Chapter 31
IVAN
We fumble with our clothes and stumble towards the elevator, both of us soaked to the bone. Her hair is plastered to her face, her dress molded to every curve, and my cock is still aching for her even though I just emptied my balls.
I hit the call button and wait with her pressed against me, chest heaving, my hand tight on the back of her neck because letting go feels physically impossible right now. Like something vital will snap the moment I do.
The elevator doors open, and we step into the warmth, dripping all over the floor. The hum fills the silence, and she leans into me, wet and trembling, and it damn near splits me in half.
Fucking Aleksei was right, the arrogant bastard. I’ve gone and fallen for her. Now, what?
I scrub a hand over my face, dragging damp hair back from my forehead, my heart still racing from the storm and from her and from the disaster that is my life right now.
I don’t want to let her go. Not tonight.
Not tomorrow. Not in any version of the future I can make myself think about.
The elevator dings, the doors sliding open to my floor.
My men are already there waiting. Their faces are tight, and my gut knots instantly—something’s wrong.
One of them steps forward, arms full of towels.
I take them and work one through Melani’s hair, blotting away the worst of the water before draping another around her shoulders and body, folding them closed over her chest. I know I’m being too gentle with her in front of my men.
I should be more careful. I shouldn’t show them she means anything to me. But I can’t bring myself to care.
“Miss Fontana is back,” one of them tells her, reminding me that she brought up her mother earlier. She asked me to let her go. She freezes and glances up at me. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to. It’s all there in her eyes—she wants to go, and she’s waiting to see if I’ll stop her.
I squeeze her shoulder and reluctantly let her go. Behind her, Luka catches my eye and dips his head once. That small gesture tells me everything. Something happened while I was up on that rooftop. My jaw clenches.
Melani pulls the towel tighter around herself and mutters a soft excuse before slipping away towards her mother’s room.
I watch her until she disappears behind the door, and the click of it closing lands harder than it should.
My legs itch with the need to follow her, to keep her in my line of sight at all times, to know she’s breathing, that she’s safe, that no one can touch her.
My hands curl at my sides as I force myself to turn towards my suit. Luka falls into step beside me, and we head straight into my office, neither of us speaking until the door shuts behind us.
“Talk to me,” I say, my voice low and steady, even though every nerve in my body is strung tight. Melani is safe where she is.
“Aleksei has been calling nonstop. There’s been a complication, but he won’t tell me what it is. Which means it’s bad.” His grey eyes flash with disapproval—it’s clear he thinks what I'm doing with Melani is a disaster waiting to happen.
I ignore it and make my way to my desk. When I sink into the chair behind it, my wet clothes let out an undignified squelch against the leather. Shit. I forgot I’m still soaked.
“You should have used one of the towels Uris gave you instead of handing them all to our prisoner.” The censure in his tone has me snapping up to him.
“You don’t talk about her like that.”
He grumbles something under his breath and disappears into my ensuite.
He comes back out with a towel and my thick robe, tosses both unceremoniously onto my lap, and crosses his arms. “Where’s your head, Vanya?
We’re at one of the most critical times we’ve been in years, and you’re stuck on some girl you’re—”
I slam my palms flat on the desk. “Finish that sentence, and you lose your fucking tongue.”
His mouth falls open. Then, slowly, something shifts in his expression. “Look at you. You’re in love with her.”
“If you have nothing useful to say, get out,” I growl.
“You cannot have her, Ivan. You’re a Petrov, and you’re falling for a nobody?
Aleksei would never allow it. You need to marry someone on your own level, remember?
” His voice drips with sarcasm, but I don’t miss the thread of worry underneath it.
Not that it matters. I already know all of this.
I don’t need him throwing it back in my face.
“I swear to fucking God, Luka, if you don’t get out right now, you’re going to find your head detached from the rest of your body.”
“And now you’re threatening me? Your oldest friend and ally?”
That’s what gets me to my feet. The towel and robe he gave me slip to the floor as I slam both hands on the desk again. This time, his eyes flicker. Finally, he’s taking me seriously.
“You’re so fucked,” he mutters, then turns and walks out of my office like he should have done the first time I fucking told him to. The door bangs behind him, and I stare at it for a long beat before dropping heavily back into my chair.
