Chapter Nineteen
Lilianna Genovese
I’d expected some backlash. A moderate amount, even. But when only half the invited people appeared at the meeting Matteo had called, I realized precisely how difficult it would be.
Matteo had gathered his most essential men in my father’s old office. Anthony stood at his side as his second in command, and Marcus as his consigliere. Three made men stood on the other side of the room, acting as heads to the different units of Matteo’s businesses. One man I recognized from the casino, but the other two were unfamiliar faces.
We’d invited my father’s consigliere, Jay, and he’d promised to bring a few of the made men who acted as advisors to my father. He should have taken over for my father, but Jay had never been interested in moving up the ranks. Instead, Jay stood on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall and eyeing me with a proud smile.
Beside him, the men seemed to have different reactions to my presence. Two of them looked outright disgusted, and the other two looked uncertain.
“It’s time to convince them,” Matteo whispered confidently to me.
He no longer clung to any pretense of kindness. His eyes held no sparkle of mischief, and he reminded me of my father in the way he looked down his nose at everyone here. He wore the mask of the Don, and I’d expected it.
I tried to mimic it, even.
I stepped forward, confident that nobody else would be coming, as the men began looking antsy.
“Jay,” I said, offering a hand.
He strode forward. His muscles bulged with each step as he inclined his head. He had the same kind eyes I remembered from my childhood. They didn’t belong in this business, but there was no getting out. He knew it as well as I did.
Behind the kind eyes, though, I saw the monster. He may have been kind toward me, but he’d killed people with his bare hands. He’d been the third in command to my father, and everyone here knew what that entailed.
“I appreciate your support today,” I announced.
“He shouldn’t be supporting you. It’s his right to take over,” one of the most outwardly resentful men said. “We don’t accept women as our superiors, and you know it. It’s why your father never gave you a title.”
“Yet he still intended to use me to unite our people with the Russians, did he not?”
“Through marriage ,” he retorted. “Only through marriage will our people accept you. It’s the traditions we’ve always followed, and nothing is changing now.”
Jay exhaled a long breath and turned to the men behind him. The men my father had trusted. “I back her. I trusted her father, and our practices have always put blood first. She is his last full-blooded heir.”
“Then she should marry and give us a new Don,” the second outwardly resentful man said with a scoff. “The proper place for a woman is in the fucking bedroom, and we all know it.”
I withheld a gasp at the outright challenge.
“I’m Alessio’s last heir—”
“Last daughter. That isn’t the same thing, and our people know it,” he interrupted again.
Part of me wondered how my father had dealt with men like this under his command, but the other part of me understood. They were just like he had been. Hell, Dad had planned on marrying me off to a Russian. It was the only way he’d ever considered using me. My brother was his underboss. Silas was the one who was meant to lead, not me.
Never his daughter.
Matteo stepped forward. “I’ve heard enough,” Matteo said coldly. “I’m backing Lilianna Genovese as the new Don of Alessio’s territory. If you disagree, you’ll be directly challenging me.”
One of the men scoffed. “Are you going to marry her and act as Don in her stead? Because we won’t follow her. Not when fucking her is—”
Matteo drew his gun quickly enough that nobody flinched until he fired. The man who made the comment fell back, bleeding from a wound between his eyes. Matteo glanced at the man beside him. “What do you have to say?”
The other man clenched his jaw for a moment before speaking. “I nominate Jay as Don. I’ll follow him.”
“Karr, I’m not going to be Don of this territory. Lilianna has my backing, and you’d be wise to give her yours, too,” Jay spoke, shaking his head and looking around the room. “Frankly, all of you would be wise to choose her. She has the backing of Matteo Costello, and without her, he’s more likely to become an enemy than an ally.”
Matteo made a sound of confirmation that had the Geneveses looking amongst themselves.
“Then let her marry him. It’s the way things have always been, and now is not the time for a change like this. We have enough conflict. Don’t let this be a part of it.”
He chose his words carefully, not insulting either Matteo or me. This man didn’t want one of Matteo’s bullets between his eyes. But he wasn’t concerned about me. I could see in the way his eyes danced around me that I wasn’t a threat to him. He thought Matteo was the only one to fear here.
He was wrong.
“I will be uniting nobody through marriage. I was born into this, and only through death will I leave.” The official words felt like a declaration coming from my lips. They were official words, and I knew that with them, I’d sealed my fate. I was announcing myself as a part of this mafia, and I would seal my fate today one way or another. “I am going to be Don, and I don’t accept challenges.”
“You can’t refuse a challenge,” Karr retorted.
“Then challenge me.” The declaration silenced the room.
“You won’t have Costello protecting you if I declare an official challenge.”
There was only one way I would earn the respect of these people, and I knew it. I had to prove myself. They wouldn’t follow me blindly. To these men, I was nothing more than a woman who should be married off to the best alliance.
I had to prove otherwise.
“Fine,” I replied, stepping forward. I took mental note of the weapons on my body. The two knives and the gun. “I challenge you, Karr. Beat me, and take my blood right.”
“Lili,” Matteo growled behind me.
He hadn’t been expecting this. Hell, I hadn’t fully expected it either. But I had equipped myself, knowing that there would likely be some kind of conflict. I had mentally prepared for this, and I knew it had to be done. If I didn’t do something to prove myself, I wouldn’t be respected.
“I accept.”
It was almost as if Karr had been waiting for me to say the words. He didn’t give me a warning before withdrawing a gun and charging.
