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“But you said—”
“Forget what I said,” I tell her sharply, standing up to unbutton my shirt. “Let’s forget everything that happened before last night. Everything we did, everything we said. We’re starting fresh. Trying something new.”
I know, deep down, that this is a terrible idea. There’s no forgetting the things we’ve said to each other, the circumstances that we married under, the horrible tangle of betrayal and blood and death that led us to stand hand in hand in St. Patrick’s and say vows to each other that we didn’t mean. But I can’t seem to stop myself.
Stripping the rest of my clothes off, I step into the tub, sinking down into the hot water with Sofia. As I pull her against me, feeling my cock rise all over again at the touch of her warm, wet skin against mine, I can’t regret the choices I’m making.
Even if I know, it’s all going to come crashing down, eventually.
* * *
Above anything else,I know that I need to make peace with Viktor. With that in mind, I spend the next days trying to get in touch with Levin so that I can try to speak to Viktor again. The fury that I felt the night I came home to Sofia after the intruder hasn’t abated—I want to kill him as much as ever.
But unlike Rossi, I know that’s not an answer. Taking out Viktor isn’t as easy as simply going after him or sending an assassin in the night, and I have no desire to see dozens more of my men die trying to bring him down. All I want is an end to this, a peace that will keep anyone else from dying.
Rossi thinks vengeance is worth it. I disagree.
I’ve been to see him once more. Somehow he’d heard about the intruder, and the satisfaction in his face when he asked me if I understood, now, why he wanted them all dead made me want to punch him. But I’m not about to hit a convalescent old man in his hospital bed, so I ignored it, just like I ignored his insistence that we go to war with the Russians as much as possible. “I’m looking for a solution,” I told him over and over again, even as his aging face turned red with anger. “I’ve met with Viktor once. I’m going to try to do so again.”
Viktor and I meet on neutral territory, near a small pond in a less well-traveled section of Central Park. Whether it’s the sunlight or the stresses of the past weeks, I notice he looks slightly older than usual—the greying hair at his temples more prominent, the faint lines around his eyes a bit deeper. There’s salt and pepper stubble on his chin, and it gives me a moment’s pleasure to think that maybe all of this is getting to him as much as it is me.
“I hope you have something new to discuss, Luca,” Viktor says darkly as I approach, my security hanging back. I can see them watching Viktor’s guards with a careful eye, but I hope there won’t be any conflict today. I’m not here to start a fight unless he forces my hand.
“Since there’s still no peace, anything we say will be new,” I tell him flatly. “Someone tried to kill my wife a few nights ago. Will you admit to it being you?”
Viktor shrugs. “How many enemies do you have, Luca?”
“As far as I know, only the Bratva. And you are the Bratva. So—only you, Viktor. But I don’t wish for us to be enemies.”
“I can’t see how we’ll ever be friends.” Viktor raises one bushy eyebrow. “There’s too much bad blood between Italian and Russian, mafia and Bratva. There’s not enough water in the world to wash away all that we’ve spilled.”
“No,” I agree. “But we could let it wash away on its own. We could refuse to add to it.” I take a deep breath. “What do you hope to achieve with this, Viktor? Surely you can’t think that killing my wife is a wise move.”
“Easy. Your territory to rule. Your businesses to profit from. Your women to sell.” Viktor shrugs. “What is there not to want?”
“You really think that you can take all of that? This conflict has been going off and on for decades, Viktor, since our fathers had these conversations instead of you and me. Let’s put it to bed, once and for all. Let us be the ones who make peace instead of war.”
“You offer words and nothing else,” Viktor says, anger coloring his words. “You must think of me weak to agree to such a thing.”
“I’ve offered you money and drugs, access to a portion of our cocaine shipments,” I argue impatiently. “That’s not nothing, Viktor. You say it’s me who keeps us from making peace, but it’s you who refuses to accept reasonable terms.”
“I told you what—or ratherwhoI will accept as the price of peace.” Viktor glares at me. “I’ve heard that you convinced that ballless Irish priest of yours to move up the dates of the wedding, but Caterina Rossi is still unwed. Give me the Rossi girl as my wife, and my men will not set foot in Italian territory for a hundred years. I’ll put it in the fucking marriage contract.”
Fucking hell.“I can’t give you a wife,” I growl through gritted teeth. “I don’t barter and sell women the way you do. Caterina isn’t mine to give to you.”
Viktor laughs mockingly, but I can see the angry red creeping up his throat. “You fucking Italians,” he snarls, spitting on the ground at my feet before looking up at me with icy eyes. “You think you’re so much better than us Russians since you don’t traffic in human flesh. But you’re no different. You make slaves and whores with the drugs you sell, just as we do with the women we auction. You have as much blood on your hands from the arms you deal as any one of my men.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is the same,yobanaya suka.” Viktor spits again. “You and your Italianbliadsthink you’re so sophisticated, so elegant, so much more restrained. You think we Russians are nothing more than brutal dogs, to be punished or put down when we misbehave too badly. But we are not dogs. We arevolki, medvedi.Wolves. Bears. And at least my men and I are honest with ourselves about who and what we are.”
“You’re making it impossible to broker peace, Viktor—”
“There will be no peace!” Viktor snarls. His ice-blue eyes glint angrily, and I can see his posture hardening, rigid with anger. The bad blood between us, generations’ worth, is no longer at a simmer but at a boil. “And when you and the Irish bastard you call underboss are dead, I will take both of your wives for my own. I’ll fuck them next to each other while they look at your dead bodies. I’ll fuck them in the pools of your blood and then decide who I’ll call wife and who I’ll call mistress.” He jerks his head at his guards. “Poydem,” he growls. “Let’s go. Leave thispodonokto his own peace.”His accent is thicker than ever as he speaks, and though I want to try to stop him, something warns me away from that.
But still, as I watch him go, I can feel my heart sinking.No more blood. I don’t want to see another one of my men die. Gio is still in the hospital, struggling in critical condition. I don’t want the death and destruction that I know will follow.
I can’t give him Caterina, though, any more than I could or would have given him Sofia. Which puts me in an impossible position.
There’s no way to know what the coming days will bring. But I know one thing for certain.
I won’t let Viktor harm Sofia.
Not if it kills me.
