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“There’s shit going down, Rose. I need to stop it.”
I don’t lift my head. “We.”
“I disagree, but fuck, it’s a turn on, how you want to get your hands wet with blood.” He pauses. “The idea of you in danger scares me.”
“I won’t be. I’ll have you.” I pause for a moment before confessing something I’ve been keeping hidden from him. “I’m scared you’ll lose yourself trying to do something against your nature in the name of keeping me safe,” I confess to him. “I’m with you; I’m safe.”
“You not there is keeping you safe.”
I turn and bite him, hard, just below the collarbone, hard enough to draw blood.
Grunting, he pulls my head up by the hair. “What the fuck, Rose?”
“I know what you’re trying to do. You’re going to shut me out.”
He sighs. “To keep you safe. I’m going to have to take out a shit ton of people, all the minor ones before I hit the big one.”
“Everyone who dares turn on you should go,” I say simply.
He gives a bark of laughter. “It’ll be brutal, ugly—”
“And you like it. And I love you, just how you are.”
He looks at me with eyes full of…pain?“They would hurt you, so they die. I like stopping people from hurting you. Maybe—”
I shoot down that thought before he can vocalize it. “Not you, Niko. You bring good hurt, not bad. You give me what I crave.”You give me you.
If he’s planning something insane like going on some kind of spree, taking out the ones he thinks are orchestrating the upheaval, there has to be an easy way… I look at him. “Niko, I have an idea. Move up our wedding again with last minute invites. Including all your targets.”
His brow arches, but not in mocking. No, it’s ininterest. “Then what? I take them out in Italy?”
“No.” I look at him. “We.”
Chapter15
Nikolai
Rose isn’t about to take any kind of no for an answer.
She’s fucking stubborn, and though it drives me crazy, I wouldn’t have her any other way.
It’s been a week, and we’re laying low. To the world, it’s pre-wedding shit. I’m leaning into so-called soft Nikolai, but there’s no love nest full of fucking apple blossoms.
This is war room planning.
People have been flying in, the new invites and the old.
If I could get away with it, I’d have flown back with a team and taken down every last motherfucker. I could have; it would have been easy. Not so easy, however, facing her after.
Like it or not, Rose is right. Italy’s perfect. The kind of bloodbath I’m planning on mafia home turf will be blamed on so many players, they won’t work out I’m behind it until it’s too late.
The wedding’s at a church in the countryside, on land owned by Belucci, who owns and runs swathes of Italy, Sicily in particular.
The guests are dotted across Palermo, the capital. Some have their own goons, others hired men belonging to Belucci and some of his cronies.
The hired men aren’t a bother. The other goons…it’s all dependent on how loyal they are, and that’s something some of my men are busy digging out for me.
I sip my whiskey as I finish up my call with Belucci. We aren’t making the mistake of being seen together to avoid public scrutiny. He’ll get a boost from the spoils of war, and I’ll strengthen my holdings and my rule of law…all which keep my Rose and cousin safe.