He didn’t expect much of a fight. He didn’t seem to expect any fight at all, judging by the way he held the gun to my chest. I immediately turned my body out of range and pushed his hand away as he fired past me. I gripped his arm with both hands and slammed it over my knee until the gun clattered to the floor. I didn’t give him time to consider as I threw my entire weight into him and threw him off balance.
Karr wasn’t fast, and he certainly wasn’t an experienced fighter. But he had more strength than me. When he flung an arm back, I lost my balance.
He used the distraction to charge.
I side-stepped to avoid contact with his body, but he managed to collide with my shoulder and take us both to the ground. He landed partially atop me, using one hand to catch himself. I wrapped my legs around his waist to avoid colliding fully with the ground, releasing the moment we landed.
He had strength, but I knew what I was doing. I knew how to get out of a disadvantageous position. My brother had made sure of that.
I met Matteo’s furious gaze over his shoulder and gave a slight shake of my head before turning my full attention back to Karr.
I had to do this alone.
He wrapped both hands around my throat and squeezed. I sputtered. Panic flooded my chest, but I kept my mind on the maneuver Silas had taught me. I hooked a leg over his, and with all the strength I could muster, I pivoted my hips and sent him off balance. With one of my arms, I pushed him to send him flailing.
He loosened the grip on my throat, and I slammed my other arm down, fully breaking the contact as I flung myself to my feet.
I refrained from coughing more than once. Showing weakness would destroy my plans. It would ruin what I was attempting to do here.
Karr was slow as he brought himself to his feet. I had enough time to grab my serrated knife and lift it before he charged again.
I ducked beneath his hit, sending my fist into his groin.
When he hunched, I didn’t allow myself to hesitate.
If you’re ever in a situation where you need to fight, don’t hesitate. Your opponent won’t.
Silas’s voice rang through my mind, and I listened to his advice. I moved the blade to Karr’s throat and slid it across. I put substantial force into the motion, and his head moved back at an odd angle as blood spewed from him.
I didn’t look at his body or allow myself to consider what I had done.
“I am the boss of this territory. Does anyone else have any complaints?”
I felt Matteo come up behind me, and I fought the urge to lean back into him. I couldn’t look weak. Not in front of these people. I looked down at the blood on the knife clutched in my hand and found myself grinning even though I had expected to feel sick or to collapse in delayed horror at what I had done.
The men who had looked hesitant now appeared pleased by my show of power. They stared at me, and then their eyes turned from me to look at Matteo.
I wasn’t ignorant. I knew that they only accepted me because I had someone as powerful and brutal as Matteo backing me. In their eyes, we’d be working together, and they would be answering to him. Realistically, though, I didn’t care what it took to have them on my side. As long as we had the support we needed to fight the Russians and avenge my family, it would be enough for now.
“It’s going to be a long road, but we’re going to wipe the Petrovs from the map,” I said.
The conversations didn’t last long as my father’s three advisors introduced themselves to both me and Matteo. We were informed of the remaining numbers, and Jay handed me a stack of Manilla folders a foot high with all the information I’d need to continue my father’s business endeavors.
The jump drive, which he informed me was four times the length of the folders, rested atop the paper copies as Matteo and I were left alone in my father’s old office. Both Karr’s body and the body of the man Matteo had killed were removed, but their blood left dark splotches on the plush carpet.
“I wonder how many other bloodstains have been washed out of this rug,” I wondered aloud as Matteo leaned on Dad’s desk.
I hadn’t allowed myself to take in the space. Not as I prepared to meet the men I’d need to convince to follow me. Now, though, I remembered it acutely. I recalled seeing it full of angry men as a child. I recalled my father sitting behind the desk with a rigid posture as he looked down at a stack of paperwork as high as the one I had beside me.
“Tonight was only the first hurdle,” Matteo reminded me.
“I know.”
Matteo glanced at the desk behind him and pulled a box of tissues forward. He pulled a few of them out of the box and moved across the office toward me. He pulled them up between us and swiped one across my cheek, taking it away and revealing red.
“Oh,” I whispered, moving my hand to my face and swiping it across my other cheek. It revealed more blood.
Matteo gently gripped my wrist and pulled it between us. He grabbed clean tissue before dabbing the blood from my hand and moving back toward my face. With one hand, he held my chin. With the other, he cleaned my face efficiently, not missing a single spot.
He dropped the tissue, and I realized for the first time how incredibly close he stood. My chest pressed into him, and jolts of electricity felt like they coursed through my veins. His lips came down and hovered just over mine. He surprised me as his tongue darted out and licked my bottom lip.
The gesture felt both shocking and erotic in a way I couldn’t explain.
“Has anyone ever told you how sexy you are when you kill a man?” he inquired.
I shook my head slowly. “No, I definitely haven’t heard that before.”
He smirked and wrapped an arm around my waist, dragging me closer. “I’ve never been so fucking hot for a woman.”
He moved his hips, and I felt the undeniable proof of his arousal. My mouth parted, and he pressed his lips into them in an instant. The touch didn’t last as long as I would have liked. Within a moment, he pulled away, though his eyes still showed the hunger he felt at my proximity.
“We need to meet with the rest of the people who didn’t come tonight and ensure everyone is on the same page. We got your father’s top advisors to attend tonight, but there are more, and many of them will share the same views as these men.”
I patted the manilla folders. “Well, I’ll go through all of this and set up meetings with them then.” I paused as I leafed through one of the envelopes and grimaced. “Hopefully, word will spread about what happened here tonight, and the others will be more keen to meet with me.”
Matteo leaned forward and kissed my cheek with a half-smile that told me he wasn’t optimistic.
At least we’d made it through tonight. That was the first step. The next step…
Well, we could deal with that tomorrow.