Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
KIRILL
The Ducati’s engine cuts out as I kill the ignition in the circular driveway, my heart hammering from the breakneck ride out of Manhattan to Jersey.
Katya’s voice on the phone had been frantic, breaking apart between sobs. I couldn’t understand everything tumbling out of my sister’s mouth, but caught enough: My father plans to marry her off to form an alliance with the Italians.
I’m off the bike and halfway up the stone steps when the front door flies open and Katya throws herself at me so hard I brace against the railing to keep us both upright. Her arms lock around my ribs.
“He can’t make me marry him, right?” The words come out muffled against my chest. “You won’t let him.”
Truth is, Ruslan, our father, has ultimate power.
He’s the pakhan, head of the bratva and our family.
In our world, daughters don’t get choices.
They’re bargaining chips, married off to secure alliances, their happiness sacrificed on the altar of power and territory.
But I’ll be damned if that’s happening to Katya.
“Hey. Hey, look at me.” I grip her shoulders and pull back to see her blotchy face, dark hair falling out of its bun. “He’s not going to give you to Elio Valenti if I have anything to do with it.”
I wouldn’t trust Elio to water my plants, let alone marry my eighteen-year-old sister.
After years of bratva and mafia fighting over territory, shipments, and control of the city, we’ve carved out an uneasy truce.
But that doesn’t make us allies. It makes us enemies who’ve agreed to stop shooting at each other for now.
My brothers and I went to Saint Augustine’s with him, a private school where organized crime families send their sons to learn the family business.
Elio and I ran in the same circles back then.
We went to the same parties, had the same vices, fucked whoever we pleased.
I didn’t judge him because I was doing the exact damn thing.
But it’s Mara Castellano’s face that flashes through my mind now. She’s the girl he dated senior year. The one he got pregnant. The one who vanished after telling him she was keeping it. The police never found a body.
Katya steps back, wiping her mascara-smeared eyes. “I tried to talk to Papa, but he doesn’t care that I don’t want to marry Elio, or anyone for that matter. I’m supposed to hear back from Juilliard by the end of the month, but if this marriage happens, there’s no way I’ll be going to school.”
I hate seeing her terrified and powerless. I’ve spent most of my life shielding her from the ugliness of bratva life. I was fifteen when our mother died in a car accident, and whatever small warmth existed in this house went with her. Matvey was thirteen, Dem eleven, and Katya, a newborn.
Shortly after Katya was born, just before the accident, my mother pulled me aside and made me swear I would always protect my siblings, especially Katya. She knew how our world treats daughters. I’ve done my best to keep the promise, though it hasn’t been easy.
After everything Katya’s been through, she deserves the chance to study music at Juilliard like she’s always wanted. She deserves a few more years of freedom before the bratva claims her like it claims everyone in its reach.
I shrug out of my leather jacket and drape it around her shoulders. “Tell me exactly what Ruslan said to you.”
“That he and Leonardo Valenti came to an agreement to unite the bratva and the mafia through marriage. He said something about a…” She scrunches her nose. “Phantom?”
I blow out a heavy breath. “He means the Ghost.”
The first strike was twelve days ago. Two trucks full of our guns hijacked from a rest stop upstate.
Our crew was ambushed, four men killed, millions in automatic weapons gone before anyone could call it in.
At the time, we assumed it was an old enemy or another family out for our territory.
We increased security across the board and kept up business as usual.
The second hit came five days ago and made the first look like child’s play.
Eight of our men in the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, moving 3.
5 million in cash. We were ready this time: armed escorts, multiple vehicles.
It didn’t matter. Someone cut the power and turned it into a pitch-black tomb.
Sixty seconds of chaos. When the lights flickered back on, the money was gone and three of our men were dead.
We pulled back after that. Paused most operations, tried to regroup while we figured out who the fuck we were dealing with.
We’ve considered every enemy we’ve made in the past thirty years.
Every rival family, every deal gone wrong, anyone with a grudge and the resources to pull off hits this clean.
Nothing fits. It would make sense if they were targeting one syndicate, taking territory or sending a message.
But this Ghost is hitting all of us. The Irish, the mafia, the Yakuza.
That’s why we think the Ghost is an outside crew trying to take over our city. Destabilize all of us, weaken our hold on New York, and move in when we're too busy bleeding to fight back.
Apparently, my father’s solution is to throw my sister at our oldest enemies and hope binding our families through marriage makes us a powerful enough force to take down this threat.
“Come on,” I say, leading her toward the stairs. “I’ll talk to him.”
She wipes her face again. Dark brown gaze lifts to mine. “I don’t think he’s going to change his mind. Not about this.”
“Leave it to me,” I promise her. “I have a plan.”
I don’t actually have a plan, but the spark of hope lighting Katya’s face is motivation enough to figure it out. I always do.
She disappears to her room and I head toward my father’s study.
