Chapter 3
three
Nikolaj
Bucharest looks way too clean for the rot that hides beneath.
That’s my first thought as the car cuts through the city under a gray afternoon.
The Ardelean Hotel rises ahead of us in polished steel and mirrored elegance.
It’s one of those places built to impress men with too much money and not enough taste.
A place where quiet staff members are trained to look invisible while memorizing every face that matters.
I sit in the back of the armored car, with my suit jacket unbuttoned. The convoy behind us is bigger than the invitation requested and smaller than Maksim wanted, which means it’s exactly the right size.
Maksim is driving, one hand resting near the inside holster beneath his jacket, his gaze moving between the windshield and the side mirror without looking nervous.
Kai sits to my left, elbow braced against the door. He’s staring out at the streets with a faintly disappointed expression.
“You’d think with all this money, they’d choose a hotel somewhere less fucking obvious,” Maksim mutters, watching pedestrians scatter back from the curb when our lead vehicle takes a turn too fast. “Pretty place to stage a massacre.”
“It’s obvious on purpose,” Kai says before I can be bothered. “It shows confidence. Besides, you say that about everything expensive.”
“It shows ego,” Maksim shoots back. “And expensive things are usually built by cunts who invite massacres.”
I almost smile. “Behave, Maksimka.”
Maksim’s grin flashes in the rearview mirror—all scar, teeth, and bad intentions. “That sounds suspiciously like a request, not an order.”
“It’s an order now,” I drawl.
The hotel grows larger as we approach; its entrance is blocked by black SUVs and what seems to be private security. The car slows beneath the hotel canopy, and I catch my reflection in the tinted glass before the door opens.
Dark suit, white shirt, black tie, expression carved into the same one I’ve worn into execution chambers and parliament back halls alike. My eyes are colder than Ruslan’s, even though I earned a scar matching his in a fight years ago.
I look like what I am now—Pakhan. Not heir, not son, not a weapon pointed by another hand. I’m a fucking empire with a pulse.
“You didn’t sleep,” Kai remarks, not as a question.
“On planes?” I reply. “You know better.”
His gaze flickers over my face for signs of fatigue or anything more. He doesn’t ask the question he really wants to ask: Did you dream?
I did. I’ve had the same dreams for the last five years, and they get worse when I’m under pressure.
I never remember enough upon waking to make sense of them.
Just fragments that leave me pissed off, half-hard, and furious—which is a particularly insulting combination to wake up to when the face is always out of reach.
A hand braced against a wall beside my head.
Smoke. Rows of books. The low burn of amber lamplight.
A gun against my neck while I laugh. A man close enough to ruin my breathing, and familiar enough that I never panic in the dream.
Sometimes we’re fighting. Sometimes we’re fucking.
Sometimes the line between those two things is too thin to separate.
I wake up before I can see his face, but the same line echoes in my head each time.
“You undo me, Nikolaj.”
When I asked the doctors about the gaps in my memory, they gave me platitudes:
Trauma. The brain protecting itself. Fragmented recall. Head injuries can erase months or even years. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t.
When I asked my family, they gave me even less.
“Some things are better left alone,” Ruslan said in that irritated, dismissive way, as if I misplaced a watch instead of losing months of my life.
“Don’t dig. Please,” Arseniy said then, his hand firmly on my shoulder, and his tone uncharacteristically soft.
Now, Arseniy doesn’t say anything to me at all.
The car door opens, and I step out, buttoning the front of my jacket. Kai and Maksim are beside me a second later, immediately slotting into place on either side of me.
The entrance hall is marble, brass, and muted light. There are no visible cameras, which means they are everywhere.
Staff in black move around us with lowered eyes, while security lines the perimeter in tasteful clusters. They’re all pretending allegiance to hospitality, while carrying enough hardware beneath their jackets to start a small war.
Gabriel Ardelean owns this hotel—including half of Romania’s underworld—and is in no way affiliated with any member of the Five Families. I would know, since I fuck him on occasion and have enough blackmail on his family to bury him.
