Page 11 of Rapunzel Is Losing It

My parents were proof that the only way out of the family was in a body bag.

Comeback.

It was the only reason he’d left me alone for months. The UFC didn’t have regular seasons, but when other sports went quiet in spring, things got a lot more heated in the octagon. People who didn’t care about MMA suddenly tuned in, desperate to watchsomething. Spring meant big weekend events. It meant cards filled with the best fighters in the world. It meant acomebackwould be a spectacle.

The NFL had just wrapped up two weeks ago. NHL and NBA would follow over the next two months.

He would want to wait. Start the rumor mill.

May. Possibly June. I had no more than three months to get back into fighting shape.

“Let me be very clear, son,” Petya said when I didn’t react to his little announcement.

I cut him off. “I’m not your son.”

“You’re family.”

Debatable. Petya was my blood. He wasn’t truly family.

“You want me back in the ring,” I said, just to show that I knew exactly what he brought me here for.

“I don’twant. I’m telling you that you will be back in the ring.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t pull that face.” He kissed his teeth in disdain.

“I said okay.” I wasn’t pulling a face. Schooling your features was one of the first lessons you picked up when you had Pyotr Yelchin for an uncle. My eyelids didn’t so much as twitch if I didn’t want them to.

“You can go in the ring, or I can find a position for you that would require a change to your living arrangements. Is that what you want, son?”

We both knew that wasn’t a real question. We both knew it was phrased perfectly to hide the threat. My living arrangements included Cordelia. They hinged on Cordelia. She was the very reason I sat a few feet from the man who continued ruining my life, holding a knife sharp enough to slit his throat, and I was going to follow his every command like a fucking lapdog. I wouldn’t let him take more people from me.

“I said okay,” I repeated.

“Good.” Petya turned back to his steak. “Now eat.”

I ate.

“I’ll be your middleman,” Luka said outside, after our dinner during which Petya had caught me up on his wife’s new interest in dog shows and their three yappy chihuahuas.

“You mean babysitter,” I corrected him.

“You know how it works.”

“So you’re not driving anymore?”

“No,” he said and lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag before tapping the side of his neck with the scar. “Can’t turn my head far enough anymore.”

“Your father knows I won’t make it past the year, right? My brain is a ticking time bomb.”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.” Petya was running his investments into the ground one after another.

He had revolutionized the east coast business. Our side of organized crime had flourished for many years because unlike the Italians, we hadn’t closed the ranks to outsiders. That meant tech geniuses, engineers and hackers put us on the global map. The problem with outsiders, however, was that their loyalty could be bought.

So Petya had borrowed an idea from the Italians. He kept things in the family. He just made sure every single one of us had a designated role as soon as we showed any kind of talent.