How had he hidden this side of him for so long? Or had I chosen not to see it?
Shorty’s terrified face flashed through my mind again. I’d never seen her so scared. Not like that. Not her—the woman who went against me from day one, fearless and defiant.
I suddenly understood exactly what Vince, Cristo, and Alex must’ve felt when their women had been threatened.
The urge to destroy, to rip apart, to annihilate anyone who threatened what was yours was so different from dealing with someone in cold blood.
So how was Grey still alive?
I was done with this entire charade. All I wanted was to grab Shorty and leave this island behind. As long as I had my family and her, I didn’t care if everything burned to ash in our wake.
“I understand you’ve been hosting my nephews and nieces,” Marcus said, examining me with cold calculation. “I hope they’ve been sufficiently…cooperative.”
The way he emphasized “cooperative” sent an instinctive warning through my system, like the click of a mine beneath my boot. The visceral dislike I felt for this man, the hunger to hurt him, rose up in me with frightening speed.
“The Salvinis and Falcones are guests on this island,” I replied flatly, my voice dropping to that dangerous register that made my siblings tense.
I caught Anton’s raised eyebrow telling me to calm the fuck down.
Grey turned to me. “So then why the arrangement to leave?”
My mind went momentarily blank. I should’ve thought of a cover story instead of obsessing over Shorty. So what if all I could see was Isabella’s face, the way she’d paled at thesight of Marcus? The panic in her eyes—it shouldn’t turn off the rest of my brain.
“We’ve been dealing with some issues at the airfield,” Anton intervened smoothly, shifting slightly closer to me. A subtle warning. He knew the signs of when I was close to snapping. “Otherwise, we were just waiting for your arrival, sir.”
Grey raised an eyebrow. “Are you feeling unwell, Zotov? You seem…distracted.”
I forced myself to focus, drawing on years of experience to reassemble my mask. “The storm just needed some preparations,” I said simply.
Fuck Grey and his subtle digs.
Marcus moved to the window, watching the rain intensify. “I didn’t expect to see the women here. Mirabella and Isabella have grown up very nicely. They look just like their mother; don’t they, Grey?”
The statement ignited something darker than rage in my chest. A cold, calculating hatred.
Precise. Patient. Deadly.
I imagined my hands around Marcus’s throat, watching the life drain from his eyes for putting the fear I had witnessed in Shorty.
Vince and Matt exchanged dark looks. I wasn’t the only one not happy about Marcus’s interest in their sisters.
My hands wanted to form fists, but I forced them to remain flat against my thighs though every muscle in my body coiled tight, ready to spring.
Vince looked down at my hands, then up into my eyes. I held his gaze, and he stared back at me. Observing. Thinking. Reading me too well.
Roman shifted subtly toward me, bridging the space unconsciously.
Even Cristo Falcone—dangerous in his own right—adjusted his stance.
Did they all sense the shift in me, or was it their natural instincts, just like mine, that sensed something was about to explode?
“Let’s discuss the proposed cooperation,” Grey continued.
He probably sensed it, as well. He’d been one of the top operatives within the Paraskia Syndicate for years, and to pull off what he’d been pulling off for years, he wasn’t some cardboard villain.
“How is Mr. Moretti qualified to sit in on this meeting?” I asked.
Not that I wanted Moretti to roam around on his own, but as far as I knew, he was not privileged to listen in on Paraskia business.
