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I couldn’t leave her there, no matter what Jae said. I might have taken a new name, but I’d always be an Ivanov deep down, and we took care of our own business.
It was time to visit my brother.
* * *
We endedup going to Rocco Luna. When we walked in, I realized with a pang that he’d been throwing an extravagant lunch for us. The thought that we were supposed to be celebrating our wedding now seemed so far from reality. It was jarring to see the balloons and fine food.
“I need to talk to Vincenzo. Can you wait here for me?’ Jae said, holding my hand tightly enough to cut the blood off.
I nodded and let go, but he didn’t.“You need to let go if you want me to stay here,” I reminded him.
He let out a sigh and nodded.“I’ll be back soon. Eat something if you want.”
He turned on his heel, striding through an archway into another part of the club and leaving me alone with the forlorn-looking decorations, a groaning table of food, and a coterie of armed men.
I sank down on a couch and stared at the balloons. Getting away from Jae was going to be tricky. I could tell him if I wanted to speak to Kon, but I was sure he wouldn’t let me.
“Reflecting on the trouble you’ve caused?” A voice asked.
I turned and was surprised to see a familiar-looking man approaching me. I took a second to place him. Seo Jun. Jae’s uncle. The one who had brought the other girls and me here from Shanghai.
“You seem to have quite the talent for causing problems. We missed you on the return journey. Imagine my surprise to find we were one girl down.” Seo Jun looked me up and down, his eyes lingering in a way that made my flesh crawl. “You’re unrecognizable as the little street rat who clawed and kicked her way here.”
“Yeah, well, a shower will do that. When you keep people like animals, they start to look like one,” I snapped at him.
He laughed, uncaring about my accusation. This man oozed slimy intentions. Where Jae and his father had an upright sense of honor and decorum, Seo Jun looked like the type who would sell his daughter to get ahead.
Daughter? Or niece?A creeping suspicion wormed into my head.
“I’m so sorry to hear about Hana,” I told him quietly. “Crazy that Kon and the bratva could get into the Song compound, given how secure it looked.”
“I guess your brother is smarter than he looks,” Seo Jun said, giving nothing away. “I’m sure Jae Han wishes he’d heard his terms now.”
“I’m sure he is. Maybe I can listen to them,” I said, laying the bait.
Seo Jun tensed a little, enough to give away his motivation.He shrugged, a carefully constructed nonchalant gesture. “If you wanted to, I could help you see him. Jae gets too emotional about things like this. It clouds his judgment.”
I stood, and the guards around me tensed. “You could help? I guess you have more power in the family than I expected.”
I bit my lip and looked impressed. Playing a man like Seo Jun was easy. Keeping the contempt from my face was the tricky part.
He smirked, and my work was done.
CHAPTER17
Jae Han
Talking with Vincenzo and Rocco solidified my plans. The Lucianos were behind me, which would make everything easier. If there was anything the mafia understood, it was the importance of family.
I strode from the back office Rocco used for the most private meetings and headed back to Kat. I reached the room where I’d left her and found the guards looking on.
“Where is she?”
My head guard shifted uncomfortably, and a weight settled in my belly. “Your uncle needed to speak to her. He ordered me to stand down… but he didn’t come back.”
I was moving before I could stop myself. I grabbed the guard and threw him into the wall. I pressed him against the surface, my hand on his windpipe.
“You let that man take her? You let that man take my wife?” I snarled at him. My icy mask was long broken, and I couldn’t calm down. The thought of Kat being hurt turned me into a madman.
