17. Milana
MILANA
I glance away from Luca to the deck and beyond. It’s overcast today, threatening rain.
“We’re this close to Boston already?”
We’re cruising between the Boston Harbor Islands. I grasp at this straw to change the conversation. I can’t carry on with this interrogation, go places it will lead me to in my mind, shock still vibrating through my bones.
There’s only one reason Ivan would be in such a rage he’d phone Matteo Scalera, telling him Gabriella is marked by the Bratva.
He didn’t give more details, because Gabriella is pierced, like Darya was—my brother’s first wife.
Darya’s dead, but to find out your second wife is marked just like your first? Total mind fuck.
With Gabriella’s confession about speaking Russian, the pieces are slotting into place.
Chertnikov.
A quiver runs through me. I’ve lost my appetite, bile rising in my throat.
I’m stunned and not surprised in the same breath.
For more than six years, Chertnikov has been working to achieve his goal of seizing the Petrov Bratva, but in Europe, he would have been at it for much longer, infiltrating the crime rings there, taking over, grabbing land, forcing other rings into submission.
And Gabi was only thirteen. I want to vomit.
Darya’s jewelry, which I collected on behalf of Ivan at the morgue after her overdose, had several obscure piercings amongst millions of dollars of diamonds, all those glitzy loop earrings and heavy rings she loved to wear.
We couldn’t tell the morgue to toss everything.
The girls could want something of their mother one day.
I shoved the box into the home safe, leaving it for Ivan to deal with.
Her piercings could still be there. What with everything going on, he wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but it’s the perfect sample to use for comparison and check if it’s a match with Gabriella’s. With mine.
God, if it is—
All those days locked up in Ivan’s compound and I didn’t even think about this, too consumed by my own mess. Now it’s too late.
“We cruised north during the night.” Luca’s voice drills through to me. “We could have sailed around for a few more days, but I told the captain to head home.” He reaches out, touching my forearm. “Are you okay, Milana?”
“Yes…yes, of course.” But I can’t look him in the eye. Not this man, who seems to read me like a book. “Where are we going once we’ve anchored?”
I stand and go behind the bar to help myself to a glass of water, desperate to put some distance between us. Anything to keep busy.
“My apartment. It’s mostly ready for you.”
My next cage. I can’t wait. “Can we go outside? Watch going into the harbor? We can see the Boston cityscape from the deck.”
Anything to end this discussion and enjoy my last bit of freedom.
“Sure. It’s going to be chilly.”
“I’m okay.” It will be the perfect excuse to head back to my cabin and hide away.
He opens the door for me, and the cold breeze that flows over the ocean from the speed of the yacht cuts through my thin sweater, but I head for the railing as I take deep breaths of the salty air.
I stare at the horizon, willing myself to calm down. And then he’s behind me, his hand on my back, sliding down my arm and to my waist as he tugs me to his chest, that warm, solid wall of male muscle I clung to on the bike ride yesterday.
“You’re not dressed for this, princess,” he murmurs, his deep voice right by my ear as his hand curves over my stomach to keep me warm.
“No,” I whisper back, too tired and fragile from our earlier conversation to battle my body’s response to his touch.
I close my eyes, in wonder that I fit him so perfectly, snug between his arms, his body heat spilling over me.
Every fiber of my being should object, but like this, holding me tight yet gently, all I feel is his strength and the fact he’s basically holding me up, if unwittingly.
I loathe how he makes me feel safe like this, only wanting to lean back against his solid chest.
“You see the tallest building?” he murmurs in my ear, his breath sending chills of a different nature down my neck and beyond, to where the arousal he sparked yesterday stirs again.
Oh, God. This is the last thing I need. But he said I’d be begging, and I can see it now.
I won’t be able to resist him in the long run.
Not when he is gentle and kind too, and more considerate than the Bratva brutes who crossed my path.
But I bet in time, he’ll show his true colors.
All men, in my experience, are the same.
I warn myself to brace for disappointment.
I look and spot the building. “Yes. The brown one.”
He squeezes my hand before letting go to point toward the city. “Just in front of it, there’s a smaller one, and somehow squeezed in between them, another taller one. Not as tall as the tallest. You see it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ours.”
“Yours?” I ask, leaning back to glance up at him.
“Yes, princess. Told you we’re in a different orbit than your dime-a-dozen Dons.”
“Ha,” I chuckle. “It’s just an office building?”
“It’s mostly offices. We’ve kept the top two floors for our personal use. Renovated the whole lot some years ago.”
Raindrops fall, cold little stabs to my exposed skin, but they will hide the tears I am battling to contain. I turn my face to the sky, praying Luca won’t notice. I’ll have to escape an entire tower? Kill me already.
He slides his hands to squeeze my hips, and all I want is to follow the quiet command and turn into his embrace, but he lets go and takes my hand instead, leading me back into the cabin.
