Keep: The Wedding: Romanian Mob Chronicles

K
eep
: The Wedding Copyright © 2016 by Kaye Blue

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to real people, locales, businesses, or events are unintentional. This work is intended for mature audiences only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

V
asile

“
D
oes that conclude our business
?” I asked.

Priest nodded and then turned to Anton Constantin. “I’ll be in touch,” he said and then he left, walking into the shadows alone like Priest always did. I looked to Anton. He said nothing, but I could see understanding in his expression. Priest was an enigma to us all, and Anton, much like me, probably wondered how he managed to exist, thrive even, without a clan to support him.

However he’d done it, he had become a fixture in our world, and both Anton and I owed him great debts. Me, because he had supported me when I’d eliminated the scum who had attacked my woman Fawn and led to our daughter being born prematurely.

Anton, because Priest had provided safe haven for his woman when Anton’s survival had been uncertain.

Still, as much as we both owed Priest, I doubted that either of us understood him, and I knew neither of us fully trusted him.

I faced Anton. “We’ll meet tonight?” I said.

He nodded. “Markov will be there.”

“Good. We need to get this handled quickly, and Markov is the best of the choices.”

“I agree,” Anton said.

We’d discussed it several times and decided that Markov should take over the city’s drug operation. Neither Anton nor I wanted our clans anywhere near it, and relations with the Peruvians were delicate. So we needed Markov to take over before an outsider stepped in without our blessing, an action that would lead to bloodshed and problems I did not have the desire to deal with.

I shook Anton’s hand and then peered at him. “And all else is well?” I asked.

Anton nodded. “The transition is still going smoothly. I haven’t faced any resistance.”

As I had expected.

Anton had come into his position as leader of Clan Constantin unconventionally, and his was an unprecedented rise. I could think of no one in Anton’s position who had survived killing the leader of his clan without consequences.

Violence was the primary currency in our world. Simply being who we were meant that every moment was ripe with danger, risk.

It was one of the burdens of being a leader, something that we had to accept if we chose, or were chosen, for the world of organized crime. But even still, though violence was ever-present, our chaotic world had its rules, and who was elevated to the status of leader of a clan and how they were elevated was one of the most ritualistic and regulated aspects of our business.

Anton had disregarded those rituals, broken those rules, violated a generations-old code, and taken a position he would have never hoped to ascend to naturally. He’d done it, risked his very life for the good of his clan.

And for the love of a woman. Something I understood and had gone through myself.

His actions, his selflessness had more than earned my respect, and each day as I watched his wise, careful stewardship of Clan Constantin that respect grew. He was a man I could trust.

“Everything else?” I asked, broaching the question of his transition to a married man without specifically raising it.

Anton’s expression didn’t alter at all. He’d always been reserved, not given to outward expressions of emotion, and that hadn’t changed. But I recognized the slight shift in him and saw the face of a man in love.

“Good.”

He said nothing else, and I didn’t push the issue. Instead I said, “You’ll let me know if you need anything?”

He nodded, and after a few more minutes of conversation, I left.

It was not often my way to reach out and offer something without a reason or hope of return, but in addition to the benefits of aligning with Clan Constantin, I felt a certain kinship with Anton. I understood why he’d killed his brother and taken leadership of Clan Constantin. I would benefit from his stewardship, and my instincts told me that we were all better for his having done what he’d done.

Christoph Junior had been unpredictable, and worse, not respected even by those he had been raised to lead. Had Christoph Junior lived, it would not have taken long for Clan Constantin to descend into the sort of internal fighting that would have spilled outward and dragged the other clans in.

With Anton in charge, though, that wouldn’t happen. His men respected him, and he was smart and would lead them well.

So my good feeling for him was appropriate given that he stood between me and yet another mess I would have to clean up. But the kinship I felt with him went beyond that. He, like me, had found himself involved with a woman not of our world and he had gone to the most dire lengths to protect her. That he’d done so had shown he wasn’t focused on money and power alone. He had something to prove, but more importantly, he had something he’d risked his life for, something that made his life worth living, just like I did. And that was rare enough among us that it made me happy to count him as an ally.

I made my way home, and forgot about Anton, Priest, that whole world for a while in anticipation of being with my family.

I found a most interesting sight when I walked into my kitchen.

My brother Sorin stood in front of my refrigerator staring down at his son, who he’d also named Sorin but who we all called Baby Sorin.

“Do you want apple juice or orange juice?” Sorin asked, his voice calm and his words patient in a way I rarely heard.

My little brother was not known for his even-keeled demeanor, and I was certain he had little interest in anyone’s preference of juice, but the small boy who stared up at him didn’t seem to care.

“Grape!” Baby Sorin screamed, adding a little jump at the end of his words as he threw his arms up into the air.

“We don’t have grape. Orange or apple?” Sorin said.

