Marco leans forward, frowning. “Why her? Why not you? Why not both?”
I don’t answer immediately, because I don’t like the truth swirling in the back of my mind. He’s right, if this was random, the guy would’ve gone for whoever he could get his hands on.
Luciano watches me with sharp eyes, reading the silence. “Whoever sent that man wasn’t trying to provoke you,” he says quietly. “They were trying to take her.”
The words hit the table like another blow, and for a moment the room feels too tight, too still.
“That means someone inside my hotel helped them,” Luciano adds, his voice calm. “Or looked the other way. We will find out who, and when we do… it will be handled.”
Luciano turns to me again. “Is she safe now?”
“She’s upstairs,” I say.
“And you’re sure she’s okay?”
That… I don’t answer right away, because I don’t know. She wasn’t okay when I left.
“She’s fine,” I say eventually. “Just shaken.”
Luciano studies me for a moment, then nods slowly, accepting the answer even though he knows I’m holding back more than I’m saying.
He shifts his attention to the rest of the table. “Security is doubled on all floors. No one moves without my permission. Until we know who did this, no one breathes in this hotel without my men knowing about it.”
“If it’s an inside job,” Boris mutters, almost to himself but loud enough for all of us to hear. “We’ll have to answer it in blood.”
Luciano’s eyes flick toward me as if checking how close I am to snapping, then drift back to the table. He continues without giving anyone room to interrupt. “We’ve already started reviewing every access point and every staff record. From cleaners to kitchen boys to night security, no one is getting in or out without being checked. You have my word. Whoever targeted her,” his gaze shifts to me, “will pay for it.”
He pauses for a beat, giving the words space to settle, and I feel the heat in my chest spike again, that familiar pulse of anger that burns slow and steady, the kind I can’t show here unless I want someone’s head rolling on the table.
My jaw ticks slightly, but I nod. I want him to handle it, because if I do, it won’t be clean.
The meeting lasts another fifteen minutes, dealing with security briefings, names, threats, a few small arguments that go nowhere.
When we step out of the meeting room, the tension hasn’t even settled before Declan—the loudest of the Irishmen—claps his hands together with a grin that’s already irritating, the kind that tells me he’s been waiting for an excuse to shift the mood. “So,” he says, too cheerful for a man who just heard someone tried to kill my fiancée, “we go out tonight. A little fun, eh?”
Boris exhales hard, rolling his eyes like he’s heard this a hundred times and still hasn’t found the strength to care. “Fun?” he repeats. “You mean the club with the girls.”
“Of course,” Declan answers proudly, puffing his chest like he personally owns the place. “They bring in new ones every week. Perfect for… inspection.”
The smile he gives after that is so sleazy it turns my stomach, that kind of grin men get when they forget girls are human, and I feel a familiar irritation climb the back of my spine.
Behind us, Mikhail snorts under his breath, loud enough for Marco to hear. “It’s gonna be wild,” he mutters, not bothering to sugarcoat anything, not even glancing at Marco as he says it.
Marco only shrugs.
“We’ll go check things out,” Boris says, already pulling out his cigarette case. “Make sure everything is running the way it should.”
Normally I’d refuse. I don’t do outings like this, especially not with my patience already hanging by a thread.
“I’m not leaving her alone,” I say, my voice low but final.
“Then bring her,” Enzo says casually.
I hate the idea of taking her somewhere like that, a place that stinks of sweat and cheap perfume and desperation that these men consider entertainment but leaving her in the hotel after last night feels worse. My mind runs through every possible scenario, every risk, every angle of vulnerability—the hallways, the elevators, the staff access doors—and none of them feel safer than her being within arm’s reach.
“She’s coming with me. I will conduct the business I have there and then leave. But you are all more than welcome to stay and have fun,” I say.
Raffaele’s grin sharpens. “Whipped already, eh?” he says, his voice light but his eyes mean. “Careful, Artyom, she’ll tighten that leash around your throat if you’re not watching.”
