“I understand my duty and the oath I took,” I say, each word acid in my mouth.
“Good.” He claps me on the shoulder. “Now get some sleep. You have a bachelor party to plan.”
He says to lighten the death sentence he has given me because that’s precisely what marrying Kira Petrov means. After Vito dismisses me, I sit in my car for a long time, staring at the folder on the passenger seat. I open it again to the photograph of Kira Petrov. Those eyes. It’s like she can see right through me.
Bratva and Cosa Nostra. A marriage built on digital empires and blood money. What a fucking joke.
I start the engine. My mind is already recalculating, adapting, and planning. Vito thinks he’s cornered me with duty and tradition. What he doesn’t realize is that adding Kira Petrov to the equation hasn’t ended my escape plan.
It’s just changed the variables.
And I’m very, very good with variables.
CHAPTER 2
Kira Petrov
Everyone remembers the photos,but no one remembers the codes I’ve written to end whoever threatens the family or our business.
When I was nineteen, I took modeling jobs to build my own capital. It was important to me to separate from my father’s blood money. I didn’t want to be under his thumb. Lingerie, swimwear, editorial—I did what was necessary to establish independence. But the aftermath was more damaging than expected. Men use those images as ammunition to undermine me, as if beauty and intelligence can’t possibly coexist.
They think I’m just a pretty face. A body they’ve seen in magazines, dripping in lace or gold-threaded bikini bottoms, airbrushed to perfection and posed just right to sell the illusion. They don’t see the blade I keep tucked beneath the silk. That would ruin their fantasy of someone like me.
In this world—myworld—men like their women one of two ways: bloodthirsty or fuckable. And God forbid you ever try to be both.
Every deal I close, every gun I load, every brutal move I make behind closed doors—it’s all done with their laughter echoing inthe back of my head. The whispers:She’s just the Bratva’s doll. A little girl playing tough. This world isn’t for the little princess with the perfect manicure.
They forget that I bleed Petrov. My father taught me how to shoot a gun before I was old enough to drive. I’m just Kira. The heiress. The pretty distraction. The girl with legs for days and no brains behind her Botox-free forehead.
Let them underestimate me. Let them sneer. Let them remember the posters and the perfume campaigns. Because when I come for their throats, they’ll realize too late?—
I’m never just a model.
I’m the warning they ignore.
And I’ve had enough of playing nice.
As I sit at the end of a long mahogany table, surrounded by men who control enough firepower to level Moscow twice over, I watch them fumble through basic financial concepts like children playing with loaded guns. Yet my father believes these men are the best in their field. The whole thing is comical. This meeting is an insult to my intelligence. My degree from Harvard flushed down the drain.
“It’s simple,” grunts Kozlov, a gray-haired brigadier with hands like hammers. “Money flows in, money flows out. If there’s a leak, we find the pipe and crush it.”
The other six men nod approvingly. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from rolling my eyes. These men—these killers and enforcers—still think in terms of physical things they can touch, break, or bury. And some things are—gold bars, real estate, and art. But the real currency, the future, is cryptocurrency. Something they can’t seem to wrap their mind around.
“With respect, Brigadier, the problem isn’t that simple,” I say, my voice deliberately soft, forcing them to lean in.
Kozlov’s small eyes narrow. “For someone who spent years posing in underwear, you seem very confident about financial matters.”
There it is. They never let me forget. I have to work twice as hard, despite being better and smarter than all the men sitting around this table combined. Unfortunately, my father does nothing to help my case. He is too busy being a traditional Russian man, father, and mob boss in no particular order. I’m too pretty to know what I’m talking about.
I smile, all ice. “For someone who spent years breaking kneecaps, you seem very confident about international banking.”
A dangerous silence falls. Then, from the head of the table, my father chuckles. Not because he finds it amusing—Vadim Petrov rarely finds anything amusing—but because he recognizes a tactical victory when he sees one. I am, after all, my father’s daughter.
“My daughter,” he says, his accent thickening with false pride, “has a certain… directness I admire.” He nods to me. “Continue, Kira.”
I pull up the holographic display that hovers above the center of the table. One of the many tools I use to bring these men into the 21st century. It’s also helpful with men like them, who only believe what they can see.
“A micro what?” One of the men asks.
