Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
He stopped the car at a stoplight and turned to me, frowning. He must have seen something in my eyes because he suddenly inhaled, and his face lit up with hope before he managed to control it.
The light changed and he threw the car into a U-turn. “I can’t tell you,” He said, his voice tight with emotion. “But I can show you.”
I thought he’d take me to see the buildings he’d constructed, or the flashy casinos he ran. But he drove me to one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, instead. He offered me his hand, and we started walking down the street, our shoes crunching in the snow.
The first few people to see him shied away and I felt my heart sink. Everyone’s scared of him. But then the owner of a convenience store hurried out to speak to him. “Mr. Aristov! I wanted to thank you. I would have lost my whole business.” As I listened, I pieced together that the city had wanted to close him down over a planning dispute, and Radimir had smoothed things over. Then an old Korean lady stopped to shake his hand. Her son had been beaten up by a couple of cops, and the police department had looked the other way. Radimir had made sure the cops knew never, ever, to do something like that again. It went on and on, as we wandered down the street. Requests for him to use his contacts with the city to get the potholes fixed. Pleas for loans to start businesses, from people who’d been turned down by the banks.
I started to notice something. The neighborhood was poor, but it looked different to others I’d seen. It took me a while to figure out why, because I had to realize what there wasn’t. There wasn’t any graffiti. There wasn’t anyone selling drugs. It felt weirdly...safe.
I realized not everyone was scared of Radimir. To the poor people, he was a lifeline. He actually listened to their problems and made sure things happened. And he understood what was going on here far better than the people in City Hall who never left their air-conditioned offices.
Radimir pointed at two of his skyscrapers downtown. “All of that starts here. This is where my brothers and I started, in this neighborhood. And we’re still here. We still run it.”
Then Radimir led me down a side street. We walked for a block, crossed an intersection, and suddenly the neighborhood changed. It was still the same kind of housing, but I could feel an edgy desperation in the air. People didn’t make eye contact. Stores were boarded up, there were snow-covered mounds of trash between the houses and there was what looked like a crack house on the corner.
“This is what happens,” Radimir told me, “when no one is in charge.”
And for the first time, I understood. He wasn’t claiming the Bratva were good. But they were better than the alternative, because the alternative was chaos.
“It isn’t just on the street,” he explained. And he told me about corruption in City Hall, fraud in the big construction companies and the police and judges who’d take bribes from anyone. “Someone has to guide things, to make sure the little people don’t get crushed.”
A freezing wind gusted down the street, whipping up snow and trash into a dirty blizzard. I shivered and Radimir opened his overcoat, pulled me against him and wrapped me up. I could feel his heartbeat against my back, smell the dark citrus scent of him. He whispered, his words hot in my ear. “You wanted to know why I kill. I kill to stay in charge, so that things don’t fall apart. I kill last of all, after deals and bribes and blackmail and favors have all failed. But I do kill. And I will keep killing, when I have to. To stop it all spinning out of control. To protect my family. And to protect you.”
I could feel something shifting inside me, a sort of rebalancing. It wasn’t that Radimir was better than I’d thought. It was that the world was much, much worse. I’d been sheltered from it, growing up as a civilian but now, seeing what Radimir did in context, I was starting to understand.
I looked up at him, torn. Understanding wasn’t the same as accepting. And even if I could accept it...then what? My stomach lurched. In less than a week, we’d be getting married. And even though I’d finally admitted to myself that I’d fallen for him...I still had no idea if he had real feelings for me.
36
BRONWYN
Four days later, it was my bachelorette party. Jen organized it like a military operation, with all of us in sparkly dresses of different colors and a long list of cool bars to go to. By midnight, we were in a neighborhood I’d never been to, climbing stone steps that led to a set of enormous wooden doors. I was glad I’d brought my crutches because it was turning out to be a long night. I still didn’t like them but since that talk with Radimir, I was a little less self-conscious about them.