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Rose isn’t anywhere, really.
I walk over to Dmitri and touch his chest for a moment. “I’m finally tired,” I confess in a low whisper. “I think I’ll go to bed.”
He bends down and presses the faintest of kisses to the top of my head. “Sweet dreams, Wren.” I start to leave, but he snares my wrist and makes me look at him. “Everything will be okay.”
I didn’t even know I needed to hear that. I lean my head against his shoulder for one more moment and close my eyes.
I decide to believe him.
24
DMITRI
Aleks flies into my office so hard that the door slams into the wall and sends a spray of dust cascading through the air.
I start to growl, “The fuck is wrong with—” Then I notice his face.
Pale. Sweaty. Furious.
I jump to my feet. “What happened?”
“That motherfucker happened,” he spits. “They attacked us in retaliation for that shithole you torched.”
I can’t say I’m surprised. Retaliation is to be expected when you deal in power games. “Where’d they hit?”
“The cement factory in McKinley Park. It was fucking savagery, man. Like goddamn animals. We lost thirteen men.”
No wonder he looks so unhinged. “Who?”
“Artem. Denis. Daniil. The whole crew.”
I wince. My brother loves with his whole heart, and I know damn well that every single one of those losses will haunt him to the end of his days. “We’re gonna get them back for this, brat,” I tell him confidently. “We will avenge their deaths.”
He sags into the nearest armchair. All the rage that brought him storming in here is gone now, replaced with a hollow sort of misery. “Daniil was gonna propose to his woman next week. He had the proposal all planned out. He…” He trails off, lost in his own grief for a moment. Then he raises his eyes to me and I see the embers of revenge still burning in there. “We need to fucking act, Dmitri.”
“And we will,” I assure you. “But we need to be careful.”
“Now, you want to play it safe? After you went all commando on that stupid fucking bar?”
“No, I want to play it smart,” I retort, planting my fists on my desk. “I want to systematically wipe them out until there’s no trace they were ever here in the first place. Just because we’re not killing everyone we see yet doesn’t mean we aren’t at war, Aleks.” That seems to mollify him, at least a little bit. I meet his eye. “I swear to you, the Irish will pay for this.”
Aleks freezes. “Brother, it wasn’t the Irish who attacked us.” My blood starts to boil before he even finishes his sentence. “It was the Italians.”
My breath catches in my chest. “Vittorio,” I croak.
He nods. “He’s trying to send us a message. Trying to say that they’re stronger than we are. And right now, he’d be right. If we went up against the Irish, we’d win easily. If we went up against the Italians, we’d win easily. But both? Together?”
His scowl dissipates. Now, he just looks worried.
But fuck his pessimism. I’ve never met long odds that didn’t just motivate me to be better, stronger, faster, more ruthless.
Let Vittorio align himself with whoever he wants; it won’t make a bit of difference.
In the end, all my enemies will burn.
“To Artem!”
A chorus of cheers fills the night. The fire that burns between us throws dancing shadows onto the walls as the men of the Egorov Bratva raise their vodka glasses in tribute to our fallen comrades.
