Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Vittoria
I'm on my way for this "training his security team" thing. That's what Pietro called it. Professional collaboration.
Right. Because there's nothing more professional than remembering how a man's tongue tasted while explaining facial recognition software to his employees.
Nexus looks different in daylight. Less seductive, more industrial. The velvet ropes are gone, the line of beautiful people replaced by delivery trucks and staff in plain clothes hauling crates through a side entrance.
Elio pulls up to the main entrance, and a man I don't recognize steps forward. He opens my door before Elio can even kill the engine.
"Miss Sartori." His accent is thick, Russian. "I'm to take you to Mr. Baganov."
Of course you are.
I glance at Elio, who's already out of the car, hand hovering near his hip. His jaw is tight. He hasn't forgotten what happened here a month ago.
"Lead the way," I say, stepping out.
The granite man guides us through a service entrance, down a corridor. We pass the main floor, chairs stacked on tables, the dance floor looking sad and ordinary without its lighting tricks.
We stop at a door I recognize. The one that leads to the private rooms upstairs.
Granite Man turns to Elio. "She goes in alone."
Elio's hand moves to his weapon. "That's not happening."
"Mr. Baganov's orders."
"I don't take orders from—"
"Elio." I put my hand on his arm. His muscles are coiled tight, ready to fight. "It's fine."
"Miss Vittoria—"
"I said it's fine." I hold his gaze until he exhales through his nose, backing down. "Wait here."
Granite Man opens the door and gestures me through. The stairwell is dim, familiar in a way that makes my stomach clench. I climb the stairs alone, my footsteps too loud in the silence.
The door at the top is already open.
And there he is.
Dmitri Baganov leans against his desk, arms crossed over his chest, looking like he owns the world and finds it mildly entertaining. He's in short sleeves today, dark fabric stretched across shoulders that seem broader than I remember. His eyes track my entrance.
That smirk. That goddamn smirk, like I'm a punchline to a joke only he understands.
Something in me snaps.
I'm across the room before I can think, stopping inches from his face. Close enough to see the silver threading his temples, the faint scar through his left eyebrow, the way his pupils dilate when I invade his space.
"What the fuck do you want?"
I'm furious. My hands are shaking. I ball them into fists at my sides.
Dmitri doesn't move. That smirk just deepens, carving lines around his mouth.
"Ah." His voice is low, amused. That accent wrapping around every syllable like smoke. "I thought perhaps you wanted another kiss."
Heat floods my face.
"Vaffanculo," I spit. "You arrogant, manipulative—"
"Careful, solnyshko." He tilts his head, studying me like I'm fascinating.
"Don't call me that. Don't call me anything." I'm breathing too fast, chest heaving against the constraints of my professional blouse. "You set this up. The meeting with Pietro, the training, you planned all of it."
"Yes."
No denial. Just that simple admission, delivered like it costs him nothing.
"Why?" I demand.
Dmitri unfolds his arms slowly. He doesn't step back, doesn't give me an inch. We're so close I can smell him. And he smells so damn good.
"You ran from me," he says. "Twice."
"So this is what? Revenge? Some twisted game?"
"I don't play games, Vittoria." The way he says my name makes my skin prickle. "I waited a month. Watched you hide in your compound, pretending that night never happened."
"It didn't happen." The lie tastes bitter. "We kissed. That's all."
"Is that what you tell yourself?"
His hand moves. I should step back. I should, but my feet are rooted to the floor as his fingers brush my jaw, feather-light. The touch burns through me like a brand.
"I remember everything," he murmurs. "The sound you made when I kissed you. How you pressed against me. How you looked at me like you wanted to devour me whole."
My throat closes. "I was drunk."
"You had two glasses of champagne." His thumb traces my lower lip. "Try again."
I grab his wrist, intending to shove him away. Instead, my fingers wrap around warm skin, feeling his pulse beat steady and sure beneath my grip.
"This can't happen," I say.
"Your training session starts in ten minutes," he says pulling back. "My security team is waiting downstairs. I suggest you compose yourself, solnyshko. You look... flushed."
I want to scream. I want to slap that smirk off his face.
Instead, I straighten my spine and meet his gaze with every ounce of Sartori steel I possess.
