Chapter 12 - Ivan
IVAN
Trust these fuckers to come in three-piece suits.
Fucking Mafia. They just don’t know how to blend in.
I still can’t believe they signed up for this, but I’m no idiot.
It isn’t out of the goodness of their charred little hearts that they’re bringing me a peace offering or sacrificing their sister.
I bet there’s something in it for them. Wait until I figure out what it is.
I don’t move from where I’m leaning against the railing, watching Katya and Irisha climbing the stairs to the slide and going down on repeat.
With faded jeans, a baseball cap, T-shirt, and sneakers, I scream American dad on Sunday brunch duty…
and they’re walking straight past me. Yep, that just happened.
I smirk at Yuri where he is sitting on a bench on the other side of the playground, similarly dressed, scrolling his phone but really keeping an eye on things and keeping comms with our backups.
This Central Park playground is surrounded by bushy hedges, and signs saying Every Adult Must be Accompanied by a Child are tied at appropriate heights to warn off the perverts. It’s the perfect enclosed open space.
The playground is quiet this morning, as planned.
I forced Yuri to arrange a small kids-oriented fair to distract the other kids and their parents about fifty yards away.
Some students are getting well paid for doing face painting, balloon animals, magic tricks, and in general entertaining everybody I do not want at my meeting.
This is so in contrast with last night’s business with Sergei that I feel whiplashed.
Good. Feeling like this shows there’s some humanity left in me despite everything the Petrov Bratva has gone through.
Hopefully, that was the last time I have to slice information out of someone in a long time.
I don’t even have a blade on me this morning.
I force my focus on the moment and the task in front of me.
It’s a good spot. Nothing can go down here, even if they come in guns blazing.
The rest of our security is being equally surreptitious.
The last thing I want is for the Scaleras to see how thinly spread we are.
Money isn’t the problem—people I trust are, and they have become few and far between.
I turn my head to study the two men who’ve just strolled past. They’re checking things out. Good. One of them is on his phone, and I prick my ears.
“Not sure he’s here yet,” a tall suit says, with broad shoulders and a chest like a wall.
Dominic Scalera. The enforcer, if our insider info tracks.
Looks like they sent in the top tier. I bet as their security expert, he’s had his eyes on this place since we pinned down the meeting’s location. Doesn’t trust me, either. Well, I’m one cousin and five other men down. A sister is the least they can do.
Once I’d set the ball rolling, I had to think about everything I really wanted to achieve here.
My first marriage was a clusterfuck of note because I dove into it pressured by the Pakhan and his crazy wife.
More pressure came from Darya’s family’s side, who was way too eager for the alliance.
I never challenged it, because it was par for the course.
What with Sergei’s confession, the tight timeline six years ago makes more sense now.
I married to please others, to indirectly please Chertnikov, if Darya was his chosen bride for me.
Just shoot me if I ever step blindly into such an arrangement again.
This time around, I’m my own man. This marriage will serve me, and Gabriella Scalera will bow to my needs.
I’m thinking long term here. This must work out, and I will mold her so it does, but at the same time, I don’t want to fuck this up—I don’t want to fuck her up.
Darya was already on the road to self-destruction when she came to America.
Now the alliance with Il Consiglio could be my saving grace, and Gabriella’s brothers won’t stand for her being unhappy.
I’m not going to be a dick. My needs are simple.
For one, she’ll be looking after my girls like a real mother and not a useless fucking junkie.
Then she’ll provide me with sons, and if she’s anything like the Scaleras’ mom, I’ve no worries in that department.
There might be some girls in the mix, but I’d be happy with two sons—an heir and a spare—and then I’ll leave the marriage bed and her at peace.
I spent all of two seconds wondering if she’d be fuckable but had brushed the thought aside. In the dark, all pussies are the same.
“Papa! Smotri!” Katya calls out to me in Russian, telling me to look at her, and in my periphery, I watch Dominic Scalera turn at her high-pitched voice.
