Chapter 37
EVELINA
“I need to ask you something, Evie.”
My phone is pinched between my ear and my shoulder as I juggle a coffee and my dance bag while making my way down the alley behind the Mercury.
“Hang on, I’m…ahhh, crap!” I yelp as hot coffee spills from the to-go cup and scalds my hand.
Roman sighs. “Never mind. If you’re busy, we can talk later.”
“No, it’s fine, I’m just…one sec.”
When I finally get to the back door, I shrug my bag off my shoulder, set the coffee down on the fire escape, and take a deep breath.
“Sorry, Rome, I’m a hot mess this morning.” I frown. “What’s going on?”
My brother clears his throat but doesn’t say anything.
“Uhh…Roman?”
“How was your sleepover at Milena’s?”
God, I hate lying.
For the last two weeks, since I walked in on whatever it was that I saw in Vaughn’s kitchen, I’ve been staying at his place.
In his bed.
With him.
I love that that’s my new reality. We do normal, regular people stuff like eat dinner together or watch dumb TV shows on the couch.
Then, obviously, we do the not-so-regular people stuff: aka, have brutally rough, violent, sadistic sex.
I’m always sore and bruised.
And I wouldn’t change a thing.
But underneath it all is the reason I’ve started insisting on always spending the night with him, i.e., that night in the kitchen.
He doesn't talk about it. Or if he does, he's not telling me the whole truth. He said he was probably having a nightmare, and that he sometimes sleepwalks. But there’s sleepwalking and making yourself a sandwich, and there’s sleepwalking and screaming at yourself while holding a knife to your own throat.
I’m spending every night with him because the idea of leaving him alone terrifies me.
But when you don't sleep in your own bed for two weeks and you share a house with your overprotective big brother…well…here we are.
I’ve been lying nonstop, telling him I’m spending the night at various friends' houses. But there’s a limit to believability, and we’re a good week past that point.
“It was…fun?” I squeak.
“Evie.”
I swallow. “M-hmm?”
“Where did you sleep last night.”
My chest tightens. “Milena's.”
“Nero came home early from his business trip to surprise Milena last night.”
Shit.
“I had coffee with him this morning and, oddly, he didn’t mention any unexpected house guests when he got home. So…want to tell me the truth?”
Not particularly.
“Where the hell were you, Eves?”
My brow furrows, frustration rustling in my nerves. “Look, Rome, I appreciate the concern but not the accusation,” I say tightly.
“Evie—”
“I’ve been seeing someone, okay?”
“Jesus,” he hisses.
I exhale. “Roman, I’m twenty-three years old.”
“Define seeing someone.”
“It means what you think!” I snap. “Roman, I’m not a kid. I mean, give me a freaking break! At some point I was going to have a relationship with someone!”
“So why the fuck have you been lying to me about—”
“Because I knew you’d get all psycho overprotective!” I yell.
“It’s my fucking job to—”
“Not anymore!” I snap.
The line goes utterly silent for a moment.
“Who,” he finally mutters. “Who the fuck is it?”
I stare. “How about none of your business?”
“Excuse me…”
I exhale sharply. “Roman, I’m a twenty-three-year-old woman. Whom I date or sleep with is truly none of your business. I say that with love.”
Roman swears under his breath, then sighs. “I know,” he says quietly. “It’s just… It’s hard to disengage overprotective big brother mode.”
I smile wryly. “Understood.”
He chuckles. “Guess I just proved why you’ve been bullshitting me about where you’ve been the last few nights.”
I grin.
“So…it’s serious?”
I swallow, nodding. “Yeah,” I murmur.
“And when do I get to meet this fucker?”
Never.
“Can I…think about that?”
“That’s not a huge reassurance on who the asshole is,” he growls.
I roll my eyes. “You trust me, right? Can you please just trust that I’m okay, making good decisions, and happy? Can we start with that?”
“Fine,” he grumbles. “I guess. But you need to promise me a few things.”
“Such as?”
“Does he treat you well?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Are you safe with him?”
“Extremely.”
My brother clears his throat. “And…you're happy?”
“Very,” I smile.
“Then I guess I’m satisfied,” he grunts. “For now.”
“Thank goodness,” I snicker.
“Okay, I need to take off—”
“Hey, Rome?”
