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“Brother.”
“Did you read my text yet?” he asked. I could hear giggling in the background. It’d been four years since Sergey and Lilianna got married and three years since they had a child, yet I hadn’t gotten used to the idea yet. I didn’t like it either, but I loved my nephew and Lilianna very much so I didn’t mind.
Not that anyone could tell Sergey what to and what not to do. He was the head of the Bratva after all.
“I would have read it if you didn’t call as soon as it came in.” I smiled to myself. “What is so urgent that you had to call immediately? Don’t tell me you missed me, that would be gross.”
“Man, you’re almost forty. Quit with the crazy jokes. It was cuter when you were eleven.”
“And miss the chance to piss you off? Never.”
Sergey sighed over the phone. Among my brothers, he was the least tolerable to jokes. Prior to Lilianna, his whole personality revolved around being a mafia boss and I couldn’t blame him. That was the only way he could instill fear and keep our family safe.
“How’s the casino going?”
Petty talk? That was never his thing. “Business is going well. Those healthy old farts come in every chance they get to feed their bad habits.” I gave a thought as to why he was calling. I knew it wasn’t just to check up on me or the casino.
Sergey cared for me and my other brothers, but it was limited to knowing that we were all safe and healthy. “Arrange a poker night for Friday night. Send out invitations to everyone who needs to be there.”
“What is the occasion?”
“We need to make sure our business goes three times better than it used to. If an alliance with Vincent doesn’t go through, that is the only way we can make a clean comeback.”
I tapped my finger on the table. Alexei came in just then, settling back in his seat. His forehead was sweaty, his shirt lousily buttoned. “Is there a reason you think it won’t go through?”
“Vincent hasn’t made his demands yet,” Sergey answered. “He will soon. But do we have to be ready for anything? You focus on the casino, Nik and Max will handle the other businesses.”
“Copy.”
“Stay out of trouble,” he said before he hung up.
Alexei had his eyes on me when I dropped my phone from my ear. “What does the boss want?”
“A poker night at the casino this weekend. He wants me to invite everyone who is relevant.”
“We should make a list. Who do you have in mind?”
I massaged my jaw, spacing out as I got lost in my thoughts. A list could wait, there was someone I wanted to see again. Someone I knew I should stay away from but I just couldn’t.
Mariana.
She was the first guest I was inviting, and she’d better have made up her mind already because holding back was no longer an option I could explore.
If she accepted my invitation, then it was over.
Chapter 9 - Mariana
“Please don’t tell me you’re actually thinking of accepting,” Christy says over the phone, her tone unimpressed.
Thinking.
I wasn’t thinking of accepting Vlad’s invitation. I’d thought of it already and decided I was going. Not because I hadn’t seen him since the night in the parking lot a week ago. And definitely not because I’d missed him despite him abandoning me half-naked and so wet I had to finish up with the small pocket boyfriend I kept in my drawer.
Christy got the memo over my silence. I imagined her rolling her eyes. “Girl, what are you thinking?”
Okay, Mariana. Time to come up with dumb excuses.
“Look, I’m only accepting his invitation because I need to call him out for walking out on me the way he did the other night?”
