"Today is the happiest day of my life," I whisper against his skin.
He rolls me onto my back, his eyes blazing, as he leans over me. "Today is the happiest day of my life too.”
A raw vulnerability flashes across his face. It lasts for just a brief second, then it’s gone, and he holds me in his arms.
I'm so happy to have a husband. I love him so much.
But as sleep pulls me under, one thought whispers through my mind.
This marriage is transactional to him.
Will he—can he—ever love me back?
Dante
"You fucking what?” Volkov's voice crackles through the phone, flat and dangerous.
I lean back in my office chair, watching the dawn break over the lake through my window. Upstairs, my wife is still asleep, tangled in sheets that smell like sex and her.
“I married her. She’s my wife.”
A long silence. I can practically hear his brain calculating and recalculating political angles.
Then he releases a long, resigned sigh.
When he speaks again, there's grudging respect beneath the ice. "Clever, Corsini. I have no authority over another man’s wife.”
"That was the idea."
"I don't like being maneuvered."
"I don't like women being abused and sold to traffickers." I let that land. "Seems we both have grievances."
He grunts. "I've been doing some digging into Lebedev." His tone shifts, becomes more measured. “The more I look, the uglier it gets."
I sit forward, every muscle tensing. "Go on."
"I believe his plan was to sell Polina, pocket the money, then claim to us she'd been kidnapped. He'd demand we get her back—possibly starting a war between our organizations in the process."
My hand tightens around the phone as I start seeing the big picture. “A Bratva-Mafia war could benefit Lombardi."
"That's my conclusion as well. Weaken your authority with a war, and create the perfect chaos for Lombardi to usurp your position as Don.”
The pieces click into place with sickening clarity. The trafficking cell. The timing. The Bratva connection that should have been impossible.
"We've been gathering intel," Volkov continues. "But we haven't picked him for an interrogation yet.”
Interrogation. Such a polite word for torturing every last secret out of him.
“Now,” he continues, “Since I’ve done you the favor of providing you with a bride, I ask for a favor in return."
Of course he would. Volkov never gives anything for free.
"I'm listening."
"There are children. A boy and a girl. Marco and Lina Vitale. Currently in foster care." He pauses. "Their nanny raised them before their father was killed. She's married to one of my men now. She loves them and wants them back."
I know the family he's talking about. Carlo Vitale—dead now, slaughtered. The children were collateral damage in that mess.
