To The Hospital

Sasha felt guilt for not realizing how poorly her friend had become. For the first thirteen years of her life, he had been the only grandfather she’d known, even though they weren’t blood. She could feel both her grandmother and Ruthie scowling down at her from where they probably ruled heaven with an iron fist.

Ruthie had been her grandmother Gina’s closest friend growing up and their friendship had lasted nearly seventy years. They had been together through thick and thin, although Ruthie kept Gina sheltered from a lot of her life with Sonny. When Gina’s sixteen-year-old daughter Avery had gotten pregnant by a boy she’d met in the strip club where she’d been working illegally, Ruthie and Gina had stepped in, with Sonny taking up the rear.

Avery had confessed he’d been an older boy, a tourist, and she’d lied about her age. He’d been there on a vacation with his family and every night for two weeks Gina had snuck off with him. Then he’d gone back to wherever he was from, and Avery hadn’t even known his last name. She imagined there were billions of Sacha’s in Russia. Instead of worrying about finding the dad, the women pulled together and helped Avery raise their little Sasha.

Gina and Avery together had worked hard and pooled their resources and by the time Avery was nineteen she and her mom Gina had bought the strip club out from the owner and turned it into a hell of a business. Ruthie and Sonny were regular customers and she had been in their home countless times, though usually in the kitchen, dining room or pool area. She hadn’t strayed from those areas very often. She had simply known better.

One day when she had been thirteen, her mother Avery had come home from the club, pale and looking like death had been pounding on her door. To their surprise she revealed the man who had gotten her pregnant almost fourteen years before had shown up at the club and had recognized her immediately.

She had panicked and ran and had been sitting at the kitchen table in the house they shared with Gina, a shaking quivering mess when the man had pounded on their front door. Apparently, her mother’s reaction was not the one he’d been expecting. He had been excited and stunned to see her, amazed on his first trip back to Vegas in fourteen years he’d found the girl who had stolen his heart so long ago. She had screamed like a horror movie queen and sprinted.

However, what he’d expected in Avery’s reaction went out the window as soon as he’d stepped foot into the tiny house the trio had shared. Seeing his thirteen-year-old doppelganger in female form had been so far outside the realm of his expectations he’d taken one look at her, one look at Avery and had wordlessly walked out.

An hour later he was back with an entire army of people to pack up the house to move them into his home. When Avery had balked, he identified himself as Sacha Volkov, second son to Edik Volkov, head of one of the largest Russian mobs in the world. With more money than any of them had ever dreamed possible, he made it clear Avery had little to no choice in the matter. She was going home with him and so was his daughter. Within twenty minutes of the argument starting, his father had shown up with a slew of enforcers.

Ruthie, who had spent so much time protecting her best friend’s little family from the dangers of the Italian mob, had immediately called Sonny in to run interference. He had shown up with his own team of enforcers. Edik and Sonny had gotten into a heated argument and guns had been drawn all round, making Sasha curl up into a ball and scream in terror. In the end Avery had agreed she was going to go with Sacha to keep the peace.

An uneasy truce had been drawn between the two families, with Sonny agreeing to make sure nobody ever found out the name of Edik’s only granddaughter and to offer his protection as back-up when the men were out of the country. Given he’d been her unofficial grandfather for so long, Edik had agreed to share grandparental duties with him. Most of the world didn’t know Sasha was connected to either family. It was because of the way the two patriarchs of the families, who on most fronts appeared to despise each other, took the role of protecting her very seriously. Sasha hadn’t even met any of Sonny’s children, grandchildren, or extended family. They kept her sheltered.

As for Sasha’s new home life, moving in with her dad, it had been tough. Her parents had fought tooth and nail but if Sasha were honest, her mom and dad had more sex than they did argue and that was saying something. She had walked in on them in more compromising situations than any teenage girl should have. Admittedly they were still very enamoured with each other. Her father adored her mother, even when she was being bitchy.

She had gotten used to having a domineering pain in the ass Russian father over the last fifteen and a half years, but they still butted heads frequently. He couldn’t look at her in anything other than his little girl. He had done everything he could to make up for lost time, but it hadn’t made him soft on her either and she had fought him at every turn. She was smarter than he was, and he knew it. She liked to shove it in his face.

Her parents still lived together, still fought every single day and still had sex probably twice as much. Her grandmother had passed away three months before Ruthie had. Sonny had always remained the grandfatherly figure she’d known. Her relationship to Sonny and Ruthie had been glossed over most of her life with her dad. He knew they communicated but he didn’t know how close she had stayed with the older couple. As her mother said, two families like these two didn’t usually mingle so she kept her friendships quiet at her mother’s recommendation. Her dad would lose his mind if she moved into the Italian’s house. Her grandfather would probably send an army to pull her out.

She patted Sonny’s hand as she heard the ambulance pull up. “I’m going to go let them in. I’m coming to the hospital with you. I’m staying with you at the hospital. I’ll come home with you when they let you go home for a while, a few weeks maybe,” she saw his eyes light up, “and we will get this house in order, and you are going to have to hire a housekeeper to come at least a few times a week. We’ll discuss it more. For now, though, I’ll be your girl Friday. But you have to go to the hospital, or all bets are off. Work with me Sonny Allegretti, not against me, or I walk. Understand?”

