Chapter 22 Gianni
Gianni
There was a time and a place for everything.
And this was the time to sit down with Archie Popovich.
My cousin Atlas didn’t believe in half-measures. If he set a table, he made sure it was done properly. He cleared the room, swept the walls, locked down the exits, and stationed enough armed men to make even the Pope reconsider dropping by uninvited.
The warehouse reflected that philosophy perfectly.
It had been stripped to the bone—raw concrete underfoot, corrugated steel walls scarred by age and neglect, a single industrial light hanging low over a battered card table that had probably hosted more bad decisions than poker hands.
There were no windows and no shadows deep enough to hide in.
It was neutral ground in the purest, most unforgiving sense of the word.
I arrived at eight on the dot.
Archie Popovich was already there.
He sat behind the table like he’d been born to it, arms stretched wide across the wood, fingers loose, posture relaxed in a way that was anything but.
The suit he wore was dark and perfectly tailored, expensive without screaming about it.
He looked good. Archie was a handsome devil when he wasn’t being an irredeemable asshole, which, regrettably, was most of the time.
I unbuttoned my jacket as I crossed the floor and took the empty chair opposite him. I sat.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Eighteen months of quiet war lived in that silence. Bidding wars. Blocked permits. Deals that collapsed at the eleventh hour because one of us had whispered into the right ear first. We’d circled the same stretch of territory like dogs scenting blood, and neither of us had been willing to blink.
Archie smiled first.
“Gianni Cavalho,” he said mildly. “Right on time. You have a penchant for impeccable timing.”
The jab landed where it was meant to. He was referring to my habit of killing his bids before they ever gathered momentum. And almost certainly to the fact that I’d happened to be in exactly the wrong place at exactly the right time when his fiancée crossed my path.
Well. Crossed paths with my car.
“You know me,” I replied. “I don’t like wasting time. Especially not my own.”
He chuckled. Actually chuckled. “Straight to business, then. That’s why we get along.”
I leaned back, measured, and let the chair creak beneath my weight. “You put bullets through my front door,” I said. “I assume that was your way of starting a conversation.”
I didn’t soften it. There was no point. If we were going to dance, we might as well step on each other’s toes early.
Archie’s smile didn’t falter, but something sharpened behind his eyes.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
“If you’re referring to your so-called runaway bride,” I said evenly, “I beg to differ. She belongs to no one. That’s rather the point of the term runaway.”
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “And here I thought we were past semantics.”
I folded my hands on the table. “George Gregory owed you money. He’s dead—which, last I checked, was your handiwork. Dead men don’t settle debts, Archie. You know that better than anyone.”
Archie laughed again, quieter this time. Colder. “That’s not how debt works.”
“Then explain it to me,” I said. “Slowly. I’m feeling particularly stupid tonight.”
He leaned forward, forearms still spread, eyes intent. “Gregory owed me years of bad debt. Interest compounds. Death doesn’t erase that. It transfers.”
“To his daughter?”
“To his legacy,” Archie corrected. “Mikayla was the collateral he offered when he ran out of cash and credibility.”
I felt irritation stir, hot and unwelcome, but I kept my voice level. “Well then,” I said, “I think we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle.”
He shrugged. “Give me the girl back and be on your way. Then you can have your pickle. And eat it, too.”
I studied him for a long beat, letting the silence stretch until it started to itch.
“You’ll get the girl back,” I said, “when you withdraw from Provence.”
I finally had his attention.
His eyes narrowed—not so much surprise as focus.
“So that’s what this is,” he said. “You think you can leverage her to push me out of the bidding.”
“I think you understand exactly what this is,” I replied. “What’s your answer?”
He leaned back then, slow and unhurried, stretching out like a man settling in rather than one being cornered. It was a tell. Archie leaned back when instinct told him to lunge and experience told him not to.
I didn’t rush him. Because the truth was simple, and he knew it as well as I did. For the first time in a very long time, Archie Popovich didn’t control the board. And he hated it.
I leaned forward. “Are you really ready to go to war with the Cavalho family?”
For one brief moment—just one—I saw calculation override ego. Then Archie exhaled slowly.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said. “For a woman who isn’t yours.”
I met his gaze. “She’s not yours either.”
He studied me like he was seeing me clearly for the first time.
“Save me the righteous speech, Gianni,” he said. “I know damn well this isn’t about morality. What do you want?”
“The same thing I’ve always wanted.”
