18. Luca
LUCA
A punch in the gut would have been more welcome.
“Ah, fuck, princess. Should I have gotten the Bosendorfer? Or the Fazioli?”
Milana’s tears are sudden and sharp, a floodgate that’s opened.
I bet she’s wanted to release this tension ever since she walked down the aisle.
This is the last reaction I expected, but I get it.
Any woman flung into a stranger’s home and life like this through a fucking arranged marriage would be tense, dreading the worst, as if every single step toward her groom could be leading to some version of the gallows.
This is the last thing I wanted for her, so I reach out, a soft touch to her arm, not sure how to comfort her. It’s possible this could be about so much more than a stupid piano, a fucked-up arranged marriage, or her being here with me, a wife on paper, a bird in a cage. She’s Bratva, after all.
“Shit, princess, I’m clueless. Just went on Reddit for advice then made the call based on availability…” I trail off.
She sniffs and shakes her head, but still, the tears come, and when she turns to me and rests her forehead on my chest, I wrap her in my arms, even though she’s folded hers over her stomach, protective of her body.
Still, I blow out a soft sigh in relief as she leans into me while I rub her back, letting the emotions flow out of her. It’s a win. A massive one. Already, she’s coming to me of her own accord.
Eventually, she slows down, and after a few hiccups, looks up at me. “It’s the perfect piano. The best in the world. Is it brand new? Those things cost like almost half a million dollars.”
I shrug. Who the fuck cares about the money? “You’re a pro, Milana—” And as my wife, deserve the best.
“I don’t know how you did it, because it wasn’t here when our brothers arranged our lives earlier this week.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I say with a lopsided smile. “A logistical nightmare, but Ben handled it.”
With a backhanded swipe at her nose, she steps out of my arms and shakes her head. “This would be much easier for me if you were an asshole, you know.”
There’ll be enough time for that. She’s here now, trapped. She’ll lash out eventually, and I’ll have to manage her and the temper that’s going to come with it.
I’m not going there. We have months—years—to sand each other down, smoothing all those rough edges.
I don’t know what happened in my head, but ever since I clocked who was walking down the aisle to me and had time to digest the shock, until death do us part has gone from being one-dimensional words to something I want, a full marriage in technicolor with this woman who has skidded into my life from the side, as if I manifested her.
Jesus. I’m fucking delusional. It’s just her, here, in my arms mere seconds ago that’s messing with me. What I’m not delusional about is the fact that, with what happened with Ivan and Gabi last night, things have taken a turn. There will be no escape from this marriage soon.
“You hardly ate anything this morning, and I don’t think you slept last night,” I say, knowing everything seems so much worse when you’re hungry and tired, and I need to tighten the screws in my head because they’ve been turning loose overnight for me to want this marriage to be real.
“I’ll show you around, but then I need to go see Benedict. You’ll be okay alone?”
Honestly, I don’t feel she should be alone.
I have no clue what she’ll get up to if left to her own devices.
I can check in on her via the hidden security cameras, but fuck knows, I don’t want to be the creep who spies on his wife.
She might be locked up, but she’s entitled to privacy and the sense of safety that comes with it.
Also, the last thing I want is to do something similar to the fucking dickhead who filmed her on the sly. Of all the shit out there, it feels the dirtiest, sharpest stab in the back.
“That’s fine—I’m fine,” she murmurs. “It’s just been a difficult few months…and the thing is, Luca—” She breaks off and shakes her head. “I…I can’t give you anything in return.”
“I didn’t expect you to lug a grand piano around in your hand luggage,” I joke, but it’s only to speed past the transactional nature of arrangements like these.
And there is the sex thing I’m quietly working on from the side.
She’s a hot-blooded woman, and I’ve seen her reaction to sensual touch.
She isn’t immune to me, but it’s going to take time. Patience. Trust.
If only she could trust me, it would be a start. This is going to be a very delicate operation.
“But I bet a Ducati would be just your thing.”
“Well…” I say on a chuckle. “A Ducati won’t fit in a suitcase either, but you’re not wrong.
I’ll show you my collection at some point.
Come, let’s get you settled. There isn’t much to the place.
The kitchen,” I say, waving toward it. “Sitting area and your music room. This way.” I walk off to my bedroom, now hers.
“I tapped out with the decorating and left it to Elena, our housekeeper, and Rosalia, who works for Matteo. I hope you like it. You can change whatever you want, just say the word.” I hold the door for her.
“Hopefully, it has everything. Just make a list if there’s something you need. ”
She nods as she walks into the room, arms crossed again. “I’ll be fine.”
“The fridge is stocked.”
“Thank you.”
We stare at each other for a hot second, my bed the proverbial elephant in the room. She drops her gaze first, but she isn’t the only one who needs to decompress. I need to get away from her.
“I won’t be long. I’m just next door.” Not exactly, but I can’t let her in on the setup here yet.
“Okay, thank you.”
I sense her gaze on me as I walk out and feel for my phone in my pocket. Shit. I am going to watch her. The pull is too strong.
Benedict isn’t in his apartment, so I take the elevator down and go through the security to our basement offices. My brother is sitting by his multitude of monitors and swivels around as he hears me walk in.