“Let’s go inside before we get soaked. I better call for a car and not give you a hell’s ride to our high rise, which was the original plan.”
“Thank God,” I say, and there’s a smile in my voice. I’m back in control of my emotions.
An hour later, we finally walk off the yacht onto the marina, our shared umbrella low, rain coming down in sheets.
Someone has our luggage, I’m clutching my purse close, and Luca’s arm is wrapped around my shoulders, steering me to where an SUV is parked.
He tilts the umbrella in such a way that nobody can see our faces, but I don’t think anybody is out to get photos of us in weather like this.
Still, he is wearing sunglasses and a cap and has pulled my rain jacket’s hood low over my face.
Chance of escape: below zero. Fucked levels: rising by the minute.
A bodyguard holds the door open for me, and I slide in, shoes drenched, my jeans soaked to mid-calf.
“I didn’t see this downpour coming,” I say as Luca scoots in after me.
“Neither did I. I haven’t had my eyes on the weather lately.” He shoots me a smile. “I was too busy preparing for your arrival.”
“And you had months for that,” I joke, but sensing this man has something up his sleeve. He was on a call with his brother earlier, talking in rapid Italian, his back to me, and the only words I understood were ben and piano. The Italian musical terms for ‘well’ and ‘softly’.
Now he has that distinct naughty-boy grin tilting the corners of his mouth, a certain glint in his eyes. It only makes me want to see this side more, to get to know him like this, because I need ease and lightless in my life right now.
“You know Boston?” he asks, back to small talk.
“No, not really. I was here once before to check out universities, but in the end, I went to Juilliard.”
“One day, we’ll do some sightseeing.” His phone vibrates with a message, and he glances at it. “The stage is set, princess. We’re good to go.”
The driver nods and drives off. It takes us less than half an hour to enter a high-rise parking garage. I’ve lost track of where I am, staring out of the window and just taking in the city. The tires screech as we circle deeper underground and go through two extra security gates.
If feels as if I’m descending into the nine circles of Hell, my throat clamping tight as each gate shudders closed behind us. Luca is busy on his phone, oblivious to my mental spiral as I fist my hands, the only light coming from his phone where it beams up to his face.
Eventually, the driver stops, and Luca says, “This is us.”
If he opens a trapdoor to an underground torture chamber, I’d just nod and say, let’s do this. Make it quick.
Instead, he guides me to an elevator, shooting the shit with his security staff along the way. I can’t register anything except that I’m seriously screwed. Climbing over Ivan’s compound wall seems like a walk in the park now.
We ride the elevator in one go to the top floor; there aren’t any other options for stops.
Luca rolls on his heels, seeming buzzed.
He looks like a kid about to burst out with the best news ever.
Who knows what it is. Lately, I’m not a fan of surprises and I hope he hasn’t gone and done something…
I don’t know, romantic? As long as I can react appropriately, it should be fine, right?
The elevator doors swoosh open, and we enter a beautiful foyer with corridors going in opposite directions lined with several doors.
“Gym, swimming pool, and so on through there. Benedict is on that side, and we’re here.”
I breathe a bit, what with the console table and fresh flowers standing ceremoniously against the wall, giving off an air of care, but these are bachelor’s digs.
I watch on as Luca goes through the security checks to get into his apartment.
A fucking retina scan. I might not be getting out of this apartment, but I’m not getting back in, either.
These men are more security neurotic that Ivan.
Luca sweeps open the door and stands aside for me to go in first. I stroll inside, taking in the vast space beyond the foyer.
Natural light floods the open-concept living area through the floor-to-ceiling windows, The dark hardwood floors, the grey granite kitchen with steel accents, and the massive black leather sectional are all stark and masculine, but beyond it, in a space seemingly made for it, stands the biggest concert piano you can buy.
Black gloss finish, striking in its elegance.
Even from here, I can tell by just looking at its silhouette and the sweeping curve guiding the eye to the keyboard that it’s a Steinway concert grand.
Almost nine feet of pure instrument perfection.
The piano has a thick garish red ribbon wrapped around it, culminating in a massive perm of elaborate curls on top, so in contrast with the instrument itself, I start to giggle.
Luca has me at the small of my back, leading me to it. “I got you a wedding present, princess,” he says, a happy smile in his voice. “Thought you would hate to be bored here while we sit this out.”
A piano. My go-to distraction, getting me through every hardship as a child being swept to and fro between Russia and the States, never knowing my place.
It helped me through Mom’s illness, through the inevitable isolation of being a woman in the Bratva.
A career not carved out of talent, but out of desperation.
And now, all I can see is Dimitri’s blood as it seeps between the keys of Papa’s antique Steinway.
I cup my hands to my face and burst into tears.