The air in my private office was thick with the scent of scotch and leather. Dimitri stood by the window, his arms crossed. We had spent the last two hours in a frantic, bloody deep dive. Two Moretti soldiers had been captured alive. They hadn’t stayed alive for long, but they had stayed alive long enough to talk.
“It’s her father,” Dimitri said, tossing a manila folder onto my desk. “Lev Petrov.”
I opened the folder. The face that stared back at me was lean, haunted, and lethal. I recognized the name, of course. In the underworld, Lev Petrov was a ghost story. Although he hadworked with the Lobanovs for a while, he was now known to be a rogue sniper who worked for everyone and belonged to no one.
“He disappeared years ago,” I said.
“That’s what he wanted people to think,” Dimitri countered. “Silvio, the man Lev executed about a decade ago, was an instrumental soldier to Enzo Moretti. After spending millions of dollars to find Lev, then hearing he died, he decided to wait for his chance to retaliate."
I looked at the photo of Lev, then at the grainy surveillance still of Mila from earlier today. The resemblance was there, in the jawline, the stubborn set of the mouth.
“He couldn’t find the father,” I mused, the realization settling in my gut like lead. “So he waited for the daughter to resurface.”
“She was more or less a ghost, too,” Dimitri added. “Living and schooling in the suburbs, almost off the grid. The anonymity that was often required for her former job as a forensic accountant was perfect for her. But when she switched careers and started showing up with Anya… when she stepped into the Lobanov circle… the Moretti scouts spotted her. To them, she’s not an innocent girl. She’s the debt Petrov never paid.”
I stood up, walking to the other window. Mila was somewhere in this house. She was safe for the moment, but the Morettis wouldn’t stop. To them, blood was the only currency that mattered. If they got their hands on her, they wouldn’t just kill her. They would make her suffer for every year her father had stayed hidden.
“They think she’s a pawn,” I whispered to the glass.
“Sheisa pawn, boss,” Dimitri said bluntly. “And right now, she’s a liability. The Morettis have declared war on our soil to get to her. ThePakhan, in fact the whole Bratva, might wanther handed over to maintain the peace. She’s not one of ours. She’s just… Anya’s friend.”
A sharp, jagged spike of fury flared in my chest at his words.
She’s not one of ours.
The logic was sound. But then I remembered the way she had looked at me through the smoke. Not with the calculated fear of a mobster’s wife, but with the pure, shattering vulnerability of someone who had no idea why the world was suddenly screaming.
“She isn’t a liability,” I said, my voice dropping to a lower tone. “She’s an opportunity.”
I left the office and walked toward the living quarters. The house was unnervingly quiet. The frantic energy of the evening had settled into a heavy, suffocating silence.
I found her in the small sitting room off the main hall. Anya was gone—to fetch something, maybe—leaving Mila alone. She was wrapped in a heavy wool blanket that looked far too large for her slight frame. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa, hugging her knees to her chest, staring at a spot on the rug.
She looked small. Fragile. Like a bird that had flown into a window and was waiting for the world to stop spinning.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching her. I should have felt pity. I should have felt the cold, detached calculation of a leader. But as I watched the way her breath hitched, the way she tried to make herself invisible against the upholstery, I felt a different kind of darkness rise up in me.
It wasn’t just the need to protect. It was a brutal, primal sense of possession. The thought of the Morettis marring her skin and extinguishing her soft light made me want to burn something.
Roman, my cousin, appeared in the hallway behind me. He glanced into the room, then at me. He saw the look on my face—the one I couldn’t quite mask.
“The Italians won’t stop, Alexei,” Roman whispered. “If she stays here as a guest, they’ll keep hitting us. The only way to shield her is to make her part of the family. Truly part of it.”
“Not to hand her over?” I inquired, my relief mingling with surprise.
“Lev was no longer our responsibility—hasn’t been for several years. But Mila is no stranger. Isn’t she Anya’s friend?”
I sighed.
“We could arrange a marriage for her. One of the lieutenants? Someone loyal who can keep her in a safe house,” Roman suggested.
The idea of Mila belonging to one of my men, of someone else touching her, protecting her, seeing her wake up in the morning, sent a bolt of pure, unadulterated rage through me.
“No,” I said, the word final. “I’ll do it.”
Roman blinked, his eyes widening. “You? Alexei, she might be your sister’s friend, but from what I’ve gathered, you don’t know her at all. ”
I didn’t look at him. My eyes were still on Mila. “But she was attacked right in this building. On my property. And we both know that being strangers to each other has nothing to do with this kind of marriage. She’s mine to protect. Therefore, she’s mine.”
