I do. Karolina has always been the mother hen, even though she's younger than me by eleven years.
"Tell Karolina to take whatever time she needs," I say. "The family can spare her."
"I will." Another pause. Longer this time. I hear ice clinking in a glass. Aleksander's drinking. That's not like him. "How is he, Dmitri? Papa. How is he really?"
The question lands like a blow to the solar plexus.
I stare at the restaurant entrance, watching a young couple emerge laughing. They have no idea that twenty feet away, a man stands contemplating how to tell his brother their father is dying.
"Not well." The admission scrapes my throat raw.
Silence. Then Aleksander's breath, shaky and sharp.
"Blyad." His voice cracks. "Does he—is he in pain?"
"They manage it. Morphine. Other things." I run a hand through my hair, suddenly exhausted. "He's lucid most days. Still giving orders. Still telling me I'm not ready to be pakhan."
"You've been ready for years."
"He doesn't think so." The bitterness leaks through before I can stop it. "He wants me married. Settled. A wife to show the other families I'm stable."
"And the Sartori girl?"
My jaw tightens. "What about her?"
"You're pursuing her. Igor told me."
Of course he did. Igor and Aleksander have been close since childhood. No secrets between them.
"It's complicated."
Aleksander laughs, but there's no humor in it. "With you, brother, it's always complicated. You don't do anything the simple way."
"She's..." I trail off, searching for words that don't exist. How do I explain Vittoria Sartori?
"She's unique," I finally say. "She's not afraid of me."
"Everyone's afraid of you, Dmitri."
"Not her." I think of her eyes in that bathroom, dark and defiant even as she shattered in my arms. "She looks at me like I'm a problem with a solution."
"Maybe you are."
"Maybe." I push off the car. "I should let you go. It's late."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Vittoria
Bruno sits in his wheelchair by the window, shoulders rigid, jaw set in that permanent scowl he's worn since waking up from the coma. He's forty but looks older now. Harder. Like someone carved him from granite and forgot to add the warmth.
Valentino stands near the bookshelf, arms crossed over his broad chest. Our cousin arrived three days ago, and he's spent more time in this room than anywhere else in the compound. His features and distinguished gray at his temples make him look like he walked straight out of an old Italian film. The kind where everyone dies at the end but looks beautiful doing it.
"You don't have to stay," Bruno growls at me without turning from the window.
I settle deeper into the armchair I've claimed. "Didn't ask for permission."
His fingers drum against the wheelchair arm.Tap, tap, tap.The rhythm of a man plotting something. "I don't want company."
