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But my gaze only lingers on her for a moment before I catch sight of the man beside her. He’s impressively tall, muscularly built, with well-trimmed black stubble gracing a strong jaw. He’s not old enough to be her father, but he holds the authority of a man who’s used to giving orders. And there’s something intensely familiar about him. I feel as though I know him from somewhere, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.Maybe I’ve served him at my restaurant before?But that doesn’t seem right.
“Alright, I’ve spoken with the dean, and I can give you a week’s extension for your payment,” my helper says, drawing my attention back to her.
“A week?” I say as a rock settles in my stomach.
The woman’s hard face seems to soften at my tone. “That’s all I can give you. I hope it helps.”
Tears sting my eyes as I realize just how close this might come. I don’t know if I can pull together the necessary amount in a week’s time. Two yes.But one week?“Thank you so much,” I say, forcing a smile to mask my anxiety.
“Good luck,” she says, dismissing me.
Dejected, I turn to step out of line, and my eyes meet a set of dark, intense ones watching me. The handsome, strong-jawed man in the line next to mine is watching me, and my heart flutters as I get that same sense that I know him from somewhere.
He murmurs something to the girl beside him and steps out of line as he approaches me. The scent of pine and sandalwood tickle my nose as he stops before me, his eyes never leaving mine, and my feet feel frozen to the cement as I wait for him to speak.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing your situation, and I thought I might have a word with you.”
The deep, musical sound of his Russian accent makes my stomach tremble, and suddenly, I remember why I know him. It’s been over a year since I saw him last, standing in front of his blue Lamborghini, looking for all the world like some Greek marble masterpiece. And now here he is again, turning my insides to mush in the middle of the admissions office as his penetrating eyes search my face. For what, I do not know.
2
ILYA
“This is going to be the best year ever. I can’t believe you’re letting me attend Rosehill,” Bianka gushes as we walk across the idyllic campus full of tall, mature trees and rough-hewn stone buildings. Everything about the place screams old-timey and classical, far different from the more manufacturing-town feel of Central Chicago, where I reign supreme.
“I still don’t understand why it had to bethiscollege,” I grumble, my senses on high alert as we stride through the well-established Marchetti territory.
Not that my Bratva is strictly prohibited from the mafia family’s area of rule, but it’s something of an unspoken understanding that we cross paths as little as possible to avoid any territory disputes. And I know the Marchettis’ reputation for being possessive. Still, I can’t seem to deny my kid sister anything she wants. And technically, our alliance allows me to enter their territory, but it’s a tentative alliance that I can’t always trust.
“Rosehill has the best theater program in the state!” Bianka insists, seeming oblivious to my concerns as she flounces across the pavement like she owns it.
Becoming a part of our family five years ago and learning what life is like under the protection of my wing has clearly gotten to her head. Though I’ve spoken to her about the necessity to lie low and keep her head down if she wants to attend Rosehill College, she seems as vibrant and outspoken as ever. As maddening as she is, I still love her for it.
“Well, you better become the next Idina Menzel if we’re putting a territory war on the line over it.”
“Pfft,” Bianka scoffs. “I won’t be the next Idina Menzel. I’ll be Julie Andrews,” she brags.
A low chuckle rumbles from my chest despite my best efforts to suppress it. In my world full of violence and danger, it’s nice to have a day indulging Bianka in her innocent, childlike dreams. It seems like a lifetime ago that she appeared unexpectedly in my life, knocking on the family manor’s front door one day to announce that she was my father’s daughter and that she’d come to find him.
While my father sired a slew of children in his lifetime, leaving me with more half siblings than I care to count, Bianka’s the only one who found her way to our door, and while my father couldn’t have cared less at the time, I’d taken a shine to her immediately. I made the call to put her and her mother up in a nice apartment nearby and send her to Englewood High so I might get to know her better. And though my father died a few years later without having gotten to know her better, I consider Bianka the only family I have left. She and her mom even moved into the main house with me after my father died.
I know what my father would have said about that decision, had he been alive. And for the most part, I make a disciplined practice of following his example to keep people at a distance. That’s why my mother was my father’s one and only wife, and while he might have paid for the upkeep of any illegitimate children that arose from the revolving door of mistresses that followed her untimely death, I was the only one he allowed in his home.
But my mother’s murder at the hands of a rival Bratva when I was seven years old had taught my father a valuable lesson that he passed down to me. Love is a vulnerability, one that the men in my line of work can’t afford. So like my father, the women I keep are mere entertainment, indulgences to meet my more basic needs. Beautiful creatures that I trade out every few years to ensure no one can get too attached.
My half sister Bianka is my one exception. She weaseled her way into my heart long ago, and now I’m starting to understand why my father’s practice of distance was so iron-clad. Now that Bianka’s starting college, at a school smack-dab in the middle of Marchetti territory nonetheless, I can feel the anxiety creeping into my chest. Those Italian dope pushers better not touch a hair on her head, or I’ll obliterate them–alliance or no.
Like the devil himself, as soon as I think of the mafia family, none other than Don Lorenzo appears before me like a phantom, his two younger sons–twins–wrestling boisterously beside him. They look to be about Bianka’s age, and if I had to guess, they’re here for freshmen registration as well.
Flanking the family are several guards, all distinctly Italian in appearance, though considerably larger than their more trim and lithe don. They might fit in more with me and my impressive Bratva ranks when it comes to size and muscle.
For an instant, as the don’s gaze homes in on me and he turns purposefully in my direction, I regret not bringing my own contingent of men. But I did so intentionally, knowing that if I should run into the Marchettis on their turf, it was better to do so alone. Bringing my men would come across as more aggressive and, more than likely, would have ended in a confrontation.
“If it isn’t the young Ilya Popov,pakhanto Chicago’s own Shulaya Bratva,” Lorenzo Marchetti purrs in a silky voice that carries across the distance between us.
Stopping short, I bristle at his diminutive, clenching my teeth hard enough to make the tendons in my jaw pop in an effort to maintain control of my temper. Bianka pauses alongside me, and I feel her eyes turn questioningly to study my face.
“Don Lorenzo,” I greet, forcing the tension from my tone as he closes the distance between us.
