Page 89 of Savage Little War

My men nod in agreement.

A slow grin crosses my face as I pull the family rings from my pocket and let them rattle in my palm. “I still miss Mikhail, but I know he would’ve wanted better than what these bastards turned the Bratva into. So, I’m taking it. I’m Pakhan now. If anyone wants that title from me, they can come try to take it.”

“Fuck yeah,” Luca says.

“Let’s get cleaned up. I think we deserve a drink or two.”

“Just two?” Leo asks with a laugh as everyone starts to leave the room.

Once we clean up at Andrei’s place and have those promised drinks, I finally take a second to process what I accomplished tonight.

It’s one hell of a thing we did. Not something I ever would’ve imagined before Cara came along.

She was an unexpected surprise I wasn’t sure I deserved to have in my life.

But now, more than ever, I know she’s meant to be my wife.

The thought of another marriage that never happened sends me over to Luca, who’s sprawled on the sofa with his feet on Andrei’s glass table, much to Andrei’s dismay, a whiskey sloshing in his hand.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I say to him.

Luca stills, then says, “What’s up? Did Andrei ask you to kill me?”

“I’m serious,” I tell him. I draw in a breath trying to decide where to start. “My men have been digging around to make sure we don’t have any other threats lurking. Some of them were looking into Ferro and the Italians tied to him. Something came up about you and Ferro. About a woman you were both connected to.”

Luca frowns as his shoulders sink a few inches. “Mia. I was supposed to marry her, but someone killed her. Enrico blamed me. Said my enemies went after her.”

I place my hand on his shoulder as I shake my head. He’d been lied to too, just like the rest of us.

“That’s what they found,” I tell him. “Mia isn’t dead, Luca. She faked her death to get out of the wedding.”

Luca’s jaw drops. “You…you’re certain? She’s alive?”

“I’m certain. I don’t know how you feel about that, but I’ll have Denis send you everything we found on her whereabouts if you want it.”

He nods and swallows. Then he just sits there for a second, stunned, his drink forgotten in his hand.

“All this time,” he says quietly. “All this fucking time…”

I nod once. “Yeah.”

He looks up at me then, something raw and shaken in his eyes. “You really know how to end a bachelor party, amico.”

With a dry laugh, I leave Luca to his shock and Andrei to his liquor and step out into the thinning night.

Tonight, I slaughtered the Bratva Council and crowned myself Pakhan.

Tomorrow, I get to marry the love of my life.

And the whole city will wake up to a new order.

27

Cara

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

The makeup artist and hairdresser exchange amused smiles before doing their last-minute touch-ups.