14. Arsen
14
ARSEN
The moment Polina appears at my door, I scowl.
“Your face is gonna freeze like that if you keep it up,” she warns.
“Great—it’ll save me from having to tell everyone to leave me the fuck alone all the time.” I pull Nina onto my lap. “Go away. My hour isn’t up yet.”
“You agreed to the handoff at six.” She tips her head to the clock behind me. “It’s five ‘til.”
“Exactly. I have five minutes left.”
I hug Nina to my chest, not that there’s any chance Polina could take her from me. I refuse to lose a single second with my daughter.
Laila may not want to see me, but I refuse to budge where Nina is concerned. My little girl is going to know me.
“This whole business is ridiculous,” I grumble.
“I know,” Polina sighs as she lowers herself into a chair. “But it’s what Laila wants. Humoring her is in your best interests at the moment.”
“I can’t see how. It’s been a fucking week of this nonsense, and I haven’t set eyes on Laila once.”
“I think that’s the point, Arsen. She doesn’t want to see you. Just be grateful she’s decided to let you see Nina.”
“‘Let me’?” I growl. “‘ Let me’? Nina is my daughter. She’s as much mine as she is Laila’s.”
Pol shrugs, unrepentant. “You can be as grumpy as you want about this situation. But right now, you’re in the doghouse, my friend. And that means you have to do what all screw-up husbands have to do in order to get out of the doghouse.”
She waits for me to ask, but I have more self-respect than that.
At least, I thought I did.
But I’m on the verge of giving in and asking what I should do when Polina finally puts me out of my misery. “You have to grovel. Sitting around and waiting for her to realize she needs you and come crawling back isn’t going to win you anything but an unhappy marriage.”
“Newsflash: I’ve already got one of those.”
She shakes her head. “You are two unhappy people in a… a work in progress. You’re going through a tough time right now, and Laila needs you to be patient.”
Polina rises to her feet and reaches for Nina. I’m about to swat her hands away, but the clock behind me chimes.
Polina punctuates each of the six chimes with a wag of her finger. On the final one, she takes Nina into her arms. “Channel all that alpha male energy you’ve got pent up in there and you just might have a shot at winning your wife back.”
On her way out, she leaves the door open for Dominik, who is already waiting in the hallway. Like Polina, he arrived a little early.
“Got the Jag gassed up and ready for our meeting with Enzo.”
“You were supposed to check on Jasper,” I remind him as I rise to meet him, locking my office door behind me.
“I did. There wasn’t much to check,” he says. “He’s pissed that I’m his new middleman between him and you, and I’m delighted that he’s pissed. It’s the least he deserves.”
Dominik isn’t wrong. Letting Laila’s dad into the funeral was literally one of the only things I asked Jasper not to do.
“Did he tell you he’s pissed?”
“He didn’t have to. He almost choked on his tongue doing a little grunt work for me this afternoon.”
“There’s a difference between humility and humiliation, Dom.”
“Is there?” he asks innocently. I glare at him and he chortles. “You’ve been playing favorites all this time, Arsen. It’s time the little shit gets a taste of what life is like in the real world.”
“I haven’t been playing favorites.”
“If Jasper were anyone else, would you be questioning me right now about being too hard on him?” I don’t need to say anything for us to both know the answer to that question. “That’s what I thought. Onto happier topics: How’s the custody arrangement with Laila going?”
I unlock the Jag and slide into the driver’s seat. “Let’s just say this meeting with the Italians will be a nice break from that torture.”
“You want to split the Temple District?” I ask in surprise.
Enzo’s eyes skirt over his copy of the contract he brought to the table. “You’ll get sixty percent; I’ll get forty. A gesture of good faith.”
“It looks more like a peace offering for your late father’s treachery.”
He concedes my point with a quick nod. “Call it what you like. The bottom line is that you’ll get the lion’s share of both the territory and the profit it generates.”
“I am the lion, Enzo. It serves to reason that I would get the lion’s share. You’re not giving me anything that isn’t rightfully mine.”
