I curse under my breath. I should never have given him emergency access to my loft in Tribeca, but Luca has saved my life twice. Old debts die hard.
"Seriously, though," he continues, peering at the photos I've compiled, "not bad, Rosso. Not bad at all. The Bratva princess is hot. And terrifying. But mostly hot."
Luca's my oldest friend and my most significant liability. Club owner. Arms dealer. Part-time art thief. Full-time pain in my ass. He exists in a perpetual state of expensive dishevelment, like someone who just rolled out of a model's bed and into a Tom Ford suit.
“There is something about her that I can’t place.” I say, bringing up a secure browser window.
“What is it?”
“She has to be a hacker. The Petrovs wouldn’t let an outsider handle their cyber empire.”
“I mean, it makes sense considering you handle it for Vito.”
“I need to know what her hacker name is.”
“It sounds like she is the Yin to your Yang.” He adds, laughing.
I scowl. "This isn't a joke, Luca."
"Everything's a joke, fratello. Some punchlines just take longer to land." He flops onto my leather couch, producing a flask from his inner pocket. "Besides, what's the problem? You get a hot genius wife, and Vito gets his precious alliance. Everybody wins."
"Except for my freedom."
Luca rolls his eyes. "Freedom is overrated. Trust me, I've slept with half of New York, and I'm still bored out of my mind."
"Your commitment issues aren't relevant to my forced marriage."
"Sure they are." He takes a long swig from his flask. "The grass is always greener, my friend. You want out, I want meaning, the world keeps spinning."
I turn back to my screens, pulling up another dossier. There are gaps in Kira's timeline—periods where she disappears from public record completely. "She vanished for nearly eight months last year. No digital trail at all."
"Probably on a super-secret Bratva mission. Or rehab. Rich girls love rehab."
"She doesn't strike me as the rehab type."
"You’re right," Luca agrees, his voice suddenly serious. "She strikes me as the 'bury-a-body-and-never-think-about-it-again' type."
I can't disagree. Something about Kira Petrov's eyes in these photographs—cold, calculating, constantly evaluating—sends a chill down my spine that isn't entirely unpleasant.
"I need a way out of this," I say, more to myself than to Luca.
"Or," Luca counters, "you need to embrace it. You're being handed a powerful alliance on a silver platter. Use it."
I shake my head. "I've spent three years building my exit strategy. I'm not tossing it away for a political marriage to a woman who might kill me in my sleep."
"Kinky."
"Luca—"
"Look," he cuts me off, sitting up straight for once. "You want out? Fine. But maybe consider that having the Bratva princess on your side could make leaving a lot easier. Think tactically, like Vito taught you. I mean, do you really want to take unnecessary risks?"
I pause, considering his words. It's not terrible logic, which is rare from Luca after midnight.
"She'd never betray her family. I doubt she would go out of her way to help me." I say.
Luca shrugs. "Everyone has a price. Figure out hers."
My phone buzzes—a notification from one of my security systems monitoring the shared Bratva-Rosso financial network. Something's triggered an alert.