I stroll over to support the girls as they tackle the monkey bars, shooting Dominic a shit-eating grin which he’s interpreting perfectly: if this were a shootout situation, he’d be dead.
“Ivan Petrov?” he asks, and I tip my cap at him.
He doesn’t sound Italian, either. Having grown up here, he sounds just as East Coast American as me.
“Gimme a sec,” I say as I smile at Irisha, grabbing her by the waist and making sure her small hands circle the monkey bars. “You can do it, malyshka. Papa has you.”
His eyes are on me, assessing my every move as I help Irisha swing the short stretch to the other side.
“My turn! My turn!” Katya calls out where she’s fisting my T-shirt’s hem, tugging and jumping.
“Yes, your turn,” I say as I toss her up high, making her screech with a laugh right from her belly. “Here.” I let her grab the bar, knowing she’ll be strong enough to hold her grip but not swing all the way.
“Pretty hands-on, aren’t you?” Dominic says as he leans onto the railing, his bodyguard mere feet away and keeping an eye on Yuri now they’ve clocked who’s who.
“Yep. Weekends are family time.” It’s freaking exhausting, but I’ve learned to nap when the girls do.
It’s during the week and at night when I’m needed at work that I can’t be with the girls.
Milana hasn’t stepped up to be more than a pair of ears, listening to the baby monitor at night, so to put it simply: I’m fucking desperate.
“Where is she? Your sister?” I ask as Katya makes it to the other side and I set her down on the ground.
“Hmm,” Dominic grunts. “She’s here, with our Don, Matteo Scalera. Listen, Petrov, marriage isn’t on the cards.”
“Agreed. I’m doing a test run first.”
“Like fuck you will,” he growls and all but jumps the railing.
His eyes shoot daggers at me as he shakes open the closed playground gate, but I don’t flinch. Fucking Italians with their tempers.
“Papa, he said a bad word!” Irisha calls out, staring at Dominic with all the offense her gorgeous blue eyes can hold, light blond curls brushing at her rosy cheeks.
Dominic freezes, eyes wide as he stares down at where Irisha now has me by the leg, a stubby finger with my bad pink paint job on the nail pointing right at him.
I watch the emotions play out on his face, and inwardly, I crack up. Oh, yeah, that’s a look that stops a grown man in his tracks.
Breaking the impasse, I step up to him, hand held out. “Welcome to my world, Dominic Scalera. Not sure where your head went, but when I said test run, I meant as a nanny for Katya and Irisha.”
He hesitates for two seconds, then closes the space between us and shakes my hand. “I see. And introductions aren’t necessary.”
“Nope. I’ve done my homework.”
We size each other up. His head went straight to me fucking his virgin sister before tossing her aside.
I have bigger plans than that, because fuck yes.
This is the type of man I need in my court—and there are four more of them.
Marriage is definitely in the cards, all right, and Gabriella Scalera will sign up for it of her own free will.
“You’re the one that disposed of my cousin and men?” I ask, letting go of his hand and picking up Katya where she’s skipped closer. “Or was it more like a fun day out for the family? Sport for the boys?”
I’m poking the bear, because annoyance flashes in his eyes.
He was involved, for sure, and I bet he’s usually more composed, cool and calculated, maybe even borderline bored, but this is the thing with being caught off guard.
It tends to rattle you. And this meeting involves a woman in his family.
Be it sisters, mothers, daughters: they fuck with your head, and all composure goes up in flames once they enter the equation.
For these men, Gabriella Scalera crashed back into their lives, but they’re as protective over her as I am protective over my girls and Milana.
“Nothing we do is for fun, as you well know,” Dominic says, looking me dead in the eye before he drops his gaze to his phone, scrolling for a number.
“Would be nice if you could apologize, you know, to clear the air,” I say, pushing him.
“Fuck that shit,” he grunts, supposedly under his breath.
“Two times now, Papa!” Irisha chimes in. “That’s two dollars in the jar!”