Same house I grew up in, yet nothing like it.
When my mother was alive, there was warmth here.
Flowers on the tables, photographs on the walls, color in every room.
When she died, my father stripped it all out within a week.
Furniture gone, photographs packed away, her soft colors painted over with stark neutrals.
I don’t think he was trying to erase her.
Maybe he was trying to survive the only way he knew how, by making the house as emotionally barren as he forced himself to become.
Without our mother, there was no one to tuck Katya in at night or help Matvey with his homework or teach Dem to ride a bike. That responsibility fell to me, and I’ve been carrying it ever since.
When Katya got sick, her small body fighting cancer, Ruslan stayed absent.
Caring for her landed on me and my brothers.
We took shifts sleeping in chairs by her hospital bed, reading her favorite books until she drifted off.
Matvey did ridiculous voices for all the characters to see her smile.
Dem taught her card tricks between chemo sessions.
I held her when she cried because she was tired of being sick, tired of hurting, tired of being brave.
My father looks up from behind his massive desk when I enter his study.
His pale blue eyes, so much like mine, narrow with annoyance.
He’s got a decent head of hair for a man pushing sixty, silver threading through dark strands, and a gym-toned physique maintained through twice-weekly sessions with a personal trainer.
Even on a Saturday morning, he’s wearing a three-piece suit, because Ruslan Baronov is nothing if not professional.
I don’t bother with pleasantries. I plant my hands flat on his desk and lean forward. “You’re not marrying Katya off to Elio Valenti.”
He sets his pen down and leans back, the lines around his eyes more pronounced. “We don’t have a choice. The Ghost is making us look weak, and weakness gets you killed. Joining forces with the Italians makes us invincible, but Leonardo won’t commit without blood ties.”
My hands curl into fists. “Elio is twelve years older than her and a fucking psychopath. Remember Mara Castellano? His girlfriend senior year. She disappeared after he got her pregnant and was never seen again.”
He waves a dismissive hand. “Rumors and speculation. The Castellanos probably sent their daughter to a nunnery in Italy to avoid the shame.”
He rises and moves to the window, pulling back the curtain to stare out at the grounds. “You know what this shutdown is costing us. Not the money, but our reputation. We are one of the most feared families in this city, and the Ghost is making us look pathetic.”
I pull the coin from my pocket and turn it over in my palm. Silver, about the size of a quarter, a symbol etched into both sides: a bird of prey with spread wings. It’s the symbol of the Ghost. A twisted calling card they leave after every attack.
“You’ve spent decades keeping the Valentis out of our business.
Now is not the time to cut them into the deal.
” I roll the coin between my fingers. “The Ghost problem is temporary. Mixing bloodlines isn’t.
Give me twenty days. I’ll find them, eliminate the Ghost, and Katya doesn’t have to marry that svoloch . ”
It’s a bold promise, but I know my father. He doesn’t want to share power with the Valentis any more than I want to share my sister with them.
He studies me for a moment, something shifting behind his eyes. “Bold of you. And how do you plan to take down an enemy we haven’t been able to identify in two weeks?”
“You trained me, didn’t you?” I cross to where he stands at the window. “Let me prove it. I can end this.”
Prove myself.
My words hit the mark. My father’s always worried I’m not serious enough about the crown, that I don’t have the stomach for what being pakhan demands.
He plucks the coin from my palm, turning it between his fingers. “You want to lead? Fine. But being pakhan is about sacrifice. Putting the bratva first.” He sets the coin down between us, deliberate as a gauntlet. “Are you willing to do whatever needs to be done?”
“I’ll do what I have to do, but on my conditions. If I succeed, Katya doesn’t marry Elio or anyone else. She gets to go to school before any marriage arrangements are even discussed.”
“Deal.” His smile is thin. “Twenty days to take out the Ghost. If you’re successful, we won’t need the Valentis and Katya goes to school.
” He pauses, and it’s in this moment that something cold crawls up the back of my neck.
Instinct that I won’t like what comes next.
“But if you fail, your sister marries Elio, and you marry a bride of my choosing.”
And there it is. He knows I’m not interested in marriage, arranged or otherwise. As far as I can tell, most marriages turn into prisons. I made myself a promise a long time ago that I’d never do that to myself or anyone else.
My jaw locks. “Why is that necessary?”
“Arranged marriages are part of this world. Part of being a leader. You’ll have to accept that eventually.”
I turn away from him, dragging a hand through my hair. “Someone in mind?” I ask.
“Does it matter?” He smirks. “You’re not going to fail … are you, Kirill?”
My molars press together. I’ve been played, maneuvered into exactly the position he wanted me in from the moment I walked through the door. “No. I won’t,” I vow. Because now it’s both Katya and my future at risk.
“Then there should be no problem.”
He slides the coin back across the desk and I close my fist around it, the metal biting into my palm. The meeting’s over. I’ve got twenty days to save us both.