24. Luca
LUCA
Jesus, I love teasing her, joking with her, making her laugh.
I love how she came to the party in the kitchen, sharp with easy comebacks, making this situation we’re in bearable, despite everything else.
This is how I’m going to work on her, getting her to be comfortable enough to open up to me.
Milana didn’t offer a name, and she’s not ready to be pushed for one.
The fucker might be dead, but I still want to know who he was.
I strip and step into the shower, fisting my cock.
Fuck, she works this one up by just looking at me.
As for those photos—and that video—I drop my head back with a groan as I tighten my grip and ease into this with a few languid strokes.
Yes, they’re buried deep on our server with passcodes only I have access to, but my mind is a maze with walls covered in those images of her.
Everywhere I look, she’s there and I can’t escape. I’m lost, forever.
Soon, my jaw goes slack as every single snapshot of her flits through my mind.
It takes no time for my body to tighten in release, and fuck knows, I need to get off.
The urge is always there, on the back burner, but with her in my space, it’s as if the whole fucking stove is on fire.
Soon enough, jerking off isn’t going to cut it anymore.
When I come out later, she’s no longer in the kitchen. I knock on her door, and when I open it an inch, all I hear is the shower.
Fuck. Walking in there just to watch her would be such a treat, but I’m a good boy. I don’t want to startle my bride and make her skittish.
And this gut instinct proves right.
Several days into our arranged marriage, it feels like Milana and I have circled each other in this apartment for weeks.
Somehow, we’ve slipped into a routine. I get up and go to the gym next door.
She stumbles out of bed by the time I’m done, and we bump into each other in the kitchen.
We have breakfast and then I go to the basement to work.
She stays upstairs to stare at the piano.
I check in on her several times a day. I make sure she eats lunch.
She still seems to jump when she’s caught unaware.
She always looks exhausted. I often catch her with pain in her eyes, a look that shreds me.
Milana isn’t fully here. Most of the time, she’s somewhere else.
Despite all the money we’ve continued to send to Masha, this undercurrent of desperation still runs through her.
I bet she’s still plotting an escape, but she has no allies here—not the sort that would come to rescue a princess from her tower.
We’ve hacked into her phone and now receive every message between her and Masha, but there’s nothing to raise a red flag.
They look like school friends who bonded over a love for music and played together in some orchestra in Saint Petersburg. It’s all just staff gossip.
We looked into her, this Masha Baykova. On the surface, there’s nothing to flag.
What raises the alarm is how there are only scraps of information on the internet, mostly related to the time she spent at Oxford.
She’s an only child, and her parents died seven years ago.
From the little information we could gather, it looks like a domestic dispute that got out of hand, domestic violence that went too far—they killed each other.
Given the lack of information, and given this possibly staged death of her parents, Masha must be Bratva too.
And yet, I still get the feeling it’s something else.
It’s something more than a friend who can’t work, whose story she won’t tell.
I’m not sure if it’s this thing with Gabi, because we are all on tenterhooks, waiting to see what’s going to happen next.
Matteo is luring The Mole, who used to work for Randazzo—but who was really our Don’s informant—to Boston with a woman named Mara in tow.
I’m not sure why, except I’ve picked up on Matteo’s own secret agenda for this Mara woman.
I bet it has something to do with the detour Tasha took in Sicily, which we are ‘totally unaware of.’
Everybody is working in the background on Gabi’s case. I’m staring at the puzzle pieces of this mess and have no clue how they fit together.
To make things even more dull, Benedict has received two boxes with the copies of Bianca Randazzo’s Bible from Petrov. It’s a fucking nightmare. I gave it one look and tapped out. We’re going to need the real thing to figure out what’s plotting.
“Fucker missed another double spread,” Benedict grunts as he drops a few pages back into the box. “This is fucking killing me.”
I glance at the organized chaos. Some pages are stacked on the floor, color-coded for now.
I won’t even know where to start. “Those Bible pages are thin and delicate. Imagine having to make copies. I’m surprised Petrov stuck it out; I’m not surprised he missed pages.
Probably had other things on his mind.” Like taking care of Gabriella.
To our knowledge, after the initial hiccup, the marriage between Gabi and Petrov seems to be faring better than mine with Milana.
“Yeah,” Benedict sighs. “He’ll be bringing the original with him when they come to Boston to suss out this Mara woman.”
“They need to come over already. All this hurry-up-and-wait is killing me.”
“Sounds like your marriage, bro. Hurry up and wait.”
I snort-laugh. Fucking story of my life. It’s already dinner time, and even though I’ve gone up several times during the day to check in on Milana, this stale air sitting stagnant around everything is becoming suffocating. Something needs to give.
My phone buzzes, and I glance at it. Matteo. That fucker.
“Yep, Matty, what’s up?” I ask, putting the phone on speaker.
“Looks like we’ve finally convinced The Mole to fly over with Mara. They’ll be on their way within the next twelve hours.”
Benedict and I shoot each other a glance. “Good. You’ve let Petrov know?”
“Not yet. It’s not a done deal until they’re strapped in tightly for take-off.”
