Chapter 1
Guilty As Sin? – Taylor Swift
Isit at my father’s right-hand side and pretend I don’t feel the weight of every pair of eyes at this table.
The original Five Families meet only twice a year and never meet in public. They lock down entire floors of hotels and have rooms swept within an inch of its life before the leaders even land.
Then they meet in secured conference rooms with soundproof walls, armed guards outside the doors, and heirs positioned at their elbows—people who attended Vintermoor beside me not two years ago.
Tonight, it’s a private conference suite on the top floor of a hotel in Milan. Neutral ground, and expensive enough not to insult anyone, but cold enough to suit all of them.
A long table cuts through the center of the room, where bottles of water sit untouched beside crystal glasses. No one here is relaxed enough to drink.
My father, Aldo Vieri, sits still as stone at the head, one gloved hand resting on the table, the other on the head of his cane, though he doesn’t really need it. He likes what it says: that power doesn’t need to stand to dominate a room.
I know every man seated here. I know their habits, their tempers, and the way they breathe before they threaten.
To my father’s right sits Don Barone, thick-necked and pink-faced, with his eldest son leaning back in his chair as if boredom is a sign of strength.
Across from them is Don Marchetti, silver hair slicked back, wedding ring tapping the table every few minutes whenever he loses patience. Beside him is his daughter, not son, which still irritates half the men in this room, even though she’s sharper than all of them put together.
At the far end sits Don Conti with both hands folded and his youngest son quiet at his shoulder—watchful and unblinking.
And then there’s the Russian delegation seated opposite us. Not one of the original Italian lines, but too powerful now to ignore. They’re too deeply tied into shipping, arms, and eastern routes to leave them outside the room.
Mikhail Dragovich sits at the center of their side—broad and brutish, with an expression carved from granite.
Cold blue eyes and pale blond hair, he has the look of a man who came out of the earth already bloodied.
To one side of him sits his eldest son, Viktor, who looks exactly like the kind of heir any outside observer would expect to take the Dragovich name into the next era.
Scarred, hard-eyed, built like a weapon.
To the other side sits the youngest son, Ruslan.
The bane of my existence.
He doesn’t slouch or fidget. He sits with one elbow braced on the armrest and his fingers brushing his lower lip as if this entire conversation is either boring him or amusing him.
I know for a fact it’s both.
He didn’t tie up his long blond hair today, leaving it to fall over his shoulders.
He wears black, no tie, the top button of his shirt undone, in a room where every other heir is dressed in respectably tailored attire.
That alone would be enough to make him look arrogant.
The way he sits, loose but alert, as if this meeting amuses him, makes it worse.
He’s older than me by two years, but men still glance at him twice, not because he’s beautiful, though he is, but because there’s something feral in him that doesn’t fit cleanly inside fine clothes.
Ruslan catches me looking, and the corner of his mouth twitches. I look away first because Ruslan Dragovich has a talent for making every glance feel like a loaded gun.
“We’ve delayed long enough,” Don Marchetti says, snapping my attention to him. “The eastern route through Trieste bleeds money every day it’s stalled.”
“It’s stalled because customs are sniffing too close because of the Andretti incident last month,” my father replies without hurry. “Moving now invites scrutiny.”
Mikhail leans back, one thick hand resting on the table. “Scrutiny exists whether you move or not. The longer my men wait, the sloppier they get.”
“Then your men need discipline,” my father says.
The air changes in the room at once, not enough for anyone without instincts to feel it, but enough for me. Ruslan, too, because I see the slight shift in his shoulders and the interest sharpening in his gaze.
Men like our fathers don’t need to shout to be heard. The insult is clear enough as it is.
Mikhail’s expression doesn’t change. “My men have discipline.”
“Then they can wait ten more days.”
“They’ve already been repositioned.”
My father glances at the open ledger in front of him, though he doesn’t need to. He remembers numbers the way priests remember confessions. “That sounds like your mistake.”
Across the table, Viktor’s jaw ticks once. Ruslan makes a soft sound under his breath that might’ve passed for a laugh if it wasn’t so openly insulting.
Every head turns in his direction, but Mikhai doesn’t even look at his son. My father turns his head just enough to acknowledge it. “Do you have something to contribute, or are you here to smirk at your father’s business?”
