Chapter 10
SCORPION
If someone would have told me even a week ago that I’d be breaking bread with Mikhail Sidorov and the rest of his Bratva goons to celebrate my impending marriage to his sister, I would have laughed in his face.
But the joke’s on me, because here I am, sitting in Topolina—a restaurant of ours that Sidorov didn’t blow up with a bomb—trying not to chug my Macallan like it’s mother’s milk.
A rehearsal dinner.
Like we need to fucking rehearse. We’re having the wedding in Priest’s backyard at his place in the suburbs.
This isn’t rocket science. I wait with the priest, and Ekaterina walks down the aisle.
We say some shit, and then it’s over. We’re married, until death do us part.
Or until we divorce, whichever comes first. And while I’m reasonably sure my bride-to-be is homicidal when it comes to me, I don’t believe she’d manage to actually kill me.
I’m pretty hard to kill.
A lot of motherfuckers have tried, and I’m still standing.
So divorce, it is. By contract, we have to stay married for a period of at least one year, and we need to have a child.
After that, all bets are off. Way fucking off.
For now, it’s just a show. Like this rehearsal dinner.
Optics. We need to look like we’re doing this the right way, like there’s no bad blood between us, like everything about this wedding is aboveboard instead of forced.
Including having this damn rehearsal dinner.
The air in the restaurant is charged with energy.
Andrianis and Revellos are on one side, Bratva on the other.
My bride-to-be is seated at her stronzo brother’s right hand, and Dmitri, my contact in the Bratva and a man I considered a friend up until he went rogue on me, is seated to Sidorov’s left.
Ekaterina is wearing an open-backed silk gown that’s demure in the front and exposes her entire back.
It’s fiery orange, a color that would look terrible on most women, but on her, it’s electric.
Not helping is that I can see her nipples from across the restaurant’s banquet hall.
I’ve been torn between wanting to throw my suit jacket over her and sneaking her off to a back room so I can see how hard her nipples are firsthand.
Then there’s that slit in her floor-length gown that goes up to her thigh.
My hand has been itching to follow that line and see where it leads me.
My attraction to her is as strong as my resentment, and I’m annoying myself.
An elbow nudges me. I yank my attention away from the woman I’m being forced to marry and turn to see Lucky grinning at me. Cazzo.
“Still sulking?” he asks brightly.
My eyes narrow on him. “You’re enjoying this too much. Like I said, wait until your turn.”
“There’s not going to be anyone for them to marry me off to. Priest united the families, and now you’re marrying into the Bratva.” He dusts off his hands. “Sorted.”
“Keep telling yourself that if it helps you to sleep at night.”
His grin turns shit-eating. “I don’t like to waste my nights sleeping.”
“Keep that to yourself, stronzo,” I warn. “I don’t want to vomit my dinner and embarrass my bride.”
“Don’t be jealous now. I can’t help it if I’m single and the ladies love me.”
Brothers.
He’s lucky I love him or I’d pop him in the nose, and I’m not sure the ladies would be falling into his bed if he had a busted beak and a shiner. Then again, knowing Lucky, they’d drop to their knees and beg to blow him just because they felt bad someone ruined his pretty face.
I don’t say anything to that, just finish off my Macallan, which tastes like another. Fortunately, our servers are on point here at Topolina.
“Another, Mr. Andriani?” asks Giustina with a friendly smile.
She’s a good kid, from the Revello side, putting herself through college. Because of the delicate nature of the rehearsal dinner, everyone on staff tonight is part of the family, known to us and vetted.
“That would be great,” I tell her. “Thanks.”
“Don’t want to be hungover for the big day,” Lucky chirps. “Better not have too many of those.”
I give him a look. “You know, I wasn’t going to break your nose, but now I’m seriously considering it.”
“Go ahead. Just think of all the sympathy pussy I’ll get.”
He’s impossible. “Was there something you wanted to tell me, Luck? Some reason you’re interrupting my dinner?”
“Doesn’t look like you’ve been eating it,” he says with a wry look at my plate. “But yeah, there was a reason, now that you mention it.”
I’m drinking my dinner, and fuck him for noticing. Maybe spending so much time with Antonella has him taking up the concerned mother role too. In her case, she’s twenty-five years too damn late.
“What’s the reason?” I demand, losing my patience for him.
“To tell you I’m bringing Mom as my plus-one.”
My reaction is instant. “No.”
Lucky gives me a look. “She wants to see her son getting married.”