“Ha, our champion returns! Happy wife, happy life?”
“Unhappy wife, fucked up life.”
Benedict leans back in his seat with a smirk. “You mean your grand gesture didn’t pay off?”
A sigh escapes, unbidden. “It didn’t exactly go as I’d hoped.”
“No? Sorry, bro. This might help.” He finger-flicks an envelope from his desk to mine.
I pick it up as I sink into my chair, glance at it, and toss it aside. “Cool. Wanna fill me in? On the bomb Petrov dropped?”
We stare at each other as I swivel my chair from side to side.
“There’s no more to tell about your wedding?”
“Other than my wife is hiding something, is nervous as fuck, scared, bedeviled, and on a not-so-secret mission to get away from all of us? Nope.”
He chuckles. “Basically, your standard-edition Mafia bride?”
“What the fuck do we even know of brides,” I huff, feeling out of my depth with Milana. “Never mind a Mafia-Bratva combo?”
“Dunno, it’s just the standard description of the women our brothers hooked up with, so…you know, it seems to be par for the course.”
“Par for the course? Let’s get one thing straight, there’s nothing standard about Milana Petrova.”
At this he nods, but that fucking smirk expands into a shit-eating grin. “Good. You’re due a challenge that doesn’t come with a black-out room.”
“Mention that shit again—”
“Oof. Not the only one bedeviled here, I see. Chill, bro. I’ll come meet her later. Dissect how she managed to rile you up like this in less than a day.” His eyes widen in mock horror. “Oh, wait, you didn’t get laid and you want to fuck her so badly. Ha. Who figured? But that explains it.”
“Don’t fucking go there.” I turn toward my monitors and pull my keyboard closer to log in. My brothers know nothing about my obsession with Milana and they never will. “Give me the lowdown on Petrov and Gabriella and this stolen-bride business.”
Benedict props his legs on his desk, and his office chair creaks as he gets comfortable. “I don’t know much more than you. I’m waiting for the Bible Gabi had with her—apparently Mom’s Bible—to crack whatever code Petrov think is hidden in there.”
“You’re actually going to have to read the Bible?” I snort-laugh. “Serves you fucking right.”
“Come on, have some sympathy.”
I have none. We’re all making sacrifices here. I’m logged in and open my apartment’s security cameras. Milana is in the kitchen, staring into the fridge.
“You’re going to spy on her?”
“Something’s off. We might have to hack into her phone.”
“That off?”
“Yep. We have no clue who we’ve gotten into bed with.”
“You can say that again. How’s your Russian coming along? I bet most of her messages are in Russian.”
“I haven’t swallowed a dictionary yet.” I close the security footage and lean back, giving him an expectant stare. “Spill.”
“Besides the branding, the Bible, and the notion that our sister is being hunted, Gabi apparently has a friend who’s gone MIA.”
“A friend? From where?”
“The convent in Potenza. Left months ago. The brotherly grapevine did its thing this morning. Dominic has been keeping abreast of shit happening in Italy, what with Ariana still hoping to crack Randazzo’s sex trafficking ring.
He got wind that there were four more murders, similar to Mother Lucia’s, and told Gabriella about them when she phoned him days ago. ”
“She phoned him?” This is news.
“On the burner phone we gave her. This was all kept under wraps.”
“Fuck me. So five murders in total?”
“Yeah, well, turns out this friend, Chiara Bellini, has the same profile as the four women killed. But she isn’t dead. She’s missing.”
They didn’t find a body then. “Profile?”
“Into porn, for one. Probably prostitution. We’re figuring that part out.”
“Jesus. What was she doing in a convent?”
“I don’t know? Confession? While fucking the priest?”
We chuckle, but it’s dry.
“What does this all mean?”
“That Gabi really is being hunted. Dominic had his suspicions, but now, we know for sure.”
A cold flush spreads over my skin. “You mean to say, this fucking Russian is on Gabi’s scent, to the point that he is killing her old convent connections to find out where she is?”
“Yep. It’s the same Russian. Probably looking to cash in now that Randazzo is dead and Gabi is his only known heiress…well, in those circles.”
But we know better. Three of Randazzo’s offspring floated to the surface over the summer: Matteo, Ariana, and Gabriella, the ‘real daughter’ who doesn’t have a single biological connection with Randazzo. Who knows how many kids that fucker had. These are tough secrets to keep buried.
“Randazzo got in bed with the Russian Bratva,” I say.
“Milana explained some of it to me earlier. She spent a lot of time in Russia as a kid.” I digest all of this, recalling how my sixth sense told me she was lying when she said she had no clue about the Bratva marking on Gabi that got Petrov into a fit.
“What if Milana knows this guy? What if he was behind the coup that happened in July at Petrov’s place?
” The coup we’re not supposed to know about.
“The world is a small place. Everybody knows everybody through six degrees. And in our circles, you can cut that in half.” The look in his eyes grows serious. “You’re going to have to make her talk. Crack her code. Break her until she tells you everything she knows.”
“I’m not Dominic, and you know that,” I say, inwardly recoiling at everything he is suggesting. “In any case, I don’t know if you can break someone who’s already broken.”