answering. Her father’s sharp eye
looked her over, searching for any proof that she was about to lie. Her
encounter just a couple of days before with Kaz Markovic had been nothing more
than chance. She didn’t think he was purposely seeking her out, and in fact,
she hadn’t even noticed his flashy car parked anywhere outside of the shop
before she went in that day. Then again, her driver had been in a fit over the
smothering traffic and just wanted to find a place to park, so maybe that was
why they hadn’t noticed him.

While she didn’t understand why the man would risk going so
far into Brooklyn just for the sake of shopping for his sisters’ birthday, she
wasn’t going to get him in trouble for doing so.

“No,” Violet said quietly. “I haven’t seen him or anyone
else from Brighton Beach.”

Alberto’s lips pursed, and Violet recognized the action
immediately. It was her father’s way of considering her words, and whether or
not he wanted to believe them.

Before the club incident, he might have taken her words as
instant truth with no questions asked. Now, he was not as forgiving.

Violet didn’t drop her father’s gaze, knowing that if she
did, he would find her lies.

Alberto was the first to look away. “I worry, that’s all.”

“I was the one who went into their space, not the other way
around,” Violet replied. “It was a mistake, and they seemed to understand
that.”

“Russians seem like they understand a lot of things.” Her
father scoffed loudly. “Then they turn on you the first chance they can. You
can’t trust them, Violet. Don’t you understand that?”

She nodded, but she didn’t entirely believe him.

Kaz didn’t seem untrustworthy.

Not when he looked at her.

Not when he kissed her hand, and smiled like he had.

Violet ignored the tightening sensation in her throat, and
the heat dripping down her spine all of the sudden. She certainly understood
her interest in the Russian, as far as that went. Not only was he seemingly
charming and good-looking—extremely so—he was also entirely off-limits.

She would have to be stupid and blind not to be a little
curious.

“What would happen if they did?” she dared to ask quietly.

Alberto raised a single brow high. “Did what,
ragazza
?”

“Came further into Brooklyn, or beyond Brighton.”

“Some of them often do,” Alberto said offhandedly, almost
like it didn’t matter at all.

Violet’s brow furrowed. “But—”

“You’re a girl, you see, so you have no need to be involved
with the affairs of men and their deals. I simply made sure as you grew up that
you knew where my limits and lines were for you to follow and not cross,
Violet. As far as the Russians go, we often allow them into Brooklyn beyond
just Brighton Beach. We turn cheek to them being there, because they are
neither doing business, nor creating business for themselves. And therefore,
not encroaching on our business. Whatever the Russians demand of their people
as far as territory goes, I cannot say.”

“Is that why you always warn me to stay out of the lower
parts of Brooklyn?”

“Exactly why.”

Violet fingered the pages of her textbook. She didn’t
really understand what the Russians did for business, and she didn’t think that
asking her father would get her any answers. She wasn’t even entirely sure she
understood what her father’s Cosa Nostra did to make money.

Girls weren’t allowed to know.

“Vasily Markovic,” Alberto started to say.

Violet’s head snapped back up at the surname, curiosity
instantly simmering through her blood. She knew the name, and who the man was,
but she decided to play stupid for her father’s benefit. “Who is that exactly?”

“The Russian boss. He has a daughter that lives in the
upper part of Brooklyn. I overlook her residence because she has no real
connection to her father’s business, and she is simply working to build her
brand. Vera is her name; she’s quite a successful interior designer. If she
weren’t Russian, your mother might have had her come in to design that new
studio she wants. Apparently, the woman has a good eye for spaces.”

Vera.

That meant Kaz had at least three sisters, and a brother.
Violet filed that information away with the rest of the little bit she knew
about him.

It wasn't much.

She shouldn't want to know anything about the man at all.
Not with who he was, the people he was affiliated with, never mind her father’s
very obvious dislike of the whole bunch.

Yet she did.

She still
did
.

“But Manhattan,” her father continued, drawing Violet out
of her thoughts. “Amityville, even. Those places are off-limits to the Russians
entirely. No matter who they are, or how docile they seem.”

“I haven’t seen them again,” Violet repeated, hoping her
father believed her.

“I only want to keep you safe, Violet.”

“I know, Daddy. And I’m doing what you want.”

“I’m aware.” Alberto sighed, pushing up from his desk. He
reached over into a glass bowl and pulled a pair of familiar keys from it. “I
have something for you.”

Violet tried not to smile at the sight of her car keys.
“Okay.”

“I don’t like not trusting you,
dolcezza
. But you’ve
done well for the last little while, and it leads me to think that maybe the
club incident was just bad judgement on your part. So these,” he said, shaking
the keys, “... are conditional.”

She dropped her textbook in her lap in just enough time to
catch the keys when her father tossed them at her.

“How so?” Violet asked.

“Manhattan is a free zone for you. You can drive yourself
wherever you please. Brooklyn is not. I expect to you have Gee drive you, or
follow you, depending on where you’re planning to go. Lower Brooklyn is still—”

“Off-limits, I know,” she interrupted quickly. “Anything
else?”

She was just happy to have a little bit of freedom and her
keys back.

“Yes, there is,” Alberto said, chuckling. He quickly
sobered. “As much as I want to trust you, I can’t entirely do that without
feeling like you might pull the wool over my eyes in some way, Violet. Once
you’ve treated me like a fool, I won’t give you the chance to do me wrong
again.”

Violet swallowed back her denial, knowing it wouldn’t help.

“To be sure you’re following my rules, I will have Gee pick
you up from wherever you are whenever I deem it suitable for him to do so. I will
call you, and you will answer, no matter what. Depending on where you are to
where he is, you will have that amount of time to be ready for him to pick you
up, and drive you to … whatever. Dinner, one of your mother’s showings, or
something else.”

Jesus.

That essentially meant Violet was still chained down
depending on her father’s demands and schedules. And she wouldn’t exactly be
able to lie, either. If she said she was somewhere else, somewhere she was
allowed to be, and Gee showed up to get her but she wasn’t there … it wouldn’t
end well.

Still, she had her keys.

And her father had actually spoken to her after ignoring
her for weeks.

It was something.

Violet chose not to question it.

Violet found her brother perched on the kitchen counter,
chatting away to their mother as Andrea checked on the progress of a soup she
was cooking.

“Not yet,” her mother said. “Give it another year, Carmine.
My God. You’re still young.”

Violet held off from entering the kitchen completely. She
was just out of their view, but she could see them. If there was one thing
Violet never understood, it was the closeness her brother and mother seemed to
share. Growing up, her mother had always felt a little distant to her in most
ways. Andrea never had time to feed into her daughter’s whims, never mind
indulging Violet’s many games and quirks.

That had always landed on her father.

Alberto hadn’t seemed to mind.