Or once the plane has actually landed in Boston, but I hold back on that snarky remark. “Cool. Thanks for the heads up. Anything else?”
“Nope. How’s your wife?”
“Losing her mind. Slowly, as you would.”
“Is she playing her piano yet?”
I roll my eyes. My grand gesture has turned into the biggest joke between my brothers.
Milana hasn’t played a single note on that piano.
Not that I’ve heard. She’s unwrapped it, but beyond tossing the ribbons into a corner and staring at the piano from the sofa, or sitting on the bench and staring at the keys, she hasn’t played a single note.
“I’m sure you’ll hear her as soon as she does.” With that, I kill the call, not in the mood.
“Tell her she’ll see Ivan tomorrow,” Benedict suggests as soon as the silence becomes too heavy. “It will be good for her, and Matteo won’t deny her that.”
“Yeah. I’m still fucking pissed at him for forbidding Tasha and Ariana to meet her, to even talk to her. This is not how Italians do it. We’re supposedly all about family—”
“Matty is looking after Il Consiglio—”
“He doesn’t have to live with her. The apartment is starting to look like shit because Elena isn’t allowed in either and my wife grew up with staff. She hasn’t even asked where we keep the household cleaning shit.”
Benedict smirks. “Do you know where you keep the household cleaning shit?”
“It’s in the fucking walk-in pantry or linen cupboard. Whatever you call it.”
“I suppose you need to lead by example. Mop or something.”
“It’s not that desperate yet. It’s just the two of us.”
“Whatever, bro, you just need to get laid. You always get grumpy as fuck when you’re—”
“Don’t fucking go there,” I grunt as I stand.
But Benedict is right. Milana and I have been circling each other for days, teasing, joking, playful, and then that shadow comes over her and it feels like I’m starting from scratch every time.
It’s no longer about sex or this arranged marriage anymore.
It’s just about wanting to see her smile, pretending to be happy for a few minutes.
Not being trapped will make her happy. Going to Russia will make her happy. Not being married to me will make her happy.
I’m never going to be enough, and this is my fucking life now.
“I’m done here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Wish me luck,” Benedict says, waving at the papers.
I huff. “Wish me luck.”
“Ha. Maybe I’ll work on the Chiara Bellini case for a minute.”
Ha indeed. Time to give him shit in return, because I know what he means by working on the Chiara Bellini case. Essentially, watching porn, trying to find a needle in a haystack. “It only takes you a minute? To get off?”
“Fuck off.”
We’re both still chuckling as I make my way to our elevator and ride up to the penthouse floor. As soon as I open the door, I sense something is wrong before I even hear the crying. “Milana?” I stride in, listening for where the sounds are coming from.
Her room.
I rush in, not bothering to knock. She’s curled up on her bed, body shaking with sobs. “Princess…fuck, Milana. What’s wrong?”
She sobs into her hand, holding out the other to me, and I take it, letting her squeeze my fingers.
“It’s my Papa,” she chokes out. “He’s—he’s dying.”
“Oh, hell. Shit, baby—” Fuck. I don’t know what to say, so I sink down on my knees beside the bed, pulling her hand in for a kiss, wanting to comfort her. “Is this what’s been eating you?”
At last, I have a logical reason for her to be so distant.
But wait…her dad is retired, lives in Hawai?i somewhere, apparently in excellent health, playing golf or padel or whatever the fuck you do when you live to that age. We didn’t even dig too deep there. Jesus.
She shakes her head, tears streaming. “It’s like he’s dying all over again.”
“What do you mean?”
She lets go of my hand and struggles up, her face flushed. “Ivan phoned me. It’s the end.”
Our gazes lock, and the look in hers breaks me—the amount of love she has for her dad is reflected in the pain in her eyes. When my dad died, I was filled with a cold-stone relief only my brothers would understand.
“What happened?”
“He’s been bedridden for so long. He had two strokes, one after the other. And now, his organs have packed up. His suffering is finally coming to an end.” She cups her face in her hands, grief raking through her body.
“Where is he, Milana? Do you want to go see him?” I ask, suppressing my shock at her revelation. The Petrovs keep their secrets well-guarded. “We can go—”
“No. He’s at home with Ivan on Long Island. I’ve said goodbye a hundred times. Besides, we’d be too late.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, trying to reassure her as I do the logistics in my head. Long Island isn’t that far, but our jet has been in Italy for days, waiting for Matteo to convince The Mole to board with Mara and fly them to Boston. I’ll have to charter a plane or helicopter or drive—
“No, he wouldn’t even know I was there. He was already comatose before we got married,” she chokes, hand gesturing between us. “I just…I just—”
It’s grief, and it surges with a need I’ve experienced.
It floods back to me as if I’m seven years old again and Mom has died in childbirth.
And then it’s Alex and the night he died, Matteo clinging to our brother, refusing to let him go.
The memory is so intense, I’m not sure if I need to be held or if Milana needs to be held, yet it doesn’t matter.
In this moment, I might need her as much as she needs me, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“You’re not alone,” I murmur as I toe off my shoes. I clamber onto the bed, laying down next to her, and pull her into my arms. “Just be here, for as long as you need to. I’m not leaving you.”