“That’s not a fair trade,” he said. “You having my fiancée doesn’t give you the right to use her as a bargaining chip for Provence.”
“No?” I asked calmly. “From where I’m sitting, I’m the one holding the leverage.”
“This isn’t over.”
“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”
When I stood, Archie stayed seated.
“Same territory,” he said lightly, looking up at me. “Same woman. Same bad blood. In another life, we could’ve been brothers.”
I buttoned my jacket. “Try not to shoot up my house again.”
He smirked. “No promises.”
As I turned to leave, I felt it—sharp, unwanted, unmistakable.
Respect.
Because men like Archie Popovich didn’t give it easily.
Archie fucking Popovich.
The man had been the bane of my existence for the past eighteen months.
On paper, he was flawless. Tailored suits. Perfect manners. A last name that carried enough weight in Russian circles to open doors and shut mouths. He shook hands like a gentleman and smiled like he’d never raised his voice in his life.
Which was impressive, considering how often he made me want to throw him through a window.
The first time we crossed paths, I didn’t realize that was what it would become—a crossing. Two lines intersecting with no chance of ever running side by side again. I’d assumed he’d be a minor irritation. A delay. A footnote.
He wasn’t.
Eighteen months later, here we were.
I’d cleared every other bidder out of Provence with quiet precision. Months of groundwork, careful deals, favors cashed in. The territory was mine in everything but ink.
Then Popovich showed up. All charm and arrogance. Acting like Provence had been waiting for him since birth.
That’s when three things became clear: Archie was dangerous, he didn’t like me, and one of us was going to bleed eventually.
He decided I was a problem.
I responded the only way I knew how.
I dismantled his operation without touching him directly. Bought loyalty where it counted. Made his allies cautious and his people nervous. A whisper here, a favor there—just enough to make his foundation start to creak.
No one was stealing what I’d built. Especially not a Russian who thought his name was a blank check.
Archie didn’t take it well.
He escalated like men always do when they think they’re untouchable.
If I undercut him, he hit back harder. If I raised the bid, he doubled it with numbers so obscene they felt like a joke.
We leapfrogged each other until the seller stopped answering calls altogether—probably to rethink every decision that led them to us.
We were deadlocked. A stalemate so tense it had its own atmosphere.
And somewhere along the way, it stopped being about territory.
It became about balance.
It was absurd. Exhausting. And, against my better judgment, exhilarating.
Because as much as I hated him—and I did—Archie was sharp. Ruthless. Always one step ahead. He pushed where others folded. Anticipated moves I hadn’t even made yet.
We understood each other in a way I didn’t enjoy admitting.
This wasn’t a rivalry anymore.
It was a reckoning.
Archie believed the world bent for him. That men like me would either fall in line or step aside. That pressure always worked.
He was wrong.
I didn’t know what twisted force put Mikayla Gregory in my path, but I owed it a thank-you note.
Because she was—objectively—the most effective leverage I could use against Archie Popovich.
That was the ugly truth.
He didn’t want Provence for money alone. He wanted control. And Mikayla was the one thing he’d never fully secured, no matter how hard he pretended otherwise. The woman he’d claimed, displayed, almost caged—and lost.
Which made her valuable.
It was supposed to stay simple.
I kept my distance on purpose. Drew hard lines. Told myself she was strategy, not sentiment. Protection. Pressure. A means to an end.
I told myself I could make the trade if it came to that. That it would be unpleasant, but necessary. That Provence was worth it.
Then yesterday happened.
I slept with her.
Held her afterward. Stayed when I should’ve walked away. Let emotion blur lines I’d drawn for a reason.
And now I was paying for it.
I might have handled the meeting without this gnawing weight in my chest if I hadn’t let a certain appendage derail my common sense. That much I could admit. But excuses didn’t change the reality: once I’d crossed that line, there was no going back.
I put her on the table anyway.
Not because I wanted to—but because Archie needed to believe I would.
I watched his posture change when he understood the offer. Watched him calculate. Consider it.
And that was when everything inside me locked tight.
Because if he’d said yes, I wouldn’t have known what came next.
There was no version of this where I handed her back. No scenario where I sent her to a man I knew was unstable and cruel. I wasn’t heartless enough for that.
I wanted her. I wanted Provence. And I needed this war finished.
Those truths didn’t sit neatly together. And Archie Popovich didn’t allow half-measures.
This had to be seen through all the way, no matter the cost. Even if that cost turned out to be higher than I’d planned for.