Mafia Princess by Kennedy Slope

Chapter Twenty-One

The hospital ER was a mess. There were people milling all around, and I swore that I could smell the scent of burning flesh, which made my stomach turn. I didn’t know if it was in my head, or if there had been so much collateral damage from the explosion that other members of the mafia had to be brought to the hospital.

Marco and I didn’t have any more information other than there had been an explosion, and that Dom was in the hospital.

“Excuse me,” Marco said, flagging down a nurse. “I’m looking for…”

The nurse cut him off. “I’ve got an ER full of people who need help. You need to go to the front desk if you are looking for someone.” The response was abrupt, but given the chaos, I couldn’t blame her.

I was starting to freak out. I could feel my heart beating quickly against my rib cage, and I felt short of breath.

Marco turned around, and the look on my face must have made it obvious that I was on the verge of having a breakdown. He reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m going to go and see what I can find out. Wait here for just a moment.”

I couldn’t do anything except nod as he turned around to go search for Dom. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath in through my nose and blew it out through my mouth.

“Out of the way!” a voice yelled, startling me out of my panic. I quickly moved aside as a gurney was pushed down the hallway.

“He’s flatlining,” someone yelled.

I looked over shocked to see a young man on the gurney. For a moment, I thought that the man on the gurney was Dom. He was about the same weight and height, and he was wearing a black suit that reminded me of what Dom had left the house in. I felt the breath leave my body as I heard the heart monitors that they hooked the man up to flatline.

“Start compression,” one of the nurses said.

I clutched my ring as tightly as I could. It was the only thing that I had that reminded me of Dom. Though I quickly realized that this man wasn’t Dom, his hair was blonde, and from the bed, I could tell that he was a few inches shorter than Dom, there was something about him that reminded me of my husband.

“Time of death?”

I released a sob as I watched the medical staff give up on this man.

“Sasha!” Marco’ voice invaded my thoughts. I turned to see him at the end of the hallway. There was a small smile on his face, and I instantly knew that he had news about Dom. “He’s in Room 200.”

I nodded and started walking towards him. Marco didn’t wait for me as he turned to go back to Dom’s room. Knowing that Dom was okay took a weight off my shoulders but after watching that young man die, one who was so much like my husband, I could hardly get over it.

I turned and began walking towards the ER doors. I wasn’t ready to see Dom. Not yet. I wasn’t scared to see him. In fact, I was longing to be by his side. I wanted him to know that no matter what I was there for him. But there was something else I needed to do first.

I had been keeping a secret from Dom, and it was time I figured out what role my family played in all of this.

When I married Dom, I thought that I would always remain a Petrov. I didn’t have any loyalty to the Blanchi family. But now, things are different. I didn’t know what was happening between me and Dom, but I did know that we couldn’t have a real marriage if I was still keeping secrets for my family.

It was time for me to put my family on notice. I was a Blanchi now, and it was time for me to have loyalty to my husband, and not just my family.

* * *

It felt odd coming to my childhood home. It had taken me nearly two hours to make it back after I hailed a cab, but it was worth it. The closer I got to my parents, the more angry I felt. That anger grew inside of me until I felt ready to bust.

“Mama!” I yelled, as I stormed into the foyer. “Papa!”

My mother walked down the staircase as if she was walking down a catwalk. She wore a Chanel suit and tall stilettos. She looked effortlessly put together, and I couldn’t help but wonder how she managed to keep her facade from cracking.

“Why are you screaming?” she asked.

My father walked out into the foyer from his office, a look of urgency on his face. When he saw me, he immediately reached out and wrapped me in his arms. The smell of his aftershave enveloped me, the sandalwood scent reminded me of the way he comforted me in childhood. I felt myself melt a little as I wrapped my arms around him.

“Thank God you are alright,” he breathed out.

“You heard about the explosion?” It was a silly question since I was sure that he’d ordered the warehouse blow to high hell, but it felt like the natural thing to say.

“I was so worried that you might have been caught in the crosshair.”

I snorted as I pulled away. “You mean the way I was caught in the crossfire when that assassin you sent shot me in the gut?” I couldn’t stop the anger in my voice. My father who I had always adored hadn’t come to see me once during my recovery.

He opened his mouth to say something, but shut it with a snap.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” my mother said, as she walked the rest of the way down the stairs. “Why are you here, Sasha?”

“Did you order the warehouse explosion?” I asked.

“Of course not,” my mother said, jumping in before my father could say anything. “Your father would never put you in the crossfire, as he said.”

I looked at my father who was still holding onto my shoulders. “I made a treaty,” he told me. “I wouldn’t break my word.”

I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t think that my father would simply turn his back on all of the anger and hatred he felt towards Dom and the Blanchi family. I also suspected that Dom had found a way to screw over my father, which my father wouldn’t have been able to let go.

I took a deep breath. “Who else would have blown up the warehouse?”

“Dominic Blanchi has many, many enemies,” my mother told me. It was an odd thing to say considering what I was accusing the family of, and it reminded me of some of what she had told me in the hospital.

“Your mother is right,” my father said. “Dominic has made many enemies, including his own men. He’s a boy playing at being a man.”

I flinched at my father’s words because I knew they were true. Not the part where Dom was playing at being a man. I knew that he was all man. But it had been clear at the wedding that I wasn’t well liked, and the rest of the Blanchi’s did not want me marrying their Don.

But I didn’t think that they would blow up their own warehouse and kill their own people.

“You have to believe me, Sasha,” my father said. “I would never make a move against the Blanchi’s if I thought that it would affect you.”

I bit my lip to stop reminding myself that by selling me off to the Blanchi’s, he had put me in more danger than I had ever been in in my life.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I muttered, and moved myself away from my father. I wasn’t sure if he was guilty or innocent, and I’m not even sure that it mattered.

“What are you saying?”

“You married me off to the Blanchi family, and I’m one of them now.”

“You’ll never be a Blanchi,” my mother sneered. “You are a Petrov. The daughter of the Pakhan.”

I snorted. “If that was important to you, you might have thought about that before you married me off to our enemy.” I sighed. I didn’t feel like fighting about this, especially with my mother, and the man who hadn’t bothered to see me when I was shot.

“They are no longer our enemy,” my father told me.

I shook my head. Neither my mother nor my father wanted to hear what I was saying. They wouldn’t admit to trying to kill Dom and I didn’t think that they cared that I had paid the price for their first attempt.

“It doesn’t matter what you think any longer,” I said. “Dominic is my husband, and I’m a Blanchi now. My loyalty is with him.”

That last part was directed to my mother. I wanted her to understand that I wouldn’t help her kill Dom.

The anger on her face could have killed me if I cared about her opinion.

“Sasha…” My father actually looked like I had stabbed him in the gut. The look on his face made me regret my words for a moment, but that quickly changed as I remembered the young man dying in the ER.

“I have to go back to the hospital,” I said. “My husband needs me.”

I turned away from my father and straightened to my shoulders as I walked out of the door of my childhood home determined to move on from the person who I had been.