“Grape!” his son yelled.

Sorin Petran, son of the former leader of Clan Petran, brother of its current leader, and fourth-generation Romanian mobster, lowered his hands and shrugged, defeated.

I laughed out loud, and Sorin looked at me, a scowl on his face, though it didn’t hide the humor that lit his eyes.

I laughed again, completely uncaring of Sorin’s frown. I wasn’t prone to laughter, or at least hadn’t been before, but it was becoming easier for me, the newfound peace and happiness that I had discovered for once giving me something to laugh about.

Besides, even the hardest of men wouldn’t have been able to keep his peace as he watched my usually menacing brother become completely undone by a fifteen-month-old.

Though I laughed, I could relate. I’d been there myself. Maria, my own toddler, was currently engrossed in trying to take apart her cousin’s toy truck, but her calm demeanor was a front. She could throw a tantrum like a pro, and I’d been on the receiving end of more than my fair share. So I sympathized with my brother as he skirted toward the edge of toddler rage. That didn’t mean I couldn’t be amused though.

My brother had vexed me for years, and I was pleased to watch him get a little of his own medicine.

Sorin paused, and I could see him psyching himself up for this conversation with his son. “We don’t—hey!” Sorin broke off suddenly and then turned to face the door. “Look who’s here!”

The boy turned and looked to where his father pointed. “Mommy!” he called.

He began to toddle toward Esther, but Sorin scooped him up and quickly went toward his wife where she stood in the doorway. When Sorin reached her, he pulled her close and pressed a kiss against her lips, and like it always did, his entire demeanor transformed when he looked at Esther.

She’d changed him, entirely for the better, and it was a wonderful thing to watch the love between them grow each day.

“Hey,” she said softly as she smiled at him.

“Hey,” he replied. Then, a sly smile covered his face. “He wants grape juice.”

Sorin then deposited their son in Esther’s arms and practically ran away.

“And here I was thinking you were happy to see me,” she said to Sorin, rolling her eyes before she began showering kisses on her son’s head.

“Oh, I’m always glad to see you, love.” He smirked as he started to leave the room. “Just especially glad to see you now.”

Esther followed as she headed out of the kitchen not more than a step behind Sorin. “Yeah, I’ll bet. He always wants grape…”

I stopped paying Esther and Sorin, and their always vigorous and even more endearing bickering, any mind, when Fawn came through the door. She paused and watched as Esther and Sorin left, still locked in their argument. Then she looked at me and smiled.

“Are Esther and your brother at it already?” she asked as she headed toward Maria.

“You surprised?” I said as I followed her.

She chuckled and then leaned down to kiss Maria. “I’m surprised it took them that long,” she said.

Maria stopped for a moment and indulged her mother’s embrace but then went back to her trucks. Fawn laughed at our daughter’s less-than-excited greeting and then turned to face me.

I was standing beside her, unable to keep myself any distance away from her when we were in the same room, and every day, the pull for her only got stronger.

She had her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, and her only makeup was a thin coating of lip gloss that I couldn’t wait to kiss off. She wore no jewelry, and today was dressed as usual in a soft pink T-shirt and jeans.

I had never seen anyone more beautiful, and I knew I never would.

It wasn’t what she wore. I couldn’t have cared less about that. But the way she looked at me, the soft, open expression in her eyes, the love that radiated off her each time my eyes met hers, still touched me as nothing else ever had, and in a way I knew no one else ever would.

Her eyes were the same, still soft with kindness and innocence despite all that she had seen. Even still, the woman who stood in front of me was nothing like the frightened, terrorized woman I had met in that first encounter, the one who had changed my life entirely.

“I missed you,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her.

“I was only gone for a few hours,” she said.

“Too long,” I replied and pulled her closer.

She was much shorter than I, but her soft, rounded curves filled my arms to perfection, and her heat and warmth gave me life, and as I held her against me, I wondered what deity had decided to bless me so. I’d done nothing in my life to deserve her love, but I had it.

And I was never letting it go.

“Vasile.”

I turned at Sorin’s voice and then nodded at him before I looked back to Fawn.

She frowned slightly now, knowing full well what I would say next. Or rather, what I wouldn’t. There would be no questions about where I was going, when I might be back. She’d stopped asking because I would never answer. I
couldn’t
answer.

Being with me put her in mortal danger; telling her anything at all about my business would have sealed her death warrant.

I could usually convince myself she understood that, but when I looked in her eyes, I still saw the questions.

She didn’t ask today, though. Today, she simply hugged me. When she pulled back, she stared up into my eyes.

“Come back to me, Vasile,” she said, her voice soft, but the softness in no way reducing the pleading demand in it. Warmth flared in my chest and then spread, giving me a feeling that only Fawn ever had, that only she ever would.

I kissed her lips.

“Always,” I whispered and then I left.