He’s not wrong. I’ve told myself the same damn thing ever since Melani came into my life. Has it really only been barely a month?
Fuck. It feels like a lifetime. I’m not the same man I was before I met her.
It should scare me. It does scare me—the sheer magnitude of emotions she’s managed to drag out of me in such a short time. But no matter how much sense it makes to walk away… I can’t fucking quit her.
I grab my phone from my desk and see several missed calls from Aleksei, Dima, and Vasily. The latter left a text that I opened straight away.
I found something. I’m at the restaurant in your hotel.
Come meet me as soon as you can. This is a conversation best had in person.
My heart tugs. My first instinct is that he found something on Melani or Luciano. But I have him digging into a couple of things, so it could be anything, really.
I text him back.
Come up to my suite.
Once he confirms he’s on his way, I decide to return Aleksei’s call first—I’ll call Dima right after. Aleksei answers on the first ring. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Is that Vanya?” Dima’s voice bleeds through from somewhere in the background, and my spine goes rigid. If Dima is with Aleksei in person, it’s worse than I thought.
“I had a prior engagement I couldn’t get out of,” I answer gruffly. “What’s happened?”
“I’m putting you on speaker so Dima can participate in the conversation,” he says. A brief shuffle of sound, then, “James Salvatore was shot at his rally tonight.”
My grip on the phone tightens. “Is he dead?” If we lose James now, finding another mayoral candidate strong enough to stand against Daniel Salvi will be almost impossible.
“Thankfully, he’s alive,” Aleksei says. “The injuries weren’t critical. Good thing we placed our own security detail on him. They acted fast and got him out of danger.”
“The shooter was a rookie,” Dima adds. “His aim and timing were off. No way it was a professional, and definitely not one of the families. Someone outside our world sent him. My money’s on Daniel.”
“Now, let’s not jump to conclusions,” Aleksei says. “It could be any number of politicians on the ballot this season.”
“Any number?” Dima scoffs. “None of them has the balls to go after a man who’s running for us. The only one loud enough about his hatred for us is Daniel.”
“Did you find out who all his sponsors are?” I cut in before he can spiral. Dima can be like a dog with a bone once he locks onto something, and if he gets stuck on Daniel being the culprit, it might make us miss something important.
“I did. But I know there’s at least one secret backer. I’ve been tracking his movements lately. His phone calls, who he meets. The fucker must know I’m onto him because he hasn’t been going anywhere except his rallies and interviews.”
“So he’s been having meetings at home?” Aleksei asks. “Do we have access to them?”
“He’s been seeing people there, yeah. But I don’t have access to the security cameras—if he has any.” Frustration creeps into Dima’s voice. “I’m working on it, though.”
A short knock at my door pulls my attention, and I glance up as it opens. Luka sticks his head inside, his face blank. “Vasily is here.” He’s still pissed at me. I’ll deal with him later.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” I say, and he nods, closing the door behind him.
“What was that?” Aleksei asks.
“Vasily is here. He texted me that he found something.”
“On Daniel Salvi?” Dima. One-track minded as always.
“I won’t know until I talk with him.”
“Let me know what he found as soon as you’re done with him,” Aleksei orders. “Dima and I will continue looking over the Salvatore situation here.”
“Of course. As long as James survives, we still have a fighting chance. We’ll tighten surveillance around him to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” I pause. “Do we have the shooter?”
“No.” Dima’s frustration thickens. “The fucker shot himself the second he realized he was cornered.”
I sigh. A fucking dead end. “And the port? Have we regained control?” Since Jordan and Harvey were taken out of the equation, we’ve lost our hold there.
“I’m handling it.” Aleksei’s voice is tight in a way that tells me he is very much not handling it yet. “Go hear what Vasily has to say. We’ll talk later.” He ends the call before I can push further.
I stare at the phone for a moment, then drop it onto the desk with a curse. We have a shipment at sea scheduled to arrive in a couple of weeks. Without a mole in the port’s chain of command, moving it will be a nightmare.
I shove the thought aside. It’s a worry for another day. Today has given me enough.
I text Luka to bring Vasily in, and a few minutes later, my office door opens. Vasily pauses inside the threshold, taking in my wet clothes. “Got caught in the rain?” His tone is neutral, no concern at all.
“Something like that.” I stand and shrug into the thick robe Luka left earlier. I’ll shower and change after Vasily’s update.