“Then you get fucking married and invite her to your wedding,” I snarl.
Giustina returns with my new Macallan, and I accept it with another thanks. If she heard any of the shots fired between Lucky and me, she doesn’t show it. Her face is serene as she smiles and heads off in the direction of the Bratva on the other side of the restaurant.
“I’m not getting married,” Lucky starts in after she’s out of earshot. “Ever.”
“You’ll get married because you have to.”
“How many more alliances do we need? None. See? My work here is done.”
“What about the Irish?”
They haven’t been giving us any trouble, but neither were the Bratva until Sidorov came into power.
He lifts a shoulder in a half shrug. “Not worried about it.”
“The answer is still no.”
His jaw hardens, and he gets a stubborn look on his face I recognize too well. “You can’t dictate who I bring as my date.”
“It’s my wedding, and Antonella isn’t invited,” I growl. “So forget about it.”
“She loves you, fratello mio,” he says. “She never stopped. You know why she left.”
Yeah. Because she was cheating on our pop and got pregnant with twins. Not that I blame her for looking for comfort elsewhere. Our father was an ice-cold bastard. But I do blame her for leaving us behind when she went into hiding. The four of us were at his mercy.
I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice. “To protect her other children. The ones she didn’t abandon.”
“It’s not like that, and you know it.”
“I’m not going to change my mind about this, Luck. Doesn’t matter how hard you try to sell it to me. Antonella cheated on our father, got knocked up by a rival don, and disappeared to protect her precious twin daughters.”
“He would have killed her.”
“She threw us to the fucking wolves,” I bite out. “We were just kids.”
Lucky sighs. “She’s here now.”
“Too late.” I take a long sip of my Macallan. “You can bring her as your plus-one, but she’s not going to make it past security. She’s not invited.”
“Scorpion.”
“End of story.” I throw back the rest of my drink, and then I stand up. “Dinner’s over, and so is this discussion.”
I’ve had enough of this conversation and enough of the past. I stalk by Lucky and head over to where a few of our capos are standing together, laughing and bullshitting.
I need the distraction right now. Because I don’t want to think about the mother who left us, and I sure as hell don’t want to keep eyeing up Ekaterina’s perky nipples, wondering what they’d feel like in my mouth or how it would be to wind her long, silky hair around my fist as I feed her my cock.
Katya
I excuse myself after the dinner plates are whisked away by the efficient servers. I need a break. Five minutes where the eyes of the room aren’t on me.
Misha gives me a disapproving look and reaches for my arm. “No. Stay. You are needed here.”
That’s what I was afraid of. He’s been keeping me at his side like he suspects I’ll make a run for it if he turns the other way for more than fifteen seconds.
I’ve spent the whole rehearsal dinner feeling like a prisoner, forced to eat and smile like this is a happy occasion instead of preparation for a marriage I don’t want to a man I barely know.
“I have to use the restroom,” I tell Misha pointedly, daring him to deny me the right to empty my bladder.
It’s either let me go to the bathroom or watch as I embarrass him, I tell him with my eyes. Thankfully, Misha is squeamish about making his sister pee her pants in front of the organized crime families gathered tonight. He lets me go, relenting with a nod.
“Fine. But don’t take too long.”
I grit my teeth. “I wouldn’t dream of it, brat.”
Holding my clutch in a death grip, I hightail it out of there before Misha changes his mind.
The weight on my chest lifts as I make it into the hallway where the restrooms are, my heels clipping down the tile.
At least I can have a few minutes to myself.
Being surrounded by so many strangers and enemies isn’t helping the anxiety that’s been my constant companion for the last few days.
A selfish part of me wishes Svetlana were here, but I know that wouldn’t be what’s best for her.
She’s attending the wedding tomorrow because she wouldn’t miss it for the world, as she said.
But I kept the rehearsal dinner from her intentionally, knowing she would insist on joining in this farce too.
The further I keep her from Misha and his deadly orbit, the better.
No one is in the bathroom when I open the door and slip inside.
I take a second to exhale and let go of the tension that’s been coiled in my shoulders all dinner long.
Some kind of lovely fresh scent is being diffused to cloak the fact that this is a public restroom, and it’s tastefully decorated in white and gray marble tiles, discreet stalls, with art dotting the walls and potted plants spread liberally throughout.
I decide I may as well use the facilities while I’m here, so I head to a stall and do my business, vaguely aware of the sound of the restroom door opening and closing and heels clicking on the tile.