Two of my men were waiting in my office. Dimitri was sprawled in one of the leather chairs by the window, deceptively casual in the way that meant he’d already cataloged every entrance and exit in the room. Kirill, on the other hand, sat in one of the two chairs facing mine against the table. Both of them looked up when I entered, and they were smart enough not to comment on the fact that it was nearly seven—over an hour later than my usual arrival.
“Good morning, boss,” they greeted at the same time, rising to their feet.
That was when Roman and Viktor entered the room. The greetings only took a minute, and we were already delving into the reports they brought of Moretti’s movements.
“Moretti,” Viktor said without preamble, placing the tablet in his hand on the desk.
I didn’t sit. I never did during these meetings. I picked up the tablet and scrolled through the reports.
“Moretti’s men have been making moves—subtle, but not subtle enough. Three of our shipping routes have experienced “unexpected delays” in the past week,” Roman explained.
“One of our clubs in Prague reported a fire that the local authorities were calling electrical, but the burn patterns suggested accelerant,” Kirill revealed.
“And there have been whispers that Enzo Moretti has been asking questions about a certain forensic accountant turned Lobanov bride,” Dimitri added as I kept going through the reports.
“The engagement party was just the opening salvo,” Kirill disclosed, his voice a low rumble. “He’s testing our response time. Seeing where we’re vulnerable.”
“Enzo’s patient. He’ll escalate slowly, force us to spread our resources thin, then strike where it hurts most.”
“Mila,” Viktor uttered.
It was not a question.
My fingers tightened briefly on the edge of the desk—the only outward sign of the cold fury that spiked through me at the thought of Moretti’s men getting anywhere near her. “Mila,” I confirmed, clenching my teeth to suppress the memory of when she was naked beneath me and I was whispering that same name. “She’s leverage. Against Lev, if he’s still alive. Against us, now that she’s family.”
“Then we should move first, boss,” Kirill opined, leaning forward. “Hit their operations hard enough that Enzo has to pull back and defend his own territory.”
“No.”
Both of my men looked at me. I met their gazes without flinching, my expression carved from ice. “If we strike first, we look reactive. Desperate. Moretti wants us to come at him with everything we have so he can bleed us out in a war of attrition. We’re smarter than that.”
“So what do you suggest?” Roman inquired.
“We tighten security here. Double the perimeter, vet every staff member again, and make sure Mila doesn’t leave the estate without a full detail,” I answered, my voice clipped. “Meanwhile, we gather intelligence. I want to know every move Moretti makes before he makes it. Every shipment, every meeting, every man on his payroll. When we strike, it won’t be a skirmish. It’ll be an execution.”
Viktor chuckled. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
We spent the next hour going over contingencies, reviewing security protocols, and coordinating with Konstantin’s network back in Moscow. I switched seamlessly between languages—Russian, English, and Italian when I was on the phone with our contact in Naples. My mind was a machine, processing variables and probabilities with ruthless efficiency.
But even as I discussed kill orders and smuggling routes, a part of me remained upstairs. In the room where Mila was still sleeping, curled beneath sheets that smelled like both of us now. In the curve of her spine and the way she’d looked at me last night—not with fear, but with something far more terrifying.
Trust?
It was all new to me. None of my past lovers had carved themselves under my skin the way she did in a single night, with nothing but her honesty and her breath catching on my name.
By the time the meeting ended, my cousins left, and my men went to deal with their respective duties, I felt like I’d been awake for days. I poured myself two fingers of whiskey from the decanter on the sideboard—Macallan, aged eighteen years—and downed it in one swallow. The burn was grounding, in a way.
I had work to do. Calls to make, people to threaten, and the whole wing of an empire to protect. So I got to it. But after a while, when I glanced at my watch and realized it was noon, the first thought that crossed my mind wasn’t business.
It was whether Mila had eaten. I wondered if she was still in bed, or if she was in any kind of pain.
**********
Later that day, I found her in the garden.
Or rather, I found her with Anya in the garden, the two of them seated at the wrought-iron table beneath the pergola where wisteria will bloom in another month. They were drinking tea, delicate porcelain cups that looked absurdly fragile in the afternoon light, and Anya was gesturing animatedly about something.
And Mila…