At this, Dominic cracks a real smile. “Uh huh? Two dollars?” he says as he quirks a brow at Irisha.
“At this rate, Il Consiglio will be broke in weeks, given what we’re like on a good day.
” He meets my gaze. “My apologies for the language and all that. Not exactly used to having kids around or meddling outsiders in our house.”
I nod, acknowledging his roundabout apology. Boryslav fucked around and found out. Now he’s dead and that’s serious, but we’re all adult enough here to prefer to keep the status quo and not start a full-on war because of one idiot. “We’re good.”
“Good,” he says as he dials, and with his eyes on me says, “It’s fine, you can come on over. Nobody else is here. It’s safe.”
“Okay, malyshki,” I say as I put Katya on the ground and loosen Irisha’s grip on my T-shirt.
For all that they’re cute and full of beans, little things still give away the trauma of being ripped away from me for months.
I crouch down to speak to them eye to eye, keeping my voice breezy and happy.
“There’s a girl coming over now, and we’re going to see if she’s a good fit to come help look after you, okay? ”
Two pairs of matching blue eyes stare at me, suddenly uncertain.
They deal better with someone coming to the house and helping out, happy in their own environment, but this interview process is different.
I didn’t want to have the meeting at home, careful in case something else could be at play here—something I’m not even aware of yet.
“She’s playing with us?” Irisha asks, and I could kick myself, using words that make things complicated.
“That’s right, malyshka. Let’s see if she plays nicely.” I brush her curls from her face, and when she shrugs, I smile. “Go play.”
Irisha reaches for Katya’s hand, and together, they run to the jungle gym. As I straighten up, a man appears through the hedge. I recognize him immediately from the one photo Yuri was able to source. He’s Matteo Scalera. The Don and head of Il Consiglio.
By his side is a girl—no, a woman. A beautiful, breathtaking woman, with soft doe eyes and lashes bare of mascara because she doesn’t need it.
She looks up.
Our gazes clash.
My breath catches.
She glances down, demurely, but her eyes trail down my tall frame, that sweet blush deepening.
When she meets my gaze again, it’s as if she’s dropped a heavy bag, heaving a surreptitious but relieved sigh.
She smiles softly at me, and then her gaze darts to Irisha and Katya where one is scrambling up the slide, the other calling out.
As she turns, the thick tresses of her chestnut hair which she gathered in a ponytail sway and brush over her breast.
I don’t look at Matteo Scalera. I don’t acknowledge whatever Dominic is saying. I’m too taken by her as she hides two balloon animals behind her back and approaches my girls. Perfect. She’s fucking perfect, already knowing exactly how to engage with my little princesses.
And way too pretty for the likes of me.
She isn’t tall, as her head barely reaches her brother’s shoulder, and dressed in wide-legged jeans and a simple black button-down, loose over a black tank top, she gives off solid responsible-mommy vibes.
Everything she’s wearing tries to hide her body, but somehow, it only makes me imagine more—her full breasts, my hands circling her waist and sliding down to her curvy hips, fingers getting busy with unzipping those pants.
It’s a spark I didn’t expect. This woman isn’t only stunning but totally fuckable, too. I don’t feel old, but she looks so freaking young beyond the attempt to hide her age…but I bet she’d also be wet and needy, ripe for my plucking.
“Are you listening, Petrov? You fuck with that, we fuck you up.”
Dominic’s voice drills into my head.
Is that so? Time for checkmate.
“I’ll send over your personalized swear jar, Nicky,” I say with a shrug. “My girls have made one for every person in our house. I bet Ariana—or do you call her Emilia?—wouldn’t mind soaping out your mouth before you have her knocked up. Imagine your baby’s first word is fuck.”
From the way Dominic’s eyes fill with incredulity, that hit home. It isn’t an idle threat. They might be Il Consiglio, but I’m the head of the Petrov Bratva. I’ve got them in a chokehold, and now they know it.