“Huh.” He drops into the seat across from me, crossing his right ankle over his left thigh.
Vasily is my cousin—the son of one of my mother’s brothers—but we’re nothing alike.
He carries a mean streak and a darkness that remind me of Viktor Petrov.
I don’t like it, but we’re family, and he doesn’t hurt people who don’t actually deserve it.
Plus, he’s good at what he does, so I tolerate him.
That doesn’t mean I trust him near Melani, though. I’m glad she’s over at her mom’s suite. Hopefully she stays there until he leaves. He may have looked into her and Luciano for me, but he doesn’t know what she means to me—and I would like to keep it that way.
“What do you have for me?” I ask.
“Not even an offering of a drink?” He nods towards my wet bar.
“There’s a full bar downstairs. Get whatever you want on my tab on the way out,” I say, impatient. “Now. Talk.”
“I found a break in the missing men case.” He strokes his goatee, his brows furrowing as he gathers his thoughts. “They were sloppy with their last kidnapping. The one at the port. The two guys grabbed there.”
“Jordan and Harvey,” I supply, and he nods.
“Yeah. They missed a camera. Ports can be pesky in that way. Too much surveillance." His lips curl into a satisfied smile.
I frown at him. "They've been careful from the start. I find it hard to believe they’d overlook something that obvious.”
“They didn’t know about it.” Vasily’s smile widens.
“You see, I had a feeling your port workers were next. That whoever’s been doing this was working their way towards men who weren’t at the top of your chain but high enough that losing them would cost you.
So I went ahead of time and installed my own surveillance. ”
“So you knew they were going after our control of the port, and you didn’t think to warn me?”
“It’s never a hundred percent with these things.” He shrugs carelessly. “It was just a hunch. Nothing concrete.”
My lips thin with dissatisfaction. “It wasn’t your call to make. Next time you have a hunch about something like this, you let me know. Every time. Without deciding for yourself whether it’s worth my attention. Are we clear?”
Anger flashes in his eyes, but it fades just as quickly. “Fine. Either way, my surveillance paid off. They cleared every camera in the port. Except mine.”
Excitement flares inside me, but I keep my face neutral. “You’re finally earning that exorbitant salary of yours.”
His lips twist. “Because they were confident they’d cleaned up, they didn’t bother wearing masks, and I was able to track them down.”
I smirk. “Who were they?”
“Low-level guys, just following orders. So I bugged their house.” A shadow crosses his expression. “Unfortunately, someone must have known I was onto them because both of them were killed last night.”
My smirk vanishes. “What?”
“The real mastermind must have had them under watch. The moment he suspected exposure, he cut the thread—but not before my audio bugs picked up something useful.”
“Well?”
“There’s a meeting happening this weekend. Apparently, those two weren’t the only kidnappers. This boss of theirs has multiple people across the city.”
That makes sense. Anyone bold enough to go after made families in New York would need numbers.
“This boss wants to show his appreciation to the men for a job well done. So he’s meeting them this weekend at a warehouse near the East River.
I’ll text you the approximate coordinates I pulled from the conversation.
” He takes out his phone as he speaks, and within a minute, mine pings on the desk.
“Well done, Vasily.”
“Just earning my salary… and keeping my arms attached to my body.” He grins as he mentions my earlier threat and gets to his feet, adjusting his jacket.
“And Luciano Fontana? Did you find anything new about him?” I stop him before he leaves.
"Not yet. Nothing past what I sent you—and honestly?
The more I sit with it, the less I think his disappearance connects to the missing men situation.
His case is too different. The others left signs—scuffles, wiped cameras, grab teams moving in patterns.
Fontana just… stopped. No struggle, no trace, no body.
That kind of clean usually means a man did the vanishing himself.
" He frowns. "What's your interest in the Fontanas anyway? "
“I’m interested in all the men who work with me,” I reply smoothly, standing before his curiosity digs deeper. “Don’t forget that drink. Get a bottle or three on my tab.” He reads the dismissal in that perfectly well, inclines his head once, and then he's gone.
Desertion after taking the mark carries one sentence in our world, and it isn't exile. But a man who was taken can't be a deserter. As long as Fontana stays on my missing list, nobody hunts him.
I leave him exactly where he is.