I watch exits, cameras, mirrored surfaces, weapon bulges, and the light hitch in the concierge’s breathing when he realizes who I am. My shoes sound too loud on the polished floor, or maybe everyone has just gone that quiet.
That same concierge hurries forward, a trim man in his fifties with a perfect tie and a nervous smile.
“Mr. Dragovich,” he says in English, offering a hand. “Welcome to the Ardelean. It’s always a pleasure seeing you.”
I take his hand briefly, just enough to be polite. “My men are already here. They’ll have arranged everything.”
“Yes, of course,” he says quickly. “Your suite is prepared, and the conference level is secured as you requested. The other parties have taken to their rooms to freshen up. May I offer you some refreshments before—”
“No,” I cut in, softer than I usually would. There’s no point in tearing into a man who is more useful cooperative than he is terrified. “We’ll head straight to the conference room. My people can bring anything we need.”
He nods, relief flickering across his face. “This way, please,” he says, pivoting and leading us toward the bank of elevators with his pace just shy of a rush.
I step into the elevator and stand at the back with Kai and Maksim flanking me. The concierge hovers in front, and I don’t have to look at him to know he’s nervous.
I watch my own reflection in the mirrored pane, and feel that old irritation stir. The one that has never fully left since that invitation came through.
Vieri.
Even thinking it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though not for the reasons it should. That’s always been the fucking problem.
I’ve hated the Vieri family my whole life—that’s the truth I know. That’s the truth I was raised on. Enemy. Rival. A man my bloodline has every reason to despise and every obligation to destroy.
I know all of that. I know it in the same way I know my own name, my own territory lines, and my family history written in blood, violence, and expectation.
So why the fuck does it never feel complete?
That’s what drives me half mad about it.
I know how to carry hatred—hatred is simple.
But every time Vincenzo comes up, every time someone looks at me a split second too long before answering, I get the same ugly sensation that everyone in the room is standing around a body no one will tell me about.
I rub the edge of my thumb over my lower lip, but then stop myself from repeating the old habit.
The old blanks in my head start to irritate me again; sealed rooms I’ve never managed to force open, no matter how hard I’ve pushed.
No matter what doctors, specialists, or old family fixers my father dragged in to evaluate whether I could be repaired.
The answer was always no, and then the answer stopped mattering because I made myself too dangerous for anyone to treat that brokenness as weakness.
But there are moments—very brief and fucking ugly—when I can feel the edges of those missing pieces pressing from the inside. Vincenzo’s name seems to be the pressure point.
Nobody tells me shit. Not my father, who serves as my confidant and knows my moods better than Kai, though Kai is too loyal to insult me with evasions. Not Maksim, who doesn’t give a fuck about anything as long as he can kill it. And not Arseniy.
Especially not Arseniy.
The thought of him brings a familiar hardening to my jaw. My older brother hasn’t spoken to me in years, and I understand why. He abdicated—left without a word. For a man who spent years being the family’s blade, he became a ghost the second his traitor wife took her last breath.
Duty is not a choice—guess the same didn’t apply to him.
The doors open onto the executive floor with thicker carpeting, fewer cameras in obvious sight, and two separate security screenings arranged in a tasteful choke point before the conference wing.
Byrne’s people handle the first; King’s and Reyes’ men stand visible at the second. Vieri’s people, if they’re already here, are nowhere in sight.
Somewhere inside this building sits Vincenzo Vieri, choosing to make an entrance and keep us all waiting. That would track. He always had a talent for showmanship.
… I think.
The double doors open before we reach them, Ardelean staff performing choreography rehearsed to death. The room beyond is all glass and dark polished wood, the city spread beneath it like a lit stage set.
A long table dominates the center, set not with food but with water, tablets, and dossiers. There are five principal seats and secondary chairs set back for advisors who know their place. Enough space between each territory marker to suggest professionalism and hide distrust.
Helena Byrne is already seated with a cigarette between her fingers. She’s the first thing most men in this world underestimate and the last mistake some of them ever make.
Mid-forties, maybe, though age sits differently on women who have learned how to weaponize poise. Her dark hair is cleanly pinned back, green eyes as cool as winter glass. There’s no smile on her face, but there’s no need for one.