“Yeah.”
“What would you think about me…” I shrug. “I don’t know…sitting in on some of your meetings?”
Roman snorts. “What?”
“Do you think I could attend some of the meetings?” I repeat.
“Uh…” He clears his throat. “Why?”
“I mean…” I shrug. “It is a family business, and I am a member of that family. Maybe I should be more abreast of what’s going on.”
Roman chuckles. “Evie, of course you’re part of this family. But, I mean… Isn’t dance your thing?”
I scowl. “Yeah. But this could also be my thing. Is that a problem?”
“No,” he says quickly. “No, of course not. But…”
I scowl. “But?”
“I’d need some time, Evie.”
My brow furrows. “Why?”
“C’mon, Eves. Yeah, I’m the boss, but I’m the new boss. The new gay boss.”
“Roman, your top guys have made it clear they don’t care about that.”
“Yeah, well, there’s the way people talk and then the way they act,” he growls. “I’m still shoring up the foundation of my throne. I’m not saying no, obviously. But… It’s not like you’ve got any experience with bratva shit, you know?”
“Okay, but again, it’s my family business. I was raised in it, Roman. All I’m asking for is a foot in the door.”
He exhales. “Look, I’m not saying no. Just…can you give me some time?”
“Yeah,” I mumble, sighing. “Yeah, of course. Thanks, Rome.”
“I almost don’t want to ask what you’re doing. The view is too nice.”
I gasp at the sound of his voice behind me and start to zip my hoodie back up.
“Uh-uh-uh,” Vaughn murmurs, crossing the bathroom floor to where I’ve been standing topless facing the floor-length mirror. “Don’t even think about it.”
I grin, biting my lip and flushing all over as he wraps his arms around me from behind and pulls the hoodie back open, revealing my bare torso. A soft hum starts in my throat as his large hands slide up my ribs to cup my breasts.
“Okay, now I'll ask what you’re doing,” he growls into my ear.
My cheeks flush.
“I was…thinking about where it might go.”
Time flies when you’re having fun. When you’re being chased, and grabbed, and brutalized, and choked, and slapped, and fucked to within an inch of your life on a nightly basis by a gorgeous, intensely captivating villain of a man.
When you’re falling head over heels for that man.
It’s been just shy of three months since that first initiation at Blackbriar Hall. Soon, in another shadowy ceremony there, I, together with the remaining Acolytes, will pledge myself entirely to the Syndicate, and get its mark—the upside-down dagger surround by a halo of light—tattooed on my skin.
“W-where do you think it should go?” I ask with a shiver as Vaughn’s thumbs brush my tight nipples in the mirror.
His hands still, and his brow furrows.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” he murmurs.
I twist in his arms, turning to face him. “What?”
“Evelina, the Syndicate is for life—”
“Vaughn,” I say quietly. “I know what I’m signing up for.”
“My worry is that you don’t,” he growls. “And that you’re still only doing this for your father.” His jaw ticks. “I could pull some strings, maybe, outside the Syndicate…”
“You could do that?”
“I could.”
My brow furrows. “But the Syndicate is clear on only helping its own—”
“I’d help you anyway.”
I frown a little deeper. He’s already told me about the internal friction with some of the older higher-ups who’ve clung to their loyalty to the previous Marquis. And I know that "friction" is more than just arguments in boardrooms.
“That would put you in a really hard place,” I whisper.
He lifts his shoulders. “It wouldn’t.”
“Vaughn—”
“Fine, let me rephrase: it might, but I wouldn’t give a fuck.”
I sigh. “And how bad would that look? The Marquis casually defying the rules of a centuries-old organization to help his girlfriend?”
My mouth snaps shut instantly.
Crap.
“Girlfriend, hmm?”
I groan. “I was just talking about the PR perspective of it. I know I’m not—”
“Evelina—”
“—and you don’t do relationships, and I am not asking that, and—”
“Evelina, would you stop—”
“—seriously, just forget it, that was really stupid—”
He cups my jaw firmly, forcing my gaze to his.
“Don’t ever call my girlfriend stupid,” he growls, smirking.
I grin, my cheeks heating.
“And…what does that mean?” I ask hesitantly.
“It means what you already know, princess,” he murmurs. “That you’re mine.”
His lips sear to mine, kissing me deeply and taking my breath away. But when he pulls back, he's frowning.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’m still worried that you’re only joining because of your father.”
I swallow. “Not just him, but—”
“I have to show you something,” he says quietly. He takes my hands, his face darkening. “You need to see it before you commit to the Syndicate. Come.”
He leads me back into the bedroom, where his laptop is open on the desk near the windows. He sits at it, pulling me into his lap, then opens a folder on the laptop and pauses.
“You don’t need to go through with this for me,” he rumbles, his hand sliding up my cheek as his piercing eyes lock with mine. “You can stop all of this, and I won’t be going anywhere. But I need you to see this before you commit to the Syndicate.”
My heart is still jumping in my chest from that as he clicks on a subfolder to reveal a list of thumbnail photos.
“These were taken by a spy of mine embedded in the Minsky Bratva, out of Moscow.” His eyes dart to mine. “I assume you know them?”
I do.
The Minsky Bratva, led by Grigori Minksy, is a seriously powerful family in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
“So… What are these?”
Vaughn says nothing as he turns and double clicks, opening the series of photos. My eyes widen at the very first image that pops up on the screen.
It’s my father, looking drunk, laughing with a glass of vodka in his hand. He’s in a tailored suit, sitting at a lavish restaurant table with a glamorous woman in his lap, and he’s toasting the grinning man sitting next to him, the two of them appearing to be best buddies.
The other man is Grigori Minksy.
“Turns out,” Vaughn says quietly, “that your father didn’t end up in Moscow with nothing of value.
He’s just cut a massive deal with Grigori: he’s told the Minsky Bratva about all his old Russian connections, smuggling routes, and intel.
In exchange, Grigori’s made him a partner and top avtoritet in the Minsky Bratva. ”
My jaw drops.
“Your father is untouchable now,” Vaughn growls. “Protected, vouched for, completely taken care of.” He exhales slowly, turning to me. “You don’t have to do this, Evelina,” he says. “You don’t need me or the Syndicate’s help anymore.”
I sit there in silence, my heart twisting.
I just talked to him a few weeks ago.
“How…” I frown. “How long would something like this take to set up?”
Vaughn frowns. “With Minsky? Guy's a paranoid lunatic. Months, I’m betting.”
Months.
My father was already setting this up when I told him I was putting myself in danger and going against the entire family to give him help he no longer needed.
Fuck.
“If I did join anyway,” I say, “what exactly would be my role in the Syndicate?”
His eyes spark wickedly. “Do you mean other than being my personal fuck toy and cum slut?”
Heat explodes across my face.
“Aside from that,” I murmur, blushing furiously and then gasping when his hand tightens on my hip. “I mean, for real.”
He nods slowly. “The only limit within the Syndicate is ambition. I mean, yes, personal relationships matter—it’s no accident that my closest friends are my inner circle.
But they’re also the only people I’d trust in that capacity.
” He peers at me closely. “What would you want out of the Syndicate?”
I scoff. “Head assassin, obviously.”
He grins. “You do have a mean streak.”
“I don’t know…” I shrug. “I feel like I’m kind of good at reading people—”
“Kind of?” He smiles at me. “You’re a genius at it.”
I wink at him. “You’re just saying that because I’m topless.”
He shakes his head. “I’m saying that because you’ve got a gift for seeing the unseen and reading between the lines.
” His brow furrows. “The Syndicate isn’t like other mafia organizations, where whose kid you are or your birth order is important.
We value skill, ambition, and commitment, and we want people who have the aptitude and drive to lead. ”
Vaughn’s hand lifts to my chin. “Is that what you want to do, princess? Lead?”
I smile wryly. “Maybe?” I mumble. “I don’t know, it’s kinda stupid—”
“I told you not to call my girlfriend stupid,” he growls.
I giggle. “Maybe not lead. That sounds like a pain.”
“It really is,” he groans.
“But maybe helping leadership? Like advising?” I roll my eyes. “Or, you know, just head ballerina. I could dance at Syndicate parties,” I say dryly.
Vaughn smiles, dragging his thumb just under my lower lip. “You’re a truly gifted dancer, princess,” he murmurs. “But I know you’re capable of many other things, too.”
Heat and happiness ripple through my body as I press my lips to his.