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“No,” Rior says. “But we have our defenses in line to make sure nothing of ours goes down.”
“That’s damn odd.” Lachlan plays with his knife. “Everyone knows by now that it was Alexei. We leaked that. We’re all holding our breath, waiting for the first strike.”
I rub my chin. “He called me, screamed at me about something stupid. He sounds as unhinged as Alexei does.” I don’t repeat the cutting words of how I committed a sin, letting Norah be cremated, and that I’m going to hell. Changing the subject, I say, “Any idea who the hell that Russian was that I killed?” I fist a tumbler of whiskey so hard I could break the damn the thing.
Rior gives a calm shrug. “Couldn’t identify him. Balor came up empty. Neither his DNA nor his prints were in any database.”
“How is that possible?”
Lachlan gives a throaty, sarcastic laugh. “Don’t question Balor like that to his face.”
“I’m not afraid of Balor,” I argue back.
“You should be,” Riordan deadpans, and I’m not sure to what degree he’s kidding. “It basically means that the guy is fresh. Fresh from some camp in Siberia.”
“Set up a meeting with Alexei. We should have met with him sooner,” I say, hiding the regret in my voice from that misstep.
“Doing that right away would have made us look guilty.” Riordan, my strategic thinker, attempts to get me off the hook.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I pat my suit jacket. “I seemed to have misplaced my X-ray twenty-twenty hindsight glasses.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lachlan keeps it real with me, something I appreciate, even if it makes me want to bash his face in.
“I’ll handle it,” Riordan says and then steers Lachlan down the hallway that leads to his front door. A small parlor room sits by the entryway, where his capos and personal guard hang out when they’re not out on the streets.
Riordan puts his arm around Lachlan’s shoulders, and their closeness makes me jealous. Left out. They might feel like they got left behind, but I got shoved to the front of the line and handed a crown.
Rior, Lach, and I worked the streets for my father as a team, reporting to his revolving underbosses. We had to prove ourselves. Me included. I’m just as fierce as they are. But when my mother’s illness started to progress, Da kept me inside more. Got me fitted for suits and brought me to business meetings. Next thing I knew, it’d been weeks before I was in a pair of jeans.
Being king was my destiny. And for that, I have a queen I left quivering for me. I look out over the East River to Manhattan.
What irony. Living outside of the world’s most famous city gets you the best views. With water on two sides, multiple key subway lines, thriving businesses, and one of the major commercial routes into Manhattan, Astoria was perfect for what Da wanted to achieve. Plenty of money to be made here with underground dealings andwithouteveryone on the planet wanting a piece of it.
Across the river, Manhattan is the perfect shiny diversion where many global syndicates planted their flags, most without even knowing Astoria, and its riches, exist.
For years, my father, along with Gabe Parisi Sr. and a very young Alexei Koslov, the Russian who just wouldn’t take no for a fucking answer, carved up Astoria into three lucrative opportunities.
Riordan finally struts back into the living room and pours himself another drink, calm and collected. A glance around has me wondering how many women he fucks here. He doesn’t belong to my club.
“Want to tell me what’s really bothering you?” Riordan holds out the bottle of Macallan 25 to me, and I let him fill my glass.
Time to face my demons.
“Did I make a mistake marrying Isabella?” I take a sip, stalling. “Be honest.”
“Want the truth?” Rior sits back in the leather club chair and crosses one leg over his ankle. He’s wearing his usual black slacks and a dark blue dress shirt.
Lachlan dresses almost identically, except he goes all black.
“Yes, I want the truth. I did this. I can undo it,” I say, ignoring the pinch in my heart at the idea of sending Isabella back to her father, raging at the thought of not only losing her but sickened at wondering who he might give her to next.
“I think the move was brilliant,” Rior pays me a rare ass-kissing compliment. “Within minutes of that house exploding, you saw war on the horizon. And when you told me you wanted to buy Isabella to finance Gabe’s revenge, I saw the look of bloodlust in your eyes. Right there…you earned that crown.”
I play with my wedding ring. “That’s it, huh? Just to see the Italians and Russians destroy each other?”
“Thirty million means nothing to you. You could have offered him the money through a shell account and walked away. You took Isabella because you wanted her as a wife. Notanywife.Her.”
“I… I feel things for her that I didn’t think I would. It’s messing with me. I feel like it’s a damn betrayal to Norah,” I grind out and squeeze the glass so hard, this time it does break.
