11. Konstantin
KONSTANTIN
"You really want to do this now?" Ethan gazes at me over the top of the car after glancing at his watch. "We have a party to get to."
Rose's hard-planned party is due to have started by now, and while I called an hour ago to tell her I'd be late, I never intended to be this late. But with one last cookhouse to check, I don't have a choice.
"I do not want to leave it until tomorrow. I want them all checked and then up and running by sunrise."
"Alright." Ethan slips into the driver's seat and I follow. Two cars follow behind while Ethan drives through the city toward the last of the new cookhouses set up to replace the ones lost to the Italians.
"This house should make its cost back within two weeks," I murmur while staring at the information on my phone. "The cost of setting up and product alone is painful, but I think this will be the last one we need to get us back on track."
"As long as we keep the Italians busy, right?" Ethan replies with a soft snort. "Can't burn us down again if we don't give them room to breathe."
"Exactly. It helps that the Chaika family have a warehouse near the Italian docks. Easier to keep an eye."
Ethan murmurs his agreement, then he clears his throat. "Speaking of… Rose seems nice."
I tense slightly and focus on him in my peripheral vision. "Yes. She does."
"Almost too nice." Ethan's hand shifts on the steering wheel.
"Every time I see her, she smiles at me.
She's always busy doing something. Did you know that last week I found her in the dining room helping Beth polish the silver?
She said she was having fun. Day before that, she was out in the garden chatting with the pool cleaner about his dog.
He's worked with us for six years and I never knew anything about him. Now I feel like I know everything."
"She is a people person it would seem." Her face lights up my thoughts and a budding warmth of affection blooms in my chest. "Do you think she is happy?"
Ethan glances at me. "Happy?"
I nod. "The deal I made with her father was for reasons we both benefit from. I did not think I would come to care about her happiness as I did not expect to see much of her. But she is… like the sunlight after a cool breeze."
"Poetic," Ethan murmurs. "I don't know if she's happy.
I haven't spoken much to her about that and I don't think she would tell me given how I'm always with you.
Maybe she would tell Calvin? But at the same time…
" He sighs deeply as we turn a corner. "She almost doesn't seem cut out for a life in a world like this. "
"She grew up in it," I reply.
"Did she?" Ethan glances at me. "The world her father lives in is really different from yours.
You're much more powerful for one, you have thousands of loyal men under you, and nearly every other leader in New York wants your head on a platter.
Which means there's a target very firmly on her back too. "
"It will not come to that."
"Are you sure?"
While Ethan's line of questioning is pressing, I know it comes from a place of concern. "I will not get complacent. I will not make the same mistake with Rose that I made with Lianna."
"Lianna wasn't your mistake," Ethan replies quickly. "It was a terrible tragedy, but not your fault."
"I do not care." The words catch in my throat.
"I swore to protect her and I failed. I will not fail Rose.
" My chest tights as if my ribs are curling protectively around my heart.
"Besides… Rose is like a ray of sunshine and I like that about her.
She smiles at the birds and the butterflies, she makes faces with her sauce when she eats, she walks on her tiptoes down the stairs and always hops the last step.
She takes joy in the little things and I like that.
Everywhere I turn there is death and anger, blood and jealousy, theft and rage.
It is smothering and intoxicating. Rose is… peace."
And the sex is amazing. Initially, I held back due to a worry that she hated me for the wedding or that our age gap would make her far too uncomfortable. She seems to feel differently, and puts her hands on me at every opportunity.
Not that I complain.
"She is peace," Ethan agrees. "I don't doubt you, Kon. I just wanted to see how you felt. If things weren't clicking, we could send her upstate for the rest of her life."
"Things are clicking," I assure him. "Once we check this house over, I intend to spend the rest of the night getting to know her family. She invited them all to the party and I would very much like to—"
The rest of my thought screeches to a halt as loudly as the crunch of metal rising from outside my car. Another vehicle slams into us from the left and Ethan curses as he jerks the wheel and fights to keep us on the road.
"What the fuck?" My hand immediately drops to my gun at my waist as the car revs its engine loudly and slams into us once more. We veer hard to the right, and Ethan fights with the wheel while one of my cars races up the right-hand side to catch us before we careen off the road.
