Chapter 15

You are something terribly real in a terribly fake world. That's why I think you're really hurting.

I returned to the dining room right on time.

Around the large Victorian-style table, like the rest of the furniture, several people were already seated.

Girls, boys, teenagers, men, mature women.

All generations were represented around this table over which Vladimir seemed to reign. He was seated at the end of the table, in the king's place.

When I entered the great hall he stood up and his family followed suit.

I felt pairs of eyes analyzing me. This inspection brought back so many bad memories that I didn't stare at anyone for fear of holding a murderous gaze.

He walked over to me and looked me up and down.

A smile of satisfaction floated on her luscious lips.

- I present to you my family, he said.

Arrived at the height of the last free chair I was obliged to look up.

Dozens of heads stared at me. When Vladimir sat down everyone imitated him and I silently thanked him for having put an end to my torture.

- Elisabeth, this is my mother Tatiana, introduces me to Vladimir, next to her there is my father Aldo.

Her mother, a woman in her forties, had brown eyes and features drawn with age and fatigue. Her hair was slicked back to her head in a strict bun. disgust in the look.

I decided to classify her in the category of people with whom I was not going to get along. I hated those who looked down on me. I had a holy horror of them.

I have a feeling we're going to get along well yippee.

I shifted my gaze one place and for a change I fell on the benevolent gaze of his father. He was a man just as old as his wife but despite his age he had known how to keep the athletic build of his youth. was smiling and I couldn't help but return a shy smile.

He seemed so nice that I almost forgot that he too was most certainly involved in illegal business.

Yet I decided to classify him in the category of nice people. For some reason I felt good about this man.

- Delighted, I whispered.

His father answered me while his wife didn't even move her lips. She had kept them pursed until they were starting to turn whitish.

He had gone around the table. Cousins, cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters were seated like a normal family.

I found a touch of irony that a mafia family seemed more normal than my own family.

They all looked happy around this table, they were laughing among themselves and, apart from the few murderous looks I had received, nothing suggested that anyone present at this table could have an ounce of wickedness.

I hadn't opened my mouth for the whole meal. Usually I was a real chatterbox but finding myself here, among strangers, didn't make me feel confident.

I still didn't understand why a girl like me, with no history, no problem with the law, could find herself kidnapped by the Russian mafia.

By being here I had everything to lose, my normal life, my country and many others, but what had he gained by keeping me here like a princess in her ivory tower?

Without thinking much, I opened my mouth and asked the question that had been burning my lips since I had left high school to find myself in this armored car:

- Why am I here?

The assembly is silent, the conversations left in suspense and the cutlery filled with food motionless in the air.

Tatiana glared at me as if I had just broken a law. After all, I had just interrupted the Ivanovich family in the middle of dinner, me the simple little teenager from California.

- You're here because I want to, said the owner coldly.

"Because that's reason enough to hold someone against their will?" I asked bewildered.

- Yes, he answered me in your sec.

Quietly he went back to eating as if it was usual for him to kidnap people, to put them through hell.

As if it were the devil.

- But who do you think you are? I asked with a mixture of incomprehension and anger in my voice.

Suddenly the assembly froze, as if time had stopped. The cutlery stopped clinking on contact with the porcelain plates, the chewing noises disappeared, giving way to empty heads of emotion.

Even Vladimir looked, for a moment, surprised at my remark.

As if no one had ever taught him that not everything was necessarily due to him.

As if this man was really used to being compared to God or even Satan, ruling over his kingdom as those there rule over heaven or hell.

He looked up at me.

- I am the head of the mafia and you, child, you had better shut up.

In a jump of anger I get up, the chair creaking under the violence of my gesture.

- We wonder which of us is a child! You who take you for a king thinking you are superior to everyone or me? I asked annoyed.

He got up almost without emotion but I detected nervousness in his movements.

Looks like I creased the crease-resistant.

He advanced towards me, slowly making my torture last. And, when he arrived in front of me, he took me by the throat.

- YOU SHOULD FEAR ME AND RESPECT ME! he yelled.

The silence resumed while in my head I chose my words like weapons before going into battle.

- I'm not afraid of you, I began calmly. I'm not afraid of you, nor of what you could do to me, nor even of death.

After a long silence, witnessing a visual duel between him and me, I added, raising my arms to the sky:

- I fear only the Almighty

Stunned by my remark he released his grip on my throat until he completely withdrew his hand.

He went away, leaving me standing there, overturning a table in his path, breaking dishes.