Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1) (25 page)

Alberto’s gaze passed between his son and daughter. “Now is
not the time for that, Carmine.”

What had she missed?

“It’s never the time, but your favorites are showing,
Dad
.”

Alberto’s back stiffened like someone had shoved a stake
there. “
Carmine
.”

Carmine sneered as he pushed past his sister. “I bet had
Kazimir Markovic put his hands on your daughter’s throat like he had mine, he’d
already be in a grave.”

Violet swallowed the lump in her throat, looking back at
her father.

Alberto was watching her, too. And she could plainly see
his unspoken confirmation written in his posture and shining in his gaze. Yes,
if her father thought for even one second that Kaz had touched her, the man
would be dead.

He didn’t know it, but those hands had already been on her
throat.

And everywhere else.  

More than once.

“Where’ve you been?” Ruslan asked as he oversaw the men
bringing in his new shipment of vodka—they had a tendency to go through it
rather quickly.

Kaz shook his head at his brother. “Most of you gossip more
than women.”

Leveling his eyes on him, Ruslan said, “Any change to your
routine, no matter how minute, will be noticed by somebody. Careful there,
little brother, you don’t want someone digging into your secrets—you won’t like
the result.”

Kaz didn’t dismiss his words as easily as he had Abram’s,
not when he knew how true that statement was. They had both suffered the
consequences of someone being a little too curious.

Ruslan still was.

“That’s not why I’m here.” Avoidance was his friend at the
moment.

“No? What do you want?”

Scratching at the hair covering his jaw, Kaz considered his
words before he asked what he wanted to know. “Gavrill.”

Ruslan frowned. “Our uncle? What about him?”

It was no secret that Ruslan had been closer to their uncle
than any of their siblings. Truthfully, his relationship had been far better
with Gavrill than it was with Vasily. Wherever Gavrill went, as long as there
was no business involved, then Ruslan was on his heels, never too far behind.

He had been older at the time of their uncle’s death, so
there was a stronger possibility that Ruslan remembered the details better than
he did.

“January 21st—never forget that day. It was cold as shit,
and the streets were silent because of that car bomb that nearly took your
life. Someone—and even to this day we still don’t know the face behind the gun,
just that he was Italian—walked up to him in the middle of the street and shot
him, point-blank in the face. I don’t think they actually found all of his teeth.”

Fucking hell. Kaz hadn’t known any of that. He knew Gavrill
died, or was murdered, rather, but he hadn’t known it had been so brazen.

“I’m confused. Why didn’t Vasily ever do anything about it?
If
you
know it was the Italians, he had to know, too. Could probably
find the gunman, too, if he asked the right questions.”

“There was a girl, Italian, left raped and murdered behind
a pizza parlor in Hell’s Kitchen, all fingers pointed back to Gavrill,” Ruslan
said. “Whether by his word or action, Gavrill had to answer for it.”

Something about the tone of his voice gave Kaz pause. “But
…”

“But?”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Ruslan signed off on the slip, sending the men on their
way, gesturing with a tilt of his head for Kaz to follow him inside. “Gavrill
was a lot of things, but even he had limits.”

Kaz shook his head, agreeing. From what he could remember
of the man, he had been rather loud, quick to anger depending on who was
speaking, and had a tendency to act before he thought. Was he a murderer? Yeah,
weren’t they all? But a rapist … Kaz couldn’t see that, nor could he ever think
of a time when Gavrill had even used that as a threat.

But he had been a child …

“And Vasily didn’t question this?”

“He was more concerned with ending the war. Men were dying—
you
almost died. If Gavrill’s death meant it all came to a stop, he couldn’t
retaliate.” Rulan paused. “At least that’s what Vasily says.”

It didn’t have to be asked whether Ruslan believed that,
the contempt in his voice told his true feelings. Everything he’d said only
made Kaz more curious—it wasn’t meshing with the shit Carmine had said. Of
course, it could have meant that he was just trying to get a rise out of him,
say what he needed to push his buttons, but Carmine had been too arrogant in
the way he spoke for Kaz to believe that.

“Why are you asking about all of this anyway?” Ruslan
asked, peering over at him as though he could read the answer on his face.

“Had a run in with Carmine Gallucci earlier—he said some
things. I was curious.”

It was at that moment that Kaz’s phone rang. He already had
a good idea as to who it was.

“One day, you’re going to go too far,” Ruslan warned. “Who
the hell is going to save your ass when Vasily decides to teach you a lesson?”

Digging his phone out, Kaz smiled absently. “Let’s hope we
never have to find out—Kaz.”

“You know,” Vasily began, sounding rather thoughtful, “when
I asked Irina to bear my children, you were not what I hoped for.”