That nudge is enough to help Ethan get us back on the road, but the attacking car swerves into us once more.
Before it can make contact, another of my cars races in between us and takes the brunt of the impact.
Ethan wrenches the steering wheel to the left and slams us into our own car, trapping it between the racing attackers and us.
Seconds later, the rapid pop of gunfire fills the air and the car between us shudders, then loses all momentum.
As it slides backward, the attacking car careens back into his and crushes the front bumper of the retreating car.
I only have time for a pang of sympathy as I glimpse that car flipping and swerving off to the right, only to crash into a parked car and vanish into the night.
"Motherfucker!" Ethan yells. "You wanna shoot something?"
"Yes," I demand back. "Open the window!"
As soon as it's down far enough, I thrust my gun out the window and open fire.
Both vehicles wrestle for space as the road narrows and my other car is forced to fall back to prevent a crash, but they're just as eager to get a shot in as I am.
The attacking car fires back and my window shatters in an explosion of glass that I barely have time to turn away from.
"Bring me level!" I yell to Ethan as the attacking car races forward.
Ethan slams on the accelerator and our car lurches, throwing me back in the seat and momentarily catching my elbow against the door. The attacking car surges forward so I roll the window down further and lean out, only for Ethan's hand to fly out and grab a fistful of my shirt at my abdomen.
"Boss!"
Taking aim, I start firing at the car tires, and finally a satisfying bang rings out as one wheel explodes.
Ethan drags me back into the car as the vehicle in front spins horizontally to us, and Ethan forces us to drive faster.
We slam into the side of the car and shove it along the road until something catches and the car suddenly flips up into the air.
It spins several times while Ethan slams on the brakes, then it crashes down onto its roof. A deafening silence fills the air after Ethan brings us to a halt.
My other team screeches to a stop behind us.
Climbing out of the car, I check my weapon and hold it high as we approach the vehicle.
Its wheels spin and squeak in the air, glass crumbles from the windows and scatters across the ground, and the ding of the disconnected seatbelt follows the first man dumb enough to crawl out of the wreckage.
Any questions I have for him die the moment he grunts and rolls onto his back with his gun aimed high in the air.
I shoot him twice in the head and his arms fall down flat on the ground.
Suddenly, another man pops up from the other side of the car but Ethan shoots him in the head before he gets a chance to open fire.
My men rush past me with their guns trained on the vehicle. Within two minutes, the car is swept clean and both dead bodies rest on the side of the road.
"You alright?" Ethan asks finally, and he winces. "You're bleeding."
I glance down at myself. Crimson spreads across my white shirt from where I must have cut myself leaning out of the broken window. "I am fine."
Ethan scowls but nods. "Anything on the registration?" he asks as one of my men walks up with the paperwork.
"Nah. It's a rental but there's no name," he replies.
I stare down at the two bodies. They're both wearing jeans, with one wearing a shirt and the other a black leather vest. Neither of them are familiar.
"This is bold," Ethan murmurs as he crouches down next to them. "Attacking us out in the open like this? It's fucking bold." He begins rummaging in their pockets and I watch him go through all of them.
As he works, I snap pictures of them on my phone, but then Ethan makes a strange noise and draws my attention back to him.
"Wait…" He pulls something small and silver from the upper pocket of the leather vest and balances it in his palm. "This looks vaguely familiar, I just can't place it." He stands and holds out his hand. "This pin… I'm sure I know it."
The silver pin in his hand shows a small carved skull with a flourishing V in the middle of the forehead. It's not something that strikes any familiarity in my mind so I shake my head. "I do not."
"Fuck…" Ethan kicks at the ground. "I swear I know—!
" He cuts himself off and snaps his fingers.
"Vasiliev! That's the Vasiliev crest, I'm sure of it.
But they're a small family, hardly one of any kind of significance and that…
" He turns back to the bodies and stares hard at them, then his shoulders drop and the frustration on his face melts away.
"Shit. I do know him. That guy?" He points at the leather-clad body. "That's Daniil Vasiliev. I'm sure of it."