Chapter 2
Dimitri
SONG: I LIKE THE WAY YOU… BY ARTEMAS
Giuseppe Rossi's restaurant sat in the heart of Little Italy like a middle finger to gentrification.
While everything around it had turned into overpriced coffee shops and boutique hotels, Rossi's remained