"This isn't happening again," I tell him.
"No." His smile is slow, certain. "This is just the beginning."
Dmitri
I grab the crystal tumbler from my desk and pour vodka. The burn does nothing to clear my head. All I can think is her.
The door opens without a knock. Only one person does that.
Igor steps inside, closing it behind him. His scarred face holds that expression I've learned to recognize over the years. The one that says he's about to ask questions I don't want to answer.
"Don't," I warn him.
He ignores me. "What are you doing?"
"Running a business." I take another drink.
"That's what you're calling this?" Igor crosses his arms, thick forearms covered in prison tattoos. "You met her once at a gala. Once. She barely spoke to you."
"Your point?"
Igor doesn't flinch. He never does. That's why he's survived this long at my side. He's the only man in the Bratva who tells me the truth even when I don't want to hear it.
"My point," he says slowly, "is that since that night, you've had Yuri tracking her movements. Every day. Every location. Who she meets, where she goes, what time she wakes up."
My jaw tightens.
"You've dug into her background so deep you know her kindergarten teacher's name. Kindergarten, Dmitri. You know what brand of coffee she orders. You know she still visits her dead brother's grave every Sunday at exactly seven in the morning."
"Thorough research for an alliance—"
"Bullshit." Igor's voice doesn't rise, but the word cuts through my excuse like a blade. "This is not research. This is obsession."
The word hangs between us.
I don't deny it.
"This is not you," Igor continues. "You are patient. Calculating. You wait for opportunities, you don't manufacture them. You don't manipulate business meetings so you can spend time with a woman who wants nothing to do with you."
"That's the last time you talk to me like this."
Igor doesn't move. Doesn't blink.
"Is it?" he asks quietly.
The vodka burns in my stomach. I set the glass down before I throw it at his head. "You work for me. Remember that."
"I work for you because I'm the only one who can handle your bullshit." Igor takes a step closer. Not threatening. Worse. Concerned. "I stayed because after that night in Volgograd, I owed you my life. But I also stayed because you're the closest thing I have to family, brat."
Brother.
"Don't," I warn him.
"Someone has to say it." Igor's voice stays level. Patient. The way you talk to a man holding a live grenade. "Right now, you're going to fuck everything up. Everything we've built. The alliance with the Sartoris. Your position as heir. Your father's legacy."
My fingers curl into fists. "Careful."
"If even one person learns you've been obsessing over the Sartori princess —" Igor shakes his head. "The other families will smell blood. They'll think you're weak. Compromised. And they won't be wrong."
I move before I think. One second I'm behind my desk; the next I have Igor's collar twisted in my fist, our faces inches apart.
He doesn't resist. Doesn't even raise his hands.
That's the worst part. He's letting me do this because he knows I need to hit something, and he's willing to be that something if it keeps me from making a bigger mistake.
"She's made it clear she doesn't want you," Igor says quietly. "What happens when the next rejection comes? When she runs to her brothers and tells them the Baganov heir has been stalking her like prey?"
My grip tightens. The tendons in my forearms burn.
"Pietro Sartori will put a bullet in your skull himself. And your father—" Igor's jaw flexes. "Your father will die knowing his son threw away everything for a woman who couldn't stand the sight of him."
I shove him backward. He catches himself against the wall, straightening his jacket without taking his eyes off me.
The silence stretches. My pulse pounds in my temples, in my throat, in my fists.
He's right.
Blyad, he's right, and I hate him for it.
I drag both hands through my hair. The vodka churns in my gut. Through the floor, I can feel the bass from the club below, the vibration of hundreds of bodies moving to music that sounds like my heartbeat—relentless, pounding, desperate.
"I can't stop."
I don't look at Igor when I say it. I look at the security monitors instead, at the feed showing my men gathered in the training room, at the empty chair where Vittoria will sit in a few minutes.
"I know I should. I know this is—" Madness. Obsession. "I know."
Igor exhales slowly. When I finally turn, he's watching me with something that looks almost like pity. On anyone else, I'd kill them for it. On him, I can only endure it.
"Then be smarter about it," he says. "If you're determined to pursue this—and clearly, you are—then stop acting like a man possessed. Stop manipulating situations. Stop having Yuri follow her every move."