Ruslan’s gaze is full of amusement when he says,” I was wondering if all Italians solve problems by waiting for them to disappear.”
It’s not the worst thing he’s ever said in a room full of men who could order his death. It’s still enough to bring silence down hard over the table.
“Watch your mouth, boy.”
Ruslan smiles without warmth. “Or what?”
Viktor shifts in his chair, but I can tell he’s not alarmed. I’ve been around the Dragovichs long enough to know that this isn’t unusual for them. Their family doesn’t operate on the same public obedience as ours does. They let their sons show their teeth because it proves they have them.
I should keep quiet, I know that before I open my mouth and do it anyway. “There is a middle ground.”
Every eye in the room swings toward me. My father says nothing, which means I have exactly one chance to speak without regretting it.
“Trieste stays frozen for ten days. Smaller shipments reroute through Rijeka and Koper under secondary manifests. Lower volume, less scrutiny, no full stop on movement. It buys time without turning the delay into a cost spiral.”
Don Conti nods once, Marchetti’s irritation dulls into consideration, and even Barone lifts his head. It’s a good solution, I know it is. Ruslan knows it, too, which is why his smile grows wider.
“That’s your answer?” he asks.
I meet his gaze. “It’s practical.”
“It’s timid.”
A hot, immediate flare of irritation climbs up my spine. “Reducing exposure isn’t timidity. It’s strategy.”
He gives a low, mocking hum. “No. Strategy is forcing the room to move before it gets comfortable. What you’re suggesting is delay dressed up as intelligence.”
“And what you’re suggesting is shoving men into risk because you get bored when things slow down.”
That earns a few quiet breaths from around the table. Ruslan’s expression doesn’t harden—if anything, he looks entertained.
That somehow makes it worse.
He tilts his head. “You always talk this much when you’re trying to sound older than you are?”
My shoulders lock. “You always confuse volume with authority?”
Viktor lets out the start of a laugh and smothers it with his fist. Mikhail ignores it, while my father is still silent beside me. That should calm me down. Instead, it feels like pressure on the side of my head.
Ruslan braces one forearm on the table and leans forward. “Say what you mean, Vieri.”
“I mean, if your men can’t handle ten days of discipline, maybe your father overestimated them.”
The room goes so completely quiet, I can hear the faint hiss of candleflame.
Ruslan is on his feet before I fully register that we’ve both moved. His hands flatten briefly on the table, shoulders squared, blond hair falling forward, blue eyes locked on mine with heat that has nothing to do with anger.
“Sit down,” he says softly.
It’s the softness that does it more than if he barked or sneered. The softness feels intimate and dangerous—like he’s talking to me alone, not in a room full of men who could kill us both.
I smile without warmth. “Make me.”
His mouth twitches because he knows what he’s doing to me. “So quick to anger, Salvatore. I thought it was my father’s men who had no discipline.”
“You fucking—”
“Salvatore.”
My father says my name, and a bullet would have hurt less. He doesn’t slam his palm down or rise from his seat. Just my name, and a look in his eyes that strips me down to nothing.
The heat leaves me so fast it almost makes me dizzy. My chest tightens, my spine locks, and old shame crawls up my spine and settles in my throat.
I sit back down, and hate how quickly my body remembers obedience before pride can stop it. I hate the fact that Ruslan sees it, too.
The meeting crawls forward after that, with everyone conceding to my idea from before. I speak only once when spoken to directly, but my father does not acknowledge me. Mickhail and the others carry on as though the split in the room has already been sealed.
That’s what powerful men do; they ignore damage until it starts costing them.
I feel Ruslan’s gaze slide over me when he thinks no one’s looking. I feel the ghost of my father’s disappointment burning under my skin even more.
When the meeting ends, I need air, a locked door, and ten uninterrupted minutes to tear my own thoughts apart.
The room empties around us, the doors close, and the silence that follows is absolute. I keep my hands loose at my sides and my expression blank, because that’s how you survive a man like my father.
You don’t fill the silence, you don’t defend yourself too fast, and you don’t hand him your throat and call it honesty.
My father turns to face me fully. He doesn’t look angry; I almost prefer the anger.
I know better than to speak first when he takes his time to adjust the cuff of his glove.
“You embarrassed me.”
The words come sharp and with no restraint. It hits me hard, even though I am fully braced for it.
“I was trying to—”