STELLA

I don’t remember the year. Just the rain.

The funeral was held on a quiet estate outside the city, the kind of place where mourning feels rehearsed. Rows of black umbrellas lined the gravel path like soldiers. No one cried. No one dared.

I remember standing beside my father, bored and cold, my small gloved fingers twitching inside my coat. I couldn’t have been older than ten. I was too young to care about who had died, too old to ask out loud.

It was a Bratva affair—one of ...