“I had to explain who you are,” he says. “I thought it was best if I used some version of the truth.”
There’s a fleck of blood on his center console. “I just thought you should know she didn’t tell me anything,” I say. “So, you don’t need to hurt her.”
“I wouldn’t hurt her,” he says. “There are strict moral guidelines in the Bratva. We don’t hurt anyone who isn’t involved in any criminal organization.”
I try to think of someone that he’s hurt who isn’t in a criminal organization. Maybe people in the nightclub, but that clearly wasn’t on his orders and the only innocent people who were injured in that shootout were injured by being shoved or trampled.
“I’m not in a criminal organization,” I say.
“You might consider yourself to be out of it, but you’re Gianluigi’s daughter. It’s in your blood. You were born being every bit as bad as him.” He brakes slowly as traffic slows down.
I turn toward him, the seat belt cutting into my shoulder. “You blackmailed me into doing this. You threatened my child.”
“I didn’t threaten Lily. I offered you information in exchange for going along with my plan. You took the offer.”
“You told me you’d take me no matter what I did. You—”
“I took you and you didn’t suffer,” he cuts me off. “If you think that’s suffering, you still have a lot of growing up to do. And to drive home both of my points, I would never hurt Lily because I know what it’s like to be her. You don’t think I wanted to go after those foster parents, find out if they were worth the air they were breathing? Of course I did. It took a lot of self-control not to interrogate them. But I didn’t. I didn’t do anything because I didn’t see Lily in the same situation I was in. I didn’t see her on the brink of running away, knowing that life on the streets was worth the risk over staying in the foster care system. I didn’t see her future of fighting for scraps in a dumpster against a junkie that was quick with a switchblade. I didn’t see her future, where the offer of shelter was worth working for people who beat and killed others. You haven’t been acquainted with suffering until you see an ugly choice and you take it because the only other choice is to continue suffering.”
I slouch into the seat. I want to tell him I’ve suffered—that my father took Lily, that I carried the weight of my father’s decisions, that I made the ugly choice of running away instead of suffering in the city, that pain can be deceptive and you can get used to it when it slowly piles up—but in comparison to what he’s gone through, I know he’ll consider my pain to be a pinprick.
We are not the same. We never will be.
But he’s given me a peek into his past, one that will work for the beginning of the article. The Bratva boss is a titan among men, a shadow over the city, but before that, he learned survival was dependent on hiding in the shadows. After the death of his parents and the death of his humanity in the foster care system, he was resurrected on the streets of New York …
I continue writing and rewriting the article in my head as Maksim makes his next stop. He takes me to the shipping dock, where he transports stolen guns, along with legally transporting everything from albums to furniture. He takes me to one of his cocaine labs, which was built under a nightclub. Everywhere we go, he is treated like a savior by his legal businesses and a ruthless genius by his criminal subordinates. Everyone treats him like he’s a benevolent god who has come down from the heavens above to grace them with his presence. It’s strange to walk beside him and feel plainly human in comparison.
When he takes me inside Dunlop’s Bookstore, I’m modestly surprised to see the interior is similar to his own library, but with the addition of semicircular bookshelves centered around a circular desk and a cash register manned by a white-haired man.
“Maksim!” the man greets. He’s the first person we’ve encountered today that has referred to Maksim by his first name. “What a pleasure to see you here! Some great new texts have just come in that you might take an interest in. There’s a professor named Liston who wrote about World War II and Stalin’s efforts to turn Russia into a superpower. If you’re here for Miss Balducci, we also have an edition of the Kama Sutra with aesthetically pleasing drawings included for each situation.”
How does he know who I am?
“We’re not interested in that. We need to see the back room.”
The man glances between the two of us. “Of course. Let me get the key.”
He turns to a small sculpture of an elephant made out of book pages and pulls out the ear. At the end of the folded and bent book pages, there’s a metal key. He pushes a section of the desk and it swings open. Stepping out, he guides us toward the back of the bookstore, stopping in front of a door with the sign “Employees Only.” He unlocks it with a different key. When he opens the door, I hold my breath, but it’s only filled with cardboard boxes.
After we’re all inside the room, the man closes the door behind us, locking it again. He and Maksim move boxes away from the back wall. There’s a large door painted the same shade as the walls. The man unlocks it with the elephant key, pushing it open and gesturing for us to step in.
The room reminds me of a survivalist bunker—the cement floor, the cold air—but instead of food that never expires or a cot, there are long metal containers stacked up on stair-like shelves. Maksim walks over to one of them, takes a key out