His throat bobs. “I have vested interests in that territory, too, Arsen. I can’t just concede the entire thing to you.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
I keep my gaze fixed on him until he buckles. “Seventy-thirty, then,” he offers, his voice shaking. “That’s more than fair.”
I incline my head. “I can live with that.”
“Excellent. Then it’s a deal.” He lets out a long-repressed sigh. “That brings us to the next order of business: Pobeda.” He must see my immediate displeasure, because he rushes to clarify, “I’m asking for no more than sales rights. I want to be able to stock and sell your brand in my clubs and restaurants.”
“That would make Pobeda the only non-Italian brand to be sold on Calcagno properties.”
“A great honor.”
“For whom?” I smile sharply. “Pobeda is an exclusive brand. Allowing you to sell it would be akin to declaring to the world that we’re allies.”
He tilts his head to the side, the incandescent lightbulbs of the speakeasy glinting off his greased black hair. “Well, aren’t we?”
“That’s optimistic of you.”
Enzo steeples his fingers and leans toward me. “My father had a different agenda than I do. He wanted to disrupt the status quo, to cause chaos. but I can be of help to you. I have more to offer you than just money and territory, Arsen.”
I search his face for a long time, but I find nothing to distrust. In the end, I agree. “I’ll put you in touch with my distributor after we’ve signed on the dotted line.”
Enzo’s mouth splits into a satisfied smile. “Wonderful. Then we’re in agreement?”
I glance down at the contract, stretching out the pause just to make Enzo squirm a little. “We’re in agreement.”
He extends his hand to me. “This is great news. I want to celebrate. With dinner. Both of our families should be there.”
I bite back a grimace.
Laila is barely tolerating the fact I exist. Parading around like we’re a happily married couple is definitively off the table. I have a better chance of convincing Polina to let her hair down and do the Irish jig on my bar counter.
But the last thing I want to do is rouse suspicions in my new ally that I can’t manage my own home.
“My wife is in mourning, Enzo. I’ll have to see if she’s feeling up to it.”
And if she’s willing to share my air for a few hours.
His expression falls. “I was so sorry to hear about her mother’s passing. Please convey my deepest sympathies to your wife.”
I acknowledge that with a simple nod of my head. I won’t waste time trying to explain exactly what Marie took with her into the next life.
“As far as the dinner goes, this will be a long-lasting alliance. We have time. The important thing is that we’re in agreement about our mutual interests,” Enzo continues. “And since we are… I have something I need to tell you.”
Fuck. I can smell bad news coming from a mile away. “Testing the limits of my patience so soon?”
“Strengthening it, I hope.” He clears his throat. “It’s about the hit… on your wife.”
Everything in me stretches taut. “Reminding me of the hit your father ordered seconds after we’ve shaken hands isn’t a sign of trust—it’s stupidity.”
“The hit was ordered without my knowledge or approval.”
“So you say.”
“And so I will continue to say, because it is the truth.” He clears his throat and smooths the lash of anger from his voice once again. “Since I had no knowledge of the inner workings of that decision, I did some investigating once I became don. And it turns out that my father didn’t make the call alone.”
“If you’re trying to posthumously prove your father’s innocence, you can save your breath. He’s worm food regardless.”
“My father is indeed dead, Arsen,” Enzo agrees coldly. “I’m the one that pulled the trigger.” He pauses as if he can still hear the reverberations of the shot in the back of his mind. “So believe me when I say that, if I didn’t protect him in life, I’m certainly not about to protect his memory in death.”
Fair enough. I nod for him to continue.
“My father was approached by a man with his own agenda, but limited resources. My guess,” Enzo says, “is that he planned to make the hit and then use the fool as a scapegoat once the body had cooled.”
The casual mention of even the idea of Laila’s dead corpse sparks a kind of white-hot rage I’ve never felt before. It takes all of my self-control to remain in my seat.
“If you have a name, give it,” I growl. “I’m not about to give you a fucking drumroll.”
“Barnes,” he answers promptly. “The man who wanted your wife dead is named Charles Barnes.”