Helena built her power in rooms full of men who thought their underestimation counted as an advantage. Now she wears authority with the kind of ruthless elegance that makes weaker men bristle.
She offers me a measured nod as I enter, neither deferential nor foolishly familiar. “Pakhan.”
I respectfully return her nod. “Lady Byrne.”
To her right sits Stefano Reyes—dark hair, even darker eyes, broad through the shoulders, black suit straining a little at the arms. He has a boxer’s stillness even at rest. He looks at me once, then nods as well.
“Dragovich.”
“Reyes.”
At the far end of the table is Kieran King—blond hair, mean blue eyes, and American polish over coldness underneath.
Senator’s face. Statesman’s voice. Predator’s eyes.
Men like him are always more dangerous when they’ve learned how to smile for the cameras and sign death warrants with the same hand.
He inclines his head as much as courtesy demands.
“Pakhan Dragovich.”
“Senator King.”
I take my seat without waiting to be invited. Kai and Maksim position themselves behind me, one on each side—silent and still enough to vanish into the architecture.
I rest my forearms on the table in front of me and let my gaze move across the room, assessing without pretending otherwise.
Byrne’s people at both exits. King has one advisor inside and another outside.
Reyes brought two but left one in the corridor, suggesting he expects trouble but doesn’t want to insult the host. Which leaves us with—
“Where is our host?” I ask, folding my hands loosely on the table. “I thought the King of all Kings would be here to greet us with wine and apologies.”
“Traffic,” Helena says with a curl of her lip, ash dropping neatly into the crystal tray in front of her. “He let us know his flight was slightly delayed.”
“He’ll come,” King says with that infuriating politician’s calm. “He likes an audience, and won’t miss the chance to make an entrance.”
I roll my shoulder once, easing the tension that has no business being there.
This is routine and politics. I know how to assess a room, measure threats, and decide who needs to die first if the doors lock and the lights go out.
I know how to sit still and give nothing away—I’ve done it since I was old enough to spell my own name.
Still, there’s a hum under my skin that isn’t normal anticipation. It feels like the moment before a fight, when your body already knows the first blow is coming, and your muscles brace on their own.
We settle into a waiting rhythm. Kai murmurs something low in my ear about security rotations outside. Maksim shifts his weight once, and then stills—eyes roving over faces, exits, and angles.
I check my watch, more for something to do with my hands than because I care about the time.
Kai says nothing behind me, but I can feel him reading the slight change in my shoulders all the same because he knows me too well.
He knows the difference between boredom and tension, between annoyance and that harder, more volatile thing I rarely let close enough to show.
The doors open again, and I look up.
Vincenzo Vieri walks in, and my pulse gives a brutal thud against my ribs. The room tilts in that sharp, sensory way when a threat enters range and your body recognizes it before your mind finishes the thought.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck, and every muscle goes tight and ready—though for what, I couldn’t say even if someone shoved a gun in my face and demanded it.
He looks nothing like the half-formed ghost from memory, and yet exactly like him.
Thirty, maybe a touch older in the eyes than the rest of him. Tailored dark suit cut with obscene precision, black tie, white shirt, posture so fucking controlled it reads aristocratic until you look closer and realize the stillness is weaponized.
Dark hair brushed back neatly, and a face too composed to be called soft and too handsome to be ignored. There’s an old-world elegance to him that should irritate me on principle, but my body isn’t reacting with irritation. It’s doing something far more treacherous—visceral and deeply unwelcome.
It knows him.
That’s the only phrase that fits, and I hate it the second it forms.
Vincenzo’s gaze moves across the room in one calm sweep and lands on me.
Everything inside me becomes colder.
There’s no obvious reaction on his face, either. If anything, he looks almost bored—the polished king arriving a fraction late to a meeting he assumes will proceed on his terms.
But I catch it, anyway. Some minute change in the eyes; an infinitesimal tightening that most of the room would miss. I don’t know how the fuck I notice it because I shouldn’t know his face well enough to read anything that small.
He inclines his head to the others first, then to me. “Apologies for being late. Traffic was a nightmare.”
My world comes to an immediate fucking stop.