That's the worst part. He's letting me do this because he knows I need to hit something, and he's willing to be that something if it keeps me from making a bigger mistake.
"She's made it clear she doesn't want you," Igor says quietly. "What happens when the next rejection comes? When she runs to her brothers and tells them the Baganov heir has been stalking her like prey?"
My grip tightens. The tendons in my forearms burn.
"Pietro Sartori will put a bullet in your skull himself. And your father—" Igor's jaw flexes. "Your father will die knowing his son threw away everything for a woman who couldn't stand the sight of him."
I shove him backward. He catches himself against the wall, straightening his jacket without taking his eyes off me.
The silence stretches. My pulse pounds in my temples, in my throat, in my fists.
He's right.
Blyad, he's right, and I hate him for it.
I drag both hands through my hair. The vodka churns in my gut. Through the floor, I can feel the bass from the club below, the vibration of hundreds of bodies moving to music that sounds like my heartbeat—relentless, pounding, desperate.
"I can't stop."
I don't look at Igor when I say it. I look at the security monitors instead, at the feed showing my men gathered in the training room, at the empty chair where Vittoria will sit in a few minutes.
"I know I should. I know this is—"Madness. Obsession."I know."
Igor exhales slowly. When I finally turn, he's watching me with something that looks almost like pity. On anyone else, I'd kill them for it. On him, I can only endure it.
"Then be smarter about it," he says. "If you're determined to pursue this—and clearly, you are—then stop acting like a man possessed. Stop manipulating situations. Stop having Yuri follow her every move."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vittoria
The training session lasted exactly four hours and twelve minutes.
I know because I counted every single one of them, waiting for Dmitri Baganov to walk through that door.
He never did.
His men absorbed the security protocols like sponges. Professional, competent, asking intelligent questions about the facial recognition algorithms. By the time I finished, they understood the system better than half of Pietro's guys. Granite Man even cracked something resembling a smile when I showed him the behavioral analysis override.
And their boss? Nowhere to be found.
It's just beginning.
"Vittoria, are you listening?"
Lorenzo's voice cuts through my mental spiral. We're in the formal dining room. The one Mamma insisted we use tonight instead of the kitchen where we actually eat like human beings. Fresh flowers crowd every surface.
"Sorry." I smooth down my dress—a modest burgundy number that covers everything Mamma might disapprove of. "What did you say?"
"I asked if you wanted red or white wine for dinner." Lorenzo holds up two bottles, his expression patient. Sophia stands beside him, arranging place cards with the precision of a surgeon.
"Red. Definitely red."
I'm going to need it.
The front door opens, and the compound shifts. Guards straighten.
Aria Sartori has arrived.
