“Welcome home, Mrs. Lobanov,” he breathed.
The war was no longer outside the gates. It was right here, in the space between our heartbeats.
Chapter Six
Alexei’s POV
The wedding was over. The guests had retreated in a trail of expensive perfume and whispered speculation, leaving behind a silence that was far more honest than the champagne-soaked laughter of an hour ago. Outside, the city of New York shimmered like a cold jewel, but here, on the Lobanov estate, the world had shrunk to the size of a fortress.
I stood at my office window, the lights dimmed to a low, amber hum. In my hand, a glass of whiskey felt heavy, a grounding weight against the phantom sensation of silk and lace that had dominated my day. Beyond the glass, the grounds were alive with a quiet, lethal efficiency. Flashlights swept the tree line as my men moved through the shadows—ghosts in body armor ensuring that the truce of the wedding day hadn’t been violated the moment the last limousine pulled away.
Inside, the estate hummed with that specific silence that comes after violence hasn’t yet happened but has been promised. Every guard I had passed on my way to the office had kept their eyes lowered, their posture rigid. They knew. We all knew. This wedding wasn’t a union of hearts; it was a declaration of war. Or of readiness for it, in the least.
I took a sip of the whiskey, the burn hitting the back of my throat. Even through the scent of the peat and the oak, I could still smell her. Mila Petrov. No, Mila Lobanov. The scent was faint but pervasive: roses and something softer, something clean and warm that had no business belonging to a man like me. It was a smell that spoke of libraries, of quiet mornings, of a life lived in the sun.
I tightened my grip on the glass until my knuckles turned white.
I told myself this was a strategy. I had given her a shield against Enzo Moretti. I had taken a girl who was a sitting duck and turned her into a sovereign of the Bratva. It was a calculated move, a piece of grandmaster logic to stabilize the board.
But when I closed my eyes, I didn’t see the board. I saw her walking down the aisle. She had looked like a porcelain angel forced to marry the devil. She was fragile, her hands trembling as they held her bouquet, yet she had looked at me with a defiance that had nearly brought me to my knees. When she had whispered “I do,” her voice had been a tiny, fractured thing, but it had echoed through the chapel like a thunderclap.
I had spent my entire life turning myself into marble—cold, precise, unshakable. But the moment those words left her lips, something inside the stone had cracked. A fissure I couldn’t ignore.
A sharp, rhythmic knock at the door shattered the quiet.
“Enter,” I said, not turning from the window.
Viktor Lobanov stepped in. He didn’t wait for an invitation; the Pakhan never did. He smelled of woodsmoke and gunpowder—a reminder of the “business” he had likely settled in the basement while the rest of us were drinking to my health. Viktor was blunt; his version of love was written in blood and fire.
“Oh. I didn’t know it was you, cousin.”
“The guests are clear of the perimeter,” Viktor said, his voice a low grumble. “Dimitri has the second shift on high alert.”
“Yes. I know,” I replied.
“There are whispers, Alexei,” Viktor continued, his tone turning clinical. “Enzo isn’t just brooding in a basement. He’s calling in markers from the Jersey crews. They’re preparing a retaliation strike. It won’t happen tonight—but soon. Very soon.”
I finally turned to face him. “I’ve already doubled the guards at the docks. If Enzo wants to bleed, I’ll give him an ocean.”
Viktor studied me for a long moment, his eyes narrowed. Then he nodded like someone who knew something I didn’t. And he always did.
He turned to leave, pausing at the door. “Just remember, Alexei. A shield is only useful if the man holding it doesn’t get distracted by the view.”
He left, and the silence returned, heavier than before. Until Dimitri and two tactical analysts came to review the shipping manifests for the morning.
I sat behind my desk, the mahogany surface covered in tablets and intelligence reports. This was my routine. This was where I felt most at home—in the cold logistics of empire-building.
“The Newark warehouse is the primary concern,” Dimitri said, pointing to a glowing red sector on a digital map. “If they hit us there, they cut off the supply chain to the garment district. We need to reroute the trucks by 04:00.”
I looked at the map, but the red lines started to blur. I found myself staring at the cufflink on my left wrist—the gold crest of my family. I remembered her fingers brushing against my sleeve during the vows. Her skin had been like ice, a stark contrast to the heat I had felt radiating from her.
“Boss,” Dimitri’s voice pulled me back.
“Reroute them through the Holland Tunnel,” I said, my voice sounding distant to my ears. “But put an empty decoy convoy on the original path. I want to see if Enzo has the stomach to pull the trigger.”
“Done, boss,” he answered.
“Boss, the analyst found a link between the Jersey crews and the port authority,” one of the two men informed, unaware of the war happening inside my head.
