22. Luca
LUCA
It takes us a whole night to figure out how to send funds to an individual in Russia without raising suspicion or linking it back to us.
“If this carries on, we’re going to have to work on our network in Russia,” I say to Benedict as the elevator opens.
“Never saw that day coming,” he says as he walks to his apartment door. “We have basic connections, but you’re right, this is messy and not in our wheelhouse.”
“At least we’ve no reason to go to Russia. So as long as we can keep things under wraps, it should be fine.”
“Yeah, well, you’re going to have to tell Matteo.”
I give a non-committal grunt. Benedict won’t tell anybody anything, and Il Consiglio works on a need-to-know basis. It’s my money, and Matteo doesn’t need to know where it goes. I’m going to keep it that way for as long as possible. I’m the one with the Bratva bride. My wife, my problem.
As I walk into my apartment, it’s dark inside, and so quiet, it’s almost eerie.
Worry shoots through me. I shouldn’t have left Milana alone for so long.
As it is, she seems to be on the brink of a mental breakdown.
Fuck, I don’t blame her. If I were a brute, I would have told her to get the fuck over it, but I also know more than I should.
Those photos I scrubbed. Fuck. They’ve been eating at my subconscious the whole day.
I’m not sure if I should tell her at some point, or stay quiet for all eternity?
I can’t expect her to open up and be honest with me—build trust—if I hide this from her.
What if I never tell her, this marriage somehow evolves into something, and then she finds out I’ve hidden this from her?
I have no clue what a need-to-know basis means in a marriage setup like ours.
How do you even trust someone if there’s a wall of secrets between you and you’re the one sitting on the sledgehammer?
I come to a standstill in front of my closed bedroom door. We removed the lock, and for some fucked-up reason, I want to check in on her. She could have offed herself somehow in the hours I was gone and I’ll only figure it out in the morning.
Turning away from the door, I curse, determined to go to the spare bedroom and stare at the ceiling.
Fuck it.
I won’t sleep until I know she’s okay. I swing back and put a hand on the doorknob, twisting it slowly. It unlatches soundlessly. My eyes adjust to the dark, and I lean into the room, listening.
At the first rustle of bed sheets, I breathe easy.
“Luca?” She sounds wide awake.
“Princess. I had to check in on you. Needed to make sure…” I trail off, stepping into the room. “Why aren’t you sleeping? It’s like two in the morning.”
She sits up and switches on the bedside lamp. “Were you able to wire some money to Masha?”
The light casts her in a soft glow, and I take in the whole of her with one glance. Holy fucking hell.
Hair loose, falling over her bare shoulders, some sort of white silk camisole, perhaps a nightgown, low cut, showing her beautiful cleavage in the light and shadows created by the lamp.
I don’t need more to fill in the blank spaces—I have, after all, seen most of her naked before.
The soft full weight of her breasts, her nipples, hard and needy in arousal.
Fuck. I’ve always imagined more, but this is a bad idea. I hover, needing to step back, away from her body and those soulful eyes that stare at me with such…hope?
“We managed two thousand dollars. It’s tricky, we’ll do more in the days to come until she’s got everything she needs.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” she says on a choke.
Shit. Tears will fucking kill me and any resolve I have.
She’s so worried about someone else, begging for money on her behalf, it infuriates me.
No woman should be brought this low by the men in their lives.
But I don’t have the full story yet. There’s been a coup, and Ivan Petrov is rightly concerned for his sister, but doesn’t he know Milana, see the state she’s in and ask why?
Cutting off her funds when she’s supporting someone else is verging on the criminal.
“Oh, God,” Milana murmurs as she pushes the covers away and gets out of bed, padding over to the bathroom. I track her every movement, the fall of the white silk nightgown as she stands, the way it flows over her curves, the elegance of it as it sways with her steps.
Of course Milana would wear something this feminine and sinfully sexy to bed. All I want is to back her up against the wall, ruck up the fabric, and run my fingertips over the soft flesh of her ass, squeeze, then heave her up against my growing erection.
But she’s crying now, trying to hide her tears, trying to be brave and cold as she usually is—my stoic little Russian—but my actions have hit a nerve. The tears come from pure relief. Anxiety finally easing because someone actually did something that helped. Masha’s situation must be dire.
The light goes on, but she doesn’t close the bathroom door, and seconds later, she’s ripping at the toilet paper and blowing her nose. “Oh fuck, these fucking tears and shit.”
Oh, boy. Swearing like a pirate, she’s that girl who hates crying.
Who hates appearing weak. Especially in front of others.
Mostly in front of men, because what do we know about it in any case?
She probably hates asking for help and doesn’t know what to do when someone gives it without expecting something in return.
I head over and come to stand in the bathroom doorway. She is crying properly now, trying to suppress her sobs as she wrings the tissue in one hand, her face buried in the other.
Fuck it. I can’t watch this anymore. I step inside and close in on her, gently touching her hand.
Just fingers brushing against fingers, telling her I’m there.
She doesn’t fight me, doesn’t object. Instead, she turns into my chest, hands fisted to her mouth.
I wrap her in my arms, suppressing a sigh of relief, and run a hand up and down her back, soothing her, and she seems to collapse into my touch, seeking comfort.
“I’m so tired of fighting it all alone,” she murmurs. “The whole system. The Bratva. Ivan. Everybody.”
“You’re no longer alone. I’m here.” It’s a vow I make, not even hesitating. I need to be open with her, so she can start to trust again.
She presses a palm flat to my chest, and I swear it’s to push me away, but she smooths it down to my hip, a hesitant hug if ever there was one.
“I need to tell you something,” I say after a long minute as I caress her cheek, making her look up at me but keeping her close. “And I need to ask you something.”
“What?” She gazes up, stark blue eyes swimming with tears, accentuated by her thick dark lashes. Her nose is all red and her cheeks are flushed, her lips swollen where she’s worked them to contain her sobs.
Fuck, I could kiss her now, soft and deep, but that would only make her think I want something in return: sex, the ultimate transaction. I drop my hand away from her delicate skin and take hers where it rests on my hip.
“Come. We need to sit for this.”
I guide her to the bed where she hesitates, then sinks down, tracking my moves as I round the bed to fetch the box of tissues I have on ‘my’ side because weirdly enough, she slept on ‘her’ side. I’m getting ahead of myself here.
“You might need this.” I walk back and put the box on her nightstand. When I drop down on the edge of the bed, it’s with just enough distance between us to keep her at ease.
“What then?” she asks, waiting for me to gather my thoughts.
As I lean back to look her in the eye, the thin strap of her nightgown slides down her arm.
She flicks her hair over her shoulder, giving me a full visual of her pale skin, the feminine lines of her collarbone and the slope to her shoulder, every inch I want to give attention to.
As she pulls the strap back up, she hugs her legs to her chest, gathering her nightgown.
She circles her arms around her knees, protecting her body, and rocks in her seat.
There’s no delicate way to go about this, so I don’t try to find one. “Your brother doesn’t know, but when he hired a hacker to scrub the photos of you off the internet months ago, he hired me. I’m the one who hunted down every last naked image of you on the internet and made them disappear.”
Her eyes go wide as a blush seems to spill down her face to her body. “Oh my God. How—” She swallows reflexively. “Oh, God…does Ivan know?”
“No. He has no clue it was me. Nobody else knows, either. Ben and I take turns to deal with requests like that, and well, it was my turn. We usually figure out who we’re dealing with because it’s nice to have things to blackmail people with, should the need arise.”
“How on earth—”
“Dark net, princess. We offer the service. It keeps us sharp.” I raise my hands in a giving-up gesture. “Welcome to the Mafia, twenty-first-century edition.”
“I thought you were into porn and—and— I don’t know…”
Now’s the time to come clean, before we get in too deep.
“Matteo runs our traditional businesses, imports, exports, with some occasional help from the rest of us. He pushed early on for Bitcoin, and well, that’s been a fun ride.
Us younger lot, we got into tech, and run one of the biggest porn sites in the States.
The backend of things. The platform. IT support and so on.
We get our camgirl cut and make money selling advertising space.
Sometimes when we learn someone got doxxed or is being stalked, whatever it is, we deal with the problem on the side.
Like in…we make it go away.” I sigh. People have always paid the Mafia for ‘protection.’ Things have changed, but they also stay exactly the same.
“The Don—my dad—saw the way things were going when he came to America with the rise of the internet, and one thing he knew for sure is that sex sells. Still waiting for him to be proven wrong. Not holding my breath though.”
She leans back, digesting this information. “Okay. But you’ve…you’ve seen—” A simple wave of her hand down her body.
“Yes, princess.”
And I’m fucking obsessed. All I want is to touch you. And hold you. And kiss you. Love you when you’re ready.
She drops her face to her knees again, hiding.
“Hey,” I murmur, hesitating before shifting closer so I can touch her, softly stroke her hair. “Don’t be embarrassed, Milana. You’re not the first person that’s happened to.”
“It was the biggest betrayal,” she whispers, her voice muffled with her mouth pressed to her knees, not looking up.
“I know. I’m sorry he did that to you.” I wait, give her a moment to collect herself.
“Did you know? On our wedding day?”
I chuckle. “No, it was one hell of a surprise. I thought the photos were of your brother’s mistress… Never thought for a second it could be his sister.”
She nods, and the silence stretches between us. Eventually, she looks up. “You wanted to ask me something?”
“Who took those photos of you and spread them online?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to kill him.” For you. For your peace of mind. For this new beginning you need.
She sucks her lip. “You’re serious, aren’t you? You’d actually do it?”
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.” The need to kill this man burns in me like the rage that fueled Stephano to kill Franco Fiore. It’s in our blood, and at last, I’m starting to get my twin, to understand why he can get so violent, especially when it comes to women and protecting them. “Tell me.”
“You don’t have to kill anybody,” she says with a shrug, but a fresh tear slides down her cheek, speaking volumes. “He’s already dead.”
Fuck. The fucker hurt her, and disappointment rips through my innards. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. Ivan wouldn’t lie about something like that.”