Rocking With The Bratva Brat

Dinner Debacle

Sitting at the dining room table surrounded by her family she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs at the unfairness of the situation.

Eric was here, having dinner with her family and so was one of her father’s cousins and his daughters. One of her beautiful Russian, straight from a town near Moscow, female cousins, was sitting right next to him, her blood red fingernails frequently resting on his forearm as they chatted quietly.

Her father’s uncle was looking pleased as if he was hopeful his daughter was going to nab herself a rock star for a husband, one with ties to the family. There was no doubt in her mind now Eric was doing work for her father if he was considering joining him in marriage to the family.

She felt Gabby’s foot connect with her shin in a warning and she met her gaze. Gabby made a pointed glance at the way Hadlee was holding her steak knife as if ready to plunge it into the neck of her cousin with a warning. She relaxed her fingers and let the knife fall to her plate in a clatter. Ignoring the way her mother looked in her direction, she grabbed her water and downed it.

“Hadlee, you have barely eaten a thing,” her father admonished. “No dessert if you don’t finish –”

His words immediately rankled. “Dad,” she cut him off. “I’m old enough to monitor my own caloric intake. I don’t see you telling Tina to eat her meat.” She waved at the woman.

“She is not my concern. You are. You didn’t –”

“Dad,” she slapped her hand on the table, “for the love of God, stop. I’m not a nine-year-old. I don’t need reminders to eat, sleep or wipe my ass.”

“I remember when I was your age,” Tina’s perfectly painted red lips formed a pout, “and how much I wanted to be taken as an adult. Do you remember being nineteen Eric?”

“Oh, f**k off,” Hadlee heard the gasps from around the table and felt the hard kick from Gabby, but she didn’t care. “When you were nineteen, Tina, you lacked the common sense the good lord gave a frog. The reason you were relocated to the US eight months ago was because you’d been through every boy in the fishing village and none of them wanted to marry you.” At the silence of the table, she waved her fork around, “I’m not lying. It’s truth. Her father hid it from you Dad. Eric, if I were you and you’re contemplating anything with her, I’d make sure you insist on a full physical before you agree to the marriage contract. Whatever diseases she might have caught may have left her barren.”

“Hadlee Marie!” Briar’s voice cut like a knife as she glowered at her daughter.

She ignored her mother and met her father’s confused gaze, his blue eyes so much like hers. “Before Mother,” she drawled the word sarcastically, “grounds me to my room, can I be excused from the table.”

“No, you owe this table an apology,” Briar hissed.

“Fine,” she threw her napkin on her plate and rose, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you all have to bear witness to my poor temper. Now excuse me.” She pushed her chair back angrily and then paused to give her parents a long look, “keep treating me like I’m a child and you’re going to keep getting the childish behavior. It’s a promise.” She reached out and tipped a wine glass spilling it across the table. “There, now that’s behavior of a nine-year-old.”

She heard her little brothers who were sitting at the far end of the table snickering and she shot them a look which shut them up. She climbed up the stairs and slammed into her bedroom.

It had been ten days since she’d snuck into Eric’s dressing room, and he’d messaged her multiple times demanding they meet so he could see her dance moves in person. Then he’d shown up tonight for dinner and she’d heard her parents whispering in their bedroom how her father wanted Eric to have a familial tie to the family and Tina was his age. To know he was stringing her along via text and agreeing to dinner and a set-up with Tina was humiliating. Asshole!

They were going to hook him up with her cousin right in front of her and he was all for it from what she could see, despite his daily messages to her.

Gabby pushed into the room. “Girl what the f**k was that?”

“Shut up, Gab. I’m so done with this shit.”

“What s**t?”

“My father and his antiquated bullshit keeping me here in this house like Rapunzel. Can’t date because my virginity is sacred somehow as the first born to the great Liev Orlov, yet he peddles the disease-ridden slut downstairs as if she’s a prize. Its hypocritical bullshit. I’m tired of being treated like I’m still five.”

“You’re always going to be his little girl, and our dads are overprotective.”

