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Niko’s playful expression hardened in an instant. His hand lashed across the table and grabbed Sofia’s slim, tanned wrist. “Only one of us has had the pleasure of cutting the other’s flesh,dorogiya. I’m still waiting for my turn.”
“And you’ll be waiting a long time after I marry your brother,” she murmured.
“Children, behave,” Antonio rumbled, seeming completely unconcerned that someone was threatening to cut up his daughter.
At my expression, he chuckled deep in his barrel chest. “Don’t worry, Kirill. Sofia isn’t some pampered little princess. She’s tough, and she can protect herself. She’s lived in a house full offamigliamen and been the only woman her entire life. She doesn’t need me to defend her.” He flicked his hand dismissively at Nikolai. “Your brother has seen this first-hand.”
Viktor and Antonio fell into conversation.
Niko smirked, his attention never wavering from Sofia. “One day, tough little mafia daddy’s girl, I will return the favor. Then, you’ll call me your daddy and beg for your life.”
His dark eyes flashed, and I knew I was seeing a rare glimpse beneath the charming mask my brother wore. He looked deadly and obsessed.
“Whatever keeps you warm at night, Nikolai,” Sofia said, tugging her wrist from his hold. Nikolai sat back and glared at her as she turned to me. “So, what’s your story, Kirill? I never hear anything about you.”
“Because he lives like a monk. You won’t have any fun with that one. He lost his dick to some girl a lifetime ago and forgot how to use it,” Niko muttered.
His swords sent alarm prickling along my nerves. It wasn’t much for Nikolai to know, but considering who he was, it was too much. I didn’t want my brother to know anything about Mallory until I was ready. Preferably when I had chained her to my bed by the ankle, she was pregnant, married to me, and he and Viktor were seven feet under.
“That’s enough, Nikolai. I’m sure Sofia has better things to do than sit around and listen to your adolescent ramblings.” I turned my attention to the woman beside me.
She was stunning. She had that air about her that chic Italian women often do, a hint of amused mystery like she’d just heard something funny, but you couldn’t know it. Her dark shining cap of hair looked more playful than her serious expression would make her seem. She wore blood-red lipstick and held carried an effortlessly expensive chic look. Like a painting in a museum, I saw all her attributes impersonally. She wasn’t my type. Over the years apart, I’d come to understand that I didn’t have a preference in hair color, body type, or anything else so pedestrian. I had one type—Molly. Other women might as well be an end table for all the interest they elicited in me.
Sofia De Sanctis looked elegant and pampered. Too rich for my blood by far. The De Sanctis’ dripped money and luxury wherever they went. The Chernovs were a world apart. We had no class or elegance. We were hard, bitter, and brutal. Sofia De Sanctis had no idea how brutal. I suspected that despite her upbringing, she had no idea what brutality meant in the hands of uneducated men like the Chernov bratva.
Poor Mallory would soon find out. Mallory with her cheap and tattered clothes and rail-thin frame. Mallory, with her rebellious nature. Even when she’d been rich enough to wear the pampered princess styles of Sofia, she had opted for ripped fishnets, black nail polish, and goodwill jeans. A middle finger to her father and the wealthy elite of Woodhaven.
Her beauty didn’t burn any less bright because of it, though. Mallory Madison had the kind of beauty that didn’t require adornment or gilding to shine. Her face was a sucker punch to the gut, and it winded me every time. Nikolai wasn’t kidding about me living a monkish, austere life. Maybe I was a religious zealot of a deity of my choosing. Mallory Madison was the only altar I’d kneel at. She was mine to worship, mine to protect, and mine to destroy.
“I’m also sure she has better things to do than get engaged to a man she doesn’t know,” I continued.
Sofia raised an eyebrow at me. “Go on,” she prodded.
I sipped my drink. The sweetness of the champagne curdled my stomach, and I ordered a whiskey neat instead.I looked to Sofia for her order.
“The same,” she told the waiter before fixing me with a no-nonsense look. “Elaborate.”
“There’s nothing much to add. Your father dotes on you. I’d imagine if you were unhappy with the engagement, it wouldn’t go ahead,” I explained simply.
The easiest thing for me would be if Sofia backed out and convinced her father to forget the whole thing.
She smirked at me, but the expression held a hint of pain and vulnerability that hadn’t been there before.“I’m flattered you think I could influence him that much. You overestimate me, Kirill. My father might like to dress me up and trot me out before his men at parties, showing off his clever, tough little girl, but I’m a puppet.” She sipped her drink, tasting the harsh, warming alcohol without a twitch. “He’s the master.”
“Fuck, do you know how many men I’d kill to have you call me master,dorogiya?” Nikolai muttered across the table.
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” she snapped at him before returning her attention to me. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want this to happen, the ball is in your court.”
13
MOLLY
Two days. It had been two days since I’d left the hospital, and Kirill hadn’t called. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. “Thinking” was putting it mildly. Obsessing was more accurate. I tried to put it out of my head as I went to meet Theo and his friend, the musician. I needed money, and this could be a well-paying gig.
The café on 5thwas a favorite meeting spot locally. It was as authentic as you could get to a dive bar in an area that was soon to be gentrified. I didn’t look forward to those days as it would mean moving again.
A bell rang out my arrival as I stepped into the open plan space. The light inside was a mix of bright neon and sunlight flooding through a wall of windows. Smoky-sounding electronica played from somewhere, and the walls were an eclectic mix of local art, graffiti, and song lyrics.
As soon as I stepped into the incense-smelling atmosphere, Theo stood up from a table in the middle of the open, leafy space.“Lori! Over here!”
