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Everywhere I look at this party, I see the least interesting person I’ve ever met. And the next, and the next. For a bunch of scumbags and criminals, you’d think they would have something engaging to discuss.
But they don’t. The furthest thing from it, in fact.
Because just about every soul under my roof tonight is here for the same irritating reason.
To get me to marry.
Whether it’s them I’m meant to be marrying, or their daughter, sister, cousin, mother, whoever, they aren’t too particular. They just want to get closer to me. To my empire. By any means necessary.
I don’t even blame them. The Pushkin Bratva is the biggest shark in a sea full of them. We have the money. The power. We decide who gets what and when, and the usual answers to those questions are “us,” “all of it,” and “right fucking now.”
“These things will be the death of me,” I mutter.
“So why are you here?” asks Yasha, my best friend and right-hand man, as he snares a toothpick of cheese from a passing waiter.
“Because Anya will be the death of me if I bail.”
He snorts through a mouthful of brie. “True. That sister of yours owes you one for what she’s putting you through tonight.”
“That she does,” I agree.
But even that is a massive understatement. I wouldn’t be here, subjecting myself to this bullshit, for anyone but her.
If it weren’t forme, though, she’d be going through hellfire right now. Our father was furious enough when he found out what she’d done. Rebuffing half a dozen decent marriage proposals in order to elope with a lowly Bratva foot soldier? It’s blasphemy in the eyes of the old bastard who birthed us. Daughters, in our father’s mind, are pawns to be moved around the board as he sees fit. God forbid they should marry for love.
I think she should do whatever the hell she wants. That being said, I’m not exactly big on the concept. Marry for love: fine, if that’s what Anya desires.
But I willnotbe doing the same.
If I’m going to be forced to marry, I’ll be marrying forbusiness. Nothing more. I’m marrying to take the heat off my sister’s transgressions. I’m marrying to solidify the Pushkin Bratva as the preeminent force in the American underworld.
Lovehas nothing to do with it.
A sudden sound from behind me draws my attention. Yasha and I turn as one, conditioned by years of fighting alongside one another to be ready for whatever comes next. It wouldn’t be the first party we’ve attended that ends in gunfire and bloodshed.
But there’s none of that to be seen.
Not yet, at least.
A woman I’ve never seen before is baring her fangs at the drunken nephew of the Greek Genakos mafia don. Stefanos is his name, I think. He’s coarse and sloppy, which matches his reputation. Even now, his eyes are rolling in their sockets, loosened by too much of the free booze on hand. His claws are reaching out toward the girl.
“Keep yourfuckinghands to yourself,” she spits at him.
“Aw, c’mon,” he mutters through clumsy lips. “I was just tryna be friendly.”
“By grabbing my ass?”
“Tryna appreciate you, too,” he mumbles. “You don’t gotta be a bitch about it.”
Her jaw drops. “Iknowyou did not just call me a bitch.”
“I said you’rebein’a bitch, not that you are—”
He doesn’t get to finish the sentence before she cracks him across the face with a vicious slap. Those freewheeling eyes of his go blank and he stumbles backwards. He bumps into a wall and wobbles.
Then he rights himself and his unkempt smile twists into something far meaner.
“Listen here, you fuckin’ whore…” He advances on her. Those hands of his suddenly don’t look so limp and harmless. He goes to paw her again. She tries to bat him off, but he’s bigger and stronger than her, so he just swallows her up with his bulk as he backs her into the corner by the bathrooms.