“Are you a virgin Gabby?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Do you know why?”

“Pretty sure I do since I was there when Neville popped my cherry.”

“You actually have enough freedom you can come and go sometimes which allowed you to sneak off with Neville. Do you know how hard it is for me to just get an hour alone?” She gripped her necklace “I have a dog collar I need a special device to remove. I have to wear it even when I’m home. In my own house? Dad still comes to tuck me in, Gab.” At Gabby’s wide eyes she flapped her hands in her direction, “yeah, every night he is home, he comes in and sits on the side of my bed and asks about my day and then kisses my forehead, pulls my blankets to my chin, and tells me to sleep like a good docha. I tried to tell him to stop when I was in high school, and he said he never would. I’ll be in my arranged marital bed, and he’ll probably show up to tuck me in.”

Gabby snickered, “you’re not getting an arranged marriage. He’d shoot anyone who tried to f**k you in the forehead while looking right into their eyes. You are his little girl.”

“And they want so much better for me but they’re not listening to what I want or need.”

Gabby plunked on the bed next to her and they both rolled back to lay staring at the ceiling. “Did you really hear your Dad tell your Mom Tina would be a good match for Eric to tie him as family?”

“Yup. They’re the same age. She is a model, so she understands the demands of a rock stars schedule and thinks they’d be sexually compatible.” She quoted her father.

“Didn’t your other cousin tell you she heard from a bunch of girls who hate Tina back in the village she gave a bunch of men a disease?”

“Yes.”

“And they still want her for him?”

“I don’t think Dad knows the disease thing. There are some things you don’t bring to the pakhans door and how your cousin is the STD equivalent of Typhoid Mary is one of them.”

“This sucks.”

“Does it ever.”

“For the record, I don’t think Eric was all too interested in her. He kept checking his phone. You were watching her, but I was watching him. He’s not keen. I don’t think you really needed to expose her HPV to the table.”

She snorted, “gonorrhea not HPV.”

“Are you coming back down?”

“No. You can tell them I am having an early night.”

“You’re going to sneak out.” Gabby accused.

“Nope.” She denied it. “In fact, you can even tell them you think I might try to sneak out and they can put extra security on me if you want. My key to my necklace is firmly tucked away for the night.”

“What are you up to?”

“If I’m here and under surveillance, how on earth could I be the one who delivered something to Eric’s bike?”

“You put something in his bike?”

“I snuck out earlier today knowing when Dad’s cars dropped him off, he’d go back to his condo, get on his bike, and go for a ride. I put a present for him in his helmet which he left in his parking space at the condo. I’m not going anywhere tonight. Tonight, I’m going to sit here, write some songs and wish for the millionth time my father was not the Bratva King.”

Gabby kissed her cheek, “it will be okay.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re allowed to live. Your parents taught you self-defence. My father thinks I’m too flighty to be trusted with a weapon, so they keep me surrounded by soldiers all the time. I get I’m not cut out to be a kick ass warrior like you or your mom but I’m not some helpless female who lives in la-la land.”

“Truthfully, some of the plans and plots you come up with are flawless. Your father is missing an opportunity right in his own house to use you for nefarious purposes. Between your imagination, your acting skills, and the fact you’re not afraid of anything except blood, he should be putting you to work. You don’t have to kill people to be useful to this organization. He’s simply not looking at you in any other way than his perfect little princess.”

“I know,” she and Gabby shared this conversation more than once. “Hell, even Shamia will likely be a bookie for the family. My head hurts. I’m going to lay down and pretend this night never happened.”

“For what it’s worth, Hadlee, I think you’re right and I’m on your side. I don’t think you should have disrespected your parents as you did down there and you’re likely going to get punished for it because, well, you did it in front of twenty-odd people, but what you said, needed to be said. They need to see you’re an adult.”

They sat up and hugged tightly and as she watched her friend leave her bedroom with a sad look on her face, Hadlee knew Gabby was right. She was likely to get her ass handed to her, but she didn’t care any more. She was sick of it and them. Family or not, she was done being their doormat.