Chapter 1 - Arko
I watched Beatrice Lebedev from the safety of my car, my black-tinted windows rolled right up. It was a hot day, and the aircon was on full blast, but the heat still clung to the leather seats, as if offended by my judgment.
I was, after all, stalking a twenty-four-year-old woman. For a forty-year-old man to do that wasn’t considered polite by most, but her family and I? We went back a long, long time.
Beatrice exited her vehicle, her convoy lined right up behind her chauffeur-driven SUV. Three men stepped out and escorted her into the dainty little café while the cars drove off to park and wait.
I pulled out my binoculars and peered through them, noticing over a dozen people stop and stare at the raven-haired beauty as she walked in to join her friends for the afternoon. I wondered what they thought.
Was she a movie star?
An influencer?
A billionaire’s daughter?
She was much, much more powerful. The youngest sister of Caspian Lebedev, a name every family that mattered in New York knew to fear and respect, whether politician or criminal. The Lebedevs, along with their allied families, the Vadims, Ajellos, and Ustinovs, were becoming the rule of law in the underworld, and they had to be stopped before they became too powerful to contain.
The little Lebedev princess had a laugh that carried. I watched her tilt her head back, her dark hair falling in waves, as she sat surrounded by her equally privileged friends. Shelaughed so full of life, with soft little dimples on her young face, that I almost felt bad.
She was innocent, but not unaware. She enjoyed the privileges that came with belonging to a Bratva family the world feared, and never attempted to leave those criminals behind. She enjoyed that life, didn’t she?
And that made her just as culpable in my eyes.
I saw her smiling at the waiter, the poor chap blushing at the respect she gave him, which he clearly mistook for attention.
Sure, she looked as sweet as cotton candy. But taking her would be anything but sweet for the Lebedev family. That thought alone warmed the coldest corners of my heart.
She gestured animatedly, those light brown eyes sparkling as she told some story that had the other girls wiping tears from their eyes. She existed like she’d never seen the ugly side of life. Maybe she hadn’t. After all, the Lebedevs protected their precious baby girl as if she were made of fine china.
For two weeks, I’d followed her around. Aware of her address, I’d stalked outside her house in my car, chasing her all over the city. But so far? I hadn’t had a single opportunity to take a swipe at her. She was always fucking surrounded by bodyguards that looked like they’d been trained by the US Marines.
And I was getting desperate. Angry.
I wasn’t the most patient man.
I lowered the binoculars and tried to rub away the pain in my head, but it wasn’t going anywhere. It had been there for three months now, ever since the deal I’d sealed with Marc Montes—that rat bastard of a prosecutor—failed to come through because of his own stupidity.
Montes, once upon a time, was a promising prosecutor. In exchange for the right amount, he did things for me that let me get ahead of the other families. He was in my pocket, on his knees, ready to do anything I said.
Until the bastard fucked up.
He had promised his daughter, Alisa. It was meant to be a simple arrangement to allow him to retire peacefully. With the dirt he had on me, I couldn’t just let him live out his life and pray he wouldn’t spill secrets once the cheques stopped coming, could I? So, I offered him protection and peace in exchange for one last barter—his daughter’s hand in marriage.
It was a test of loyalty, to see if the man would actually deliver his own flesh and blood on command.
He failed. Spectacularly.
Not only did he not deliver, but somehow the Lebedevs got involved. Next thing I know, Dante fucking Lebedev shows up at an auction Alisa was never supposed to be at, and snatches her away right in front of everyone.
A direct challenge. A goddamn slap to my face.
And now? Marc Montes was dead, and the Lebedevs had installed their own man in the prosecutor’s office—someone ‘clean’. Someone who wouldn’t touch Bratva money with a ten-foot pole, unless, of course, that man came with the last name Lebedev.
And the cherry on top of the cake? Alisa Montes was now married to Dante fucking Lebedev. That cunning, sniveling snake. For a while, I thought of snatching her back, but then I thought about how to hit them where it hurt the most.
And nothing screamed revenge better than stealing away the family princess. I smiled, thinking of the chaos that would cause.
I was about to pick up the binoculars again when my phone rang. Seeing that it was one of my guys, Daniil, whom I had tasked with finding out what he could on Beatrice’s movements, I immediately picked up.