“Someone’s in a mood,” Kaz said in return, already heading
for his car, knowing what Vasily would tell him. “How about we skip the ‘I
don’t know why you’re calling,’ discussion? Yes, I had a run in with Carmine
Gallucci, and considering you’re not yelling, you know that he wasn’t hurt too
bad—his pride, maybe. So really, what’s there to discuss?”

Kaz slipped behind the wheel, and as he switched the call
over to the Bluetooth radio, his phone buzzed again, this time with a text.

“Are you trying to kill me?” Vasily asked. “Is that what
this is about? I don’t understand. I’ve given you everything you could have
ever wanted. Money, the best schools, the best cars … and yet you never do the
simplest of things that I ask.”

“What was that?” Kaz had only been half paying attention to
his father as he unlocked his phone, opening up the message.

“Kazimir!” Vasily snapped, that last little thread he had
on his control breaking. “Stay the fuck away from the Galluccis. How many times
must I say this?”

The image took a while to load, but when it did, Kaz
grinned slowly. There was no face, just the curve of a shoulder, pale skin, and
the mottled bite mark he had left some days ago. He was intrigued as to why she
sent it.

Whether it was meant as a reminder that he needed to be
careful as to where he left his mark, or whether it was an invitation.

He chose to go with the latter.

“I’ll be in there in fifteen,” Kaz said to his father, even
as he typed a message to Violet. “And yeah, you have my word. I’ll stay clear
of Carmine Gallucci.”

But not Violet. Never Violet.

The clink of a spoon hitting china lightly made Violet look
up from the textbook she had spread out on the table. She found her father
watching her from the other side of the large kitchen, still stirring the cup
on the counter. With a smile, Alberto picked the cup up and brought it over to
where his daughter was seated, pushing it across the table as he took a seat.

Violet picked up the Chai tea for a sip, and smiled
approvingly. Her father wasn’t the type to prepare someone else’s food or
drinks. He had people do that for him, and for others around him. But he had
learned a while ago how to make Chai tea just the way Violet liked as a way to
soften her up before a chat.

She had caught onto his games over the years.

But she still appreciated the effort.

“It’s good,” she mumbled around the rim.

Alberto shrugged. “As long as you like it,
dolcezza
.”

Violet put the cup back to the table, flipping another page
over in her textbook. With her father, it was better to let him open up the
discussion, rather than coming right out and asking him what he was thinking
about.

“How is school?” Alberto asked.

No better time than the present
,
she thought.

Her father had all but demanded she stay for supper long
after his guests were gone, and even after Carmine had left. Her mother had
taken to her studio office, leaving the father and daughter alone. Still, he
asked her to stay, and she did.

“Actually …” Violet trailed off, frowning.

Alberto matched the expression. “What?”

“I’m flunking two of my classes. And at this rate, I might
as well just add another year—or a semester, if I’m being kind—onto my Bachelor
of Art degree.”

Her father’s expression barely changed at all. Violet was
surprised. She expected him to be angry—disappointed, even.

But, no.

Nothing.

Alberto tapped a single finger to the table. “Is college
not what you want to do?”

“It is,” she responded fast.

“Then why aren’t you keeping up? You’re not a stupid girl,
Violet. You graduated top ten in your high school. What is so different about
Columbia that you’re struggling?”

Violet sighed. “It’s a lot of things, Daddy.”

“Try me.”

Her phone buzzed with a text, and her gaze shot down to
where her purse rested beside her chair. Still, she didn’t reach for the bag to
grab it. Her father surely wouldn’t appreciate that at the moment, and he was
being particularly kind about her bad grades as it was.

“Okay, here’s one,” Violet said, “today I didn’t even get
to finish my classes, and I had a presentation due for my last class that was
meant to give me extra credit. I’ve been working on it for a week. That is one
of the classes I’m failing.”

Alberto nodded. “All right. Fair enough. I’m sorry.”

Violet waved around her, high above her head. “And there’s
all this stuff going on, it seems. No one wants to talk about it, but I’m not
an idiot, Daddy. I can see what’s happening, okay? It’s distracting when I’m
brought into it or it takes me out of focusing on school.”

He leaned forward in his seat. “And shall I mention the
weekends at clubs, the mid-week parties, and the late nights with friends all
the times in between? How about that boy you were seeing a few months ago? I
seem to remember several trips out of state during times when you should have
been in classes.”

Damn.

Yeah, her father had her there.

“He wasn’t important, just fun,” she said weakly.

It was the truth.

“And the other things?” Alberto asked.

“I’m not doing those now. I’m trying to focus.”

“I’m aware—your grades do show it, even if you think
they’re still too low. And they are too low, Violet.”

She sat straighter in the chair. “What?”

“I’ve been keeping up with your grades for a lot longer
than you think, and I hoped that you would see the downfall and start to
correct it. You have, and that’s enough for me to let you learn from this. So,
you’ll have to spend an extra year in school. That’s your consequence for this
last year and the mess you’ve been.”