“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.”