Page 123 of The Bratva Sinner

Lila

I walk into the house after spending the morning with Ember and stop when I spot at least twenty boxes in the foyer. Then, Cinder appears from the dining room and picks one up.

She sees me, and I brace myself for another “friendly” exchange. “You want something to do?” she asks.

It comes out more like a challenge.

“Are you moving in?” I ask.

She laughs. “Hell no. I don’t share.”

I glare at her. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m the head of my house. I’m not sharing that power with someone else.”

“Me?”

She rolls her eyes and walks into the dining room. “You don’t have power. I’m talking about Maksim.”

I follow her into the dining room, ready to put her in her place. Iamthe woman of this house. Idohave some power.

“What’s this?” I see the long table covered in stacks of clothes and toiletries. Toothbrushes. Little boxes of toothpaste. Bars of soap. Tampons.

“Care bags.”

“What?” I forget all about stomping my foot and asserting my dominance.

She hands me a box of Ziploc bags. “Care bags for the homeless women. We put them together and hand them out.”

I stare at the box in my hand and then the toiletries.

“Pull a bag and put one of each inside,” she says. “Then we have to sort the clothes.”

I feel ridiculous. I’ve been the recipient of these little care packages. Various churches took pity on people like me and my mom. I’ve been living in all this opulence, and I never thought about sharing the wealth.

I do what she says. We don’t talk as we make bags. She brings in another case filled with bandages, condoms, and an assortment of first-aid supplies. I don’t ask why women on the street would need first aid.

“Now, the clothes,” Cinder says.

“What do we do with them?”

“Sort by size to start,” she says. “It makes it easier.”

“And then what?”

“We label the boxes and take them to the streets. The ladies can pick what they need. It gets a little messy, so we organize them by size, and spread them out to avoid fights.”

“Fights?”

She stops folding a shirt. “When you have nothing, you tend to get greedy.”

I put a hand on my hip. “I don’t know what you think you know about me, but I’ve had nothing. I’ve never had new clothes. I took what I could get, and that includes dumpster-diving.”

She stares at me, nods, and returns to pulling clothes from the box.

“Where do you get all of this?” I ask.

“People donate to a women’s shelter,” Cinder answers. “Some of the clothes are a little—much. Things a lot of women wouldn’t wear.”