Not until my uncle was handled and I found out what in the hell was going on.
The edges of my nerves sharpened like a blade, I stood over Kirill, squeezing his hand as I lightly brushed the tips of my fingers down his cheek. “I’ll be back. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” The moment I kissed him on the forehead, he stirred and I was relieved while experiencing the same pull, an even more intense connection than before.
Backing away, I realized this was my chance to escape, to turn him into the authorities or force him to suffer a worse fate by allowing access by my uncle.
The thought was tempting yet instead of feeling gleeful at knowing I could get my life back, an even heavier weight was crushing every bone in my chest.
As well as digging nicks into my heart.
I’d been clever in my actions, more so than a single soldier working for him had suspected. As I grabbed my purse, which hadn’t managed to make it to my locker, I checked inside while heading for the door. With a deep breath, I wrapped my fingers around the only security blanket that would matter in dealing with my uncle.
Kirill’s gun.
And I knew how to use it.
Even more, I knew in my heart that if push came to shove and I was asked by my uncle to choose, the decision was easy, which prickled at every synapse in my brain.
I’d choose Kirill.
The man I was falling in love with.
CHAPTER 19
Vivian
I’d learned a long time ago just how many stereotypes there were for people working for the mafia. Especially with Italians. They always ate Italian food, talking as if meatballs and gravy were the two most prevalent words in their vocabulary.
They haunted dark, foreboding restaurants where the walls were conveniently painted crimson to hide the acts of revenge. A location where candles and gothic music provided a ghostly moment while two lovebirds stared at each other from across the table. All while eight or ten huge, burly guys with bad attitudes and even worse haircuts huddled together like aging football players, consuming copious volumes of food, slurping down cheap chianti, and sizing up every patron in the joint.
Other than knowing Brighton Beach was a mecca for Russian immigrants and that supposedly they consumed vodka like Italians did cheap red wine, I couldn’t imagine their habits when getting together as a group. Or maybe they were simply much more intelligent than other crime syndicates.
Why was I thinking that way? Because I’d always believed it irresponsible for an entire group of seemingly important men from one group to gather together in a single location. Maybe that’s because in my youth my father had made certain Nikki and I were well aware of his important status within the mob given his brother-in-law’s position, and I’d thought of hundreds of creative methods of annihilating an entire syndicate.
In one fell swoop.
My uncle’s men were like barbarians from the old days when men used clubs and beat their food to death. The men liked to imagine themselves as Vikings. Ha. Fat chance. I’d found them boring, self-centered, not particularly handsome, and definitely not good company. But they did have habits they never shied away from.
They came in packs like wild dogs.
They owned the restaurants and bars they frequented, which prevented a random slaughter. And they did enjoy their whiskey.
Which was why my uncle hadn’t needed to tell me where he would be for our meeting.
O’Leary’s Pub was ancient, the building crammed among a dozen more on a seedy looking street where almost every business was owned by an Irishman. While there was a location called Little Ireland in the Bronx, the Manhattan location had been chosen thirty plus years ago by a man who’d known the heart of the wealthy would be centered in this area.
He’d been right. My uncle ran his multimillion-dollar company in four rooms over the bar, but I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t found him at his favorite corner table. Holding court.
As soon as I stepped inside, I was reminded why I preferred the far more Americanized side of my heritage. Yes, somewhere in my father’s bloodline there was some Irish along with being a descendant from the old English crown regime. That meant something to my uncle, which was why the arranged marriage had been so important to both groups.
So I’d been told.
I’d figured out the truth a long time ago. If alliances were handled with extreme prudence and planning, they could be extremely lucrative and powerful for both parties. That’s exactly what had occurred with my mother marrying my father. They’d quietly built an empire and were now ready to take it on the road.
That’s why my uncle wouldn’t want the Bratva interfering.
The politics of something.
Everyone inside the bar knew who I was. Even though my father had cried the blues with me turning my back on the family traditions by becoming a surgeon, the profession was considered revered, which gave me a pass. For the most part.
