Dragusha Revenge ✓Completed✓

Mira

My father has a black cellphone that he never uses, but it's always on, always charged, and always within reach, full of dark threat, just like his gun. He's had it for years, and I never heard it ring. I hear it the week after my twenty-eighth birthday. It's a Saturday afternoon. We're out on the porch. I came back for a ribbon-cutting ceremony where I put in a rare cameo as mafia princess Mira Nikolla in Oscar de la Renta and Manolo Blahnik.

I was so proud that he'd funded the research wing of the local hospital where Mom died-a research wing in her name. Not a lot will bring me back home these days, but a wing in Mom's name?

I'm there. Missing Mom is one of the few things we have in common anymore. The cynical part of me wonders if he funded the wing just to get a visit out of me. Maybe he did. It doesn't even touch the debt he owes to society.

Do I sound pissed at my own father? I am. Do I still love him? Always. We're all each other has left. We've had each other's backs since the day Mom died. The day he fixed me with that intense gaze of his and said, "It's us two now, Kitten. It's us two. Two against everything, alright?" I should be packing-the limo is coming in a few hours to take me to the airport. I'll be back in New York at the advocacy center where I work, back to being the lawyer in jeans and Target tops, like some kind of reverse Wonder Woman-I spin around and turn into a girl you'd forget two minutes after you pass her by. Which is exactly how I like it. It makes it easier for me to do my job, fighting for kids and families.

We have people thinking I've spent these past years on worldwide shopping sprees, which is embarrassing, but better than having bodyguards follow me around-that would not work at the advocacy center. PR people maintain a fake life for me. A sad social media construct that keeps me hidden under the radar. And mostly it keeps Dad safe. I'm his Achilles' heel.

There's a type of bird that lays its eggs in other birds' nests. Sometimes I feel like I ended up in the wrong nest like that. But we're family-that's the bottom line. Dad did terrible things coming up like he did, but we have each other's backs. Even at the age of ten, I understood. Me and Dad against the world. It still means everything that he said that.

So we're out on the porch of the lake residence, me still in my mafia princess pink, when the chirp sounds out. I have no idea that it's that second cellphone. I guess I never imagined it would have the bird-chirp type of ring. I always thought it would be something more ominous. Like a blaring horn. But the chirp is ominous to my father.

His face goes white. He answers it, and I can tell it's Lazarus. In addition to being Dad's enforcer, Bloody Lazarus is pretty much the worst psycho I've ever met. Even across the large, lavish porch table laden with feta and olives and strong Turkish coffee in priceless china, even with my dad pressing that phone to his ear, I can hear the psycho. It takes exactly two seconds for Dad to pull me inside and call out for the house staff guys.

"What's going on?" He just shakes his head and resumes his conversation. "Put Jetmir on it. Fuck! Fuck! Where's Leke? Fuck." Dad's voice is higher, not in volume, but octave. It's a bad sign. But here's the really bad sign: Nobody comes. Dad called for staff, and none have arrived. They always appear instantly. "Staff," in this case, is a euphemism for soldiers whose job is to hang around the house and not be seen or heard unless they're needed. I never see Dad worried.

I never see the world not bending to his every whim. My blood races. There's only one reason dozens of soldiers wouldn't come running when my father yells for them. He gets his go bag out of the front closet, grabs his headset, and sticks his Luger into his belt. He hands me a small revolver. Mother-of-pearl handle. Loaded. "Down to the seaplane. Now." "Dad." I hold it like a dead thing, looking up at him, like, really? I don't do firearms, and he knows it. But he's completely freaked out. And I'm thinking about his bad heart. I shouldn't add to his stress. "Fine." I put it in a proper grip like I learned in shooting lessons. Like a dog, fake sitting down. I'll ditch it later.