I try to pull my hand back, but he doesn't let go. He just watches me, a predator who has finally cornered his prey and is enjoying the realization in her eyes.
"The ring means the hunt is over," he whispers. "And the ownership has begun. Whether you like it or not, Irina Morozova, you are exactly where you were always meant to be."
CHAPTER EIGHT
MIKHAIL
The scent of her is stuck in my lungs.
Even here, in the sterile chill of my father’s study, surrounded by the smell of expensive tobacco and the rot of old men, I can still taste her. Roses and steel. The sharp, intoxicating bite of her defiance.
She’s in my bed. Finally. Legally. Even if she thinks a deck of cards and a lucky hand can keep me from claiming what’s mine.
I lean back in the leather chair, my fingers tracing the rim of a glass of neat bourbon. I didn’t sleep. I spent the night watching her breathe, watching the way her dark golden hair spilled across my pillows like silk. I wanted to reach out and wrap it around my fist. I wanted to wake her up just to see that blue-eyed fire flicker back to life. I wanted to remind her that while she won the bed, I won the wife.
"Mikhail. Are you with us?"
My father’s voice, a dry, grating rasp, snaps me back to the present. Vladimir sits at the head of the table, his face a mask of aging granite. To his right, Boris Petrov looks like a man who’s already spent the dowry. He’s nursing a bruised wrist—courtesy of me—and his eyes are filled with a greedy light that makes my skin itch.
Across from me, Artyom sits perfectly still. The Pakhan. My brother. He looks at me, his eyes hooded, seeing right through the mask I’m wearing. He knows. He knows I’m distracted by the Petrov poison I just brought back from Cancun.
"I’m here, Da," I say, my voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Just waiting for Boris to stop smiling so we can get to the part where he tells us how much more of our blood he wants to suck."
Boris’s smile doesn't falter, but it thins. "We’re family now, Mikhail. A true union. The Petrovs and the Morozovs, controlling every dock from Jersey to Long Island. There’s no need for such hostility."
"You sold your daughter to fix a mistake you made," I counter, taking a slow sip of the bourbon. "Hostility is the only thing you’ve earned from me, Boris."
I can still see the fear in her eyes when he raised his hand to her. I can still feel the way she leaned into me when I stepped between them. My little runaway.
"Enough," Vladimir commands, rapping his knuckles on the table. "Boris has a proposal. A way to maximize the revenue from the new Queens corridors."
Boris leans forward, spreading a map across the mahogany. "The weapons trade is steady, yes. But the logistics we’ve built for the consolidation... they’re under-utilized. There is a high-margin market that the Morozovs have traditionally avoided. A market that would double our quarterly intake within six months."
Artyom shifts, his eyes narrowing. "State it plainly, Boris. We don't do riddles in this room."
"Human trafficking," Boris says, the words landing in the room like a pile of filth. "The transit routes are already secure. We have the ports. We have the local law enforcement on the payroll. We’re leaving money on the table by refusing to move 'soft' cargo."
The air in the room turns into glass.
I’m going to fucking kill him.
"No," Artyom says. His voice is a flat, uncompromising blade.
"Artyom, listen to reason," Boris pushes, his voice oily. "The demand is at an all-time high. With the Petrov infrastructure and the Morozov muscle?—"
"I said no," Artyom repeats, leaning over the table. The Ice King is back, his presence freezing the air. "I didn't take this crown to become a pimp, Boris. We move steel. We move powder. We don't move people."
"Vladimir?" Boris turns to my father, his eyes pleading. "Surely you see the logic. The numbers alone?—"
Vladimir sighs, a heavy, disappointed sound. He looks at Artyom, then at me. "Boris is right about the revenue, Artyom. We’ve had this discussion before. The old guard... we understood that money doesn't have a soul."
"I’m not the old guard," Artyom snaps.
"And what about you, Mikhail?" Boris asks, his gaze fixing on me. He thinks he has a hook in me. He thinks because I have his daughter, I’ll play his game. "You’ve spent years in Italy. You know the Camorra doesn't shy away from this. You've seen the profit margins. Tell your brother to stop being a saint."
I set my glass down. Theclackof crystal on wood is the only sound in the room. I look at Boris, letting the full force of my disapproval show. I let him see the unpredictable, ruthless animal that earned me an exile in the first place.
"You think because I put a ring on Irina’s finger, I’m on your side?" I ask, my voice dropping to a predatory whisper.