“Capisce.” He mumbled as his eyes closed again as if the knowledge, she wasn’t going to ditch him let him relax.

She noted he looked quite grey now and she moved to the front door just as the paramedics were unloading their gear. “He’s through here.”

Within seconds the two men made the call he needed emergency medical care in a hospital which wasn’t a surprise to Sasha.

“Are you, his family? We’ll need someone to sign his paperwork to authorize transport.”

“Granddaughter,” he mumbled to the paramedics waving them off. “She’s the only family I have.”

Behind their backs he winked at her, and she knew what it meant. She wasn’t to notify his family. She hadn’t intended to. The selfish bastards had taken his power away from him and then left him alone.

His two granddaughters hadn’t been seen or heard from since they received their inheritances early, assuming since he’d paid them out it meant they could treat him like he was already dead. One of them lived in Vegas and the other in LA. Neither so far, they couldn’t come see him, let alone pick up a phone.

His daughter and her husband and children had pissed off to spend their money with nary a word to him since the day he’d put the money in their accounts.

His only son Gian and his wife were in Italy, his son still furious Sonny had bypassed him and given everything to Gian’s son, Rinaldo, or Rin for short.

According to Sonny he had seen his grandson, who had given the bulk of everything, in the flesh twice in the last eighteen months and the man lived in Vegas. Twice. Sonny said he called him fairly frequently, but she knew it wasn’t enough and Sonny was missing his favorite family member.

She had never met him but by Sonny’s description he was a cold ruthless mothereffer who could make a grown man sob with a look and what he could do with his hands was even more frightening. Sonny often teased her and said he was a chip off the old block.

Personally, she thought Rin Allegretti was a giant douche canoe and needed her size six foot firmly planted up the wazoo. Who treated their own kin like this? Her own father had known of her existence seconds and had claimed her as his own and was so far up her ass all the time she needed a shoehorn to get him off. Rin not taking better care of his grandfather was appalling.

She knew Sonny had disappointed them all by not appointing Rin’s father Gian as head of the family but according to Sonny, the family would have been destitute in a month. The man had no brain for business and was nothing more than a par time thug. “You need brains not brawn to run this ship,” he had said to her on many occasions.

She watched them load him up onto the stretcher and promised she would follow behind in her car. The entire drive to the hospital she worried the man would die en route.

At the hospital she filled out all the paperwork for his admission and treatments. When they finally said she could go in and see him she felt sick to her stomach at the sight. He was wearing an oxygen tube in his nose and hooked up to IVs and monitors. He appeared tiny and weak in the bed. He was not a very tall man to begin with, perhaps five foot ten but his charisma and personality made up for it. Now, he was a shell of himself, and she moved to the seat at his side, wiping a tear off her cheek.

“You look like shit,” she whispered to him and earned a smile.

“I feel like it,” he whispered back, “I heard one of the doctors say something about amputating my leg. Don’t let them take my leg.”

“Sonny, this is why you don’t fuck around with diabetes and wounds.”

“Look at us, a pair of babies,” he muttered and reached a weathered hand to wipe a tear off his own cheek. “Ruthie would have beaten me into the dirt,” he admitted sadly.

“She still might. She’s probably rolling in her grave ready to climb out of it to smack sense into you. I might do it on her behalf.”

He gave a hoarse chuckle. “She loved you so much, Sasha.”

“I loved her too. I love you as well, so stop scaring me so much.” They sat quietly holding hands, the steady beep of the monitors setting the sombre mood.

“Do you remember the time she and Gina decided they were going to try composting at home?” he said suddenly.

She smiled, “I do. They turned most of your backyard into a landfill. It was gross.”

“Smelled so bad for weeks. Even after we got it all hauled away it still stunk.”

“It’s true,” she giggled as she gripped his hand with the memory. “She was so furious you took it away.”

“Thought I was going to be eating my own balls on my pasta that night.”

“She was a force.”

“My leg smells like the compost heap,” his lips twisted. “I think I’d be wearing her rolling pin up my ass if she could get her mitts on me right now.”

“She’d never have let you get like this. I’m sorry Sonny. I should have paid better attention.”

“You are like her.” He looked to her, his dark warm eyes not appearing as shiny as they had been earlier. “You are just like her and Gina. Your mom was always a bit different, wanted to be taken care of. Your dad did good by her but you, you’re like your grandmother and Ruthie. Strong women who didn’t need a man to take care of them. You take care of the men. You take care of your own. I see the way you take care of your girls, Sasha. You’re good. You’re a good woman.” He sighed, “My wife had one son and one daughter and between those two they had six kids and only one of them has any fucking common sense. Wait until they find out I changed my will.”

“You changed your will?”

“I did. They’re going to be pissed because what I already gave them is all they get. They get nothing else of my money. Selfish pricks. I almost want to be a fly on the wall but when I die, I just want to go be with my girl.”

“And you will, my friend, just not yet. It’s not your time. I’m not ready for you to leave me.” She patted his fingers, “try to rest now.”

She sat there wondering if Rin and his two sisters and three cousins had known what the man had just said to her, how long it would take for them to crawl out of the woodwork.