Marcello whistles. "That’s… inconvenient."
Toni shakes his head. "She’s a threat to Grigori. Which makes her a threat to us."
Raf doesn’t speak, but his eyes harden. He’s already calculating outcomes, probabilities, bodies. Enrico folds his arms; his dangerous mind is already figuring out all angles. "If Alexei challenges Grigori and dies, the old Russian Cells will come for her. Try to make her a figurehead. A symbol."
"A puppet," Marcello mutters.
"Or a corpse," Toni adds.
Stephano shakes his head. "We’re not killing her."
Enrico points at him. "We can’t leave a threat like her running around."
Marcello nods. "This is bigger than her. This is geopolitics."
Behind his calm exterior, Stephano is fraying. I can see it. He knows I’m right about the threat. He knows they’re right about the danger. And he knows his moral code is about to be tested in ways he’s never imagined.
Fine.
Time to offer the only viable alternative. For him. I smile, slow, sharp, wicked. "Well then, there is one other way."
Stephano turns to me instantly. "Oksana… what are you plotting?"
He knows that smile too well.
I address the table. "You want to neutralize Camilla as a weapon? You want to protect Grigori’s throne? You want to keep the Russian alliances intact?"
They nod, one by one.
"Then you need to make her less valuable as a political pawn."
"How?" Marcello asks.
I grin. "Marry her off."
Enrico chokes. Toni stares. Raf raises a single brow, like I’ve suggested we burn down the UN.
"Not to one of you idiots," I clarify. "Tomyfamily."
Stephano’s eyes widen. "Oksana?—"
"My uncle," I finish. Mikhail Arsenyev. My father's younger brother. Hard. Respected. Unmarried. Loyal. It clicks instantly.
Marcello speaks first. "Not a bad idea."
Toni laughs. "That’s actually… brilliant."
Enrico nods slowly. "It puts her under Russian protection. Removes her from Venezuelan reach. Strengthens our alliance. And ensures she can’t be used against Grigori."
Raf sighs. "And I suppose it prevents us from having to kill the girl. Which I wasn’t looking forward to. Especially since she's my…niecenow."
For a moment,I stare at Raf speechless. As Margarita's son, he toohas Voronin blood running through his veins.How had that not occurred to me?He grins at me, like he's been waiting to drop that particular bomb on me for centuries,not minutes. Shit. The others stare at Raf as surprised as me.
"Raf." I'm not sure what else to add to the sentence here. He just announced himselfasmine and Grigori's enemy.
He laughs, "Relax, I have no ambitions toward theRussian throne."
Hemight say that now, but he never had ambitions toward the Italian throne either,and here we are. Him being the Don of La Famiglia.
