Page 93 of The Enemy Protector
"Yes."
"Sokolov." He says it with disgust. "You married Sergei Sokolov."
"I did."
"Why."
"Because Yuri was going to kill me," I say, "and you weren't going to stop him."
Silence.
"You could have come to me.”
"I did come to you." I stare at him and see him for the weak person he truly is and always has been. When all the violence is stripped away, he’s just a man. "You told me to handle it. I did."
"You didn't need to hand yourself to Sokolov. He’s our enemy."
"I didn't hand myself to anyone. I made a deal." I take a step toward him. I’m in the position of power. “I’m protecting myself and your legacy.”
"He'll absorb us. Everything I built will fall under him."
“No, it won’t. I made sure to protect the Baranov name. It’s all I've ever been trying to do. Protect what you built. Be what you raised me to be." I stop when I hear my voice shaking. I refuse to show weakness. He will never know that he hurt me. "You have been very determined to make that impossible, but I didn’t do it to spite you, butinspite of you."
He jerks the cannula from his nose. His eyes flash with fury.
"He's using you," my father says.
"Maybe." I think about his blue eyes and how gentle he was with me last night. "Or maybe I’m using him.”
I walk back to the door. “I’m getting my things. You’ll never see me again, but I am claiming my seat at the head of the table. Neither you nor Yuri will stop me. Consider yourself dethroned.” I’m about to walk out when I stop. “Send your men after me, and Sergei will kill them.”
My father doesn't tell me to stop. He doesn't call me back.
Nelson is right there. I know he overheard.
“My bedroom,” I tell him. “Upstairs.”
It takes five minutes to collect my personal belongings. I realize I don’t want any of it. I grab the box with pictures of my mother and the few things I have of her. I grab my favorite boots and the leather pouch with my weapons.
I pause to look around the bedroom I’ve been in since I was a baby. I remember the moment I found out my mother was dead. I hid in the closet and cried for hours until my father demanded I stop.
When I was a little girl, my mother had created a little reading nook in there. She filled it with books and a shag pink rug with a purple beanbag. Living in such a massive house, it was hard to feel truly protected and sheltered. That little space had been my safe haven.
And then my mother was gone.
My safe haven was removed when I was at school.
The little girl I was needed it.
I don’t. Not anymore.
That life is over.
I’m Sofia Sokolov, head of the Baranov bratva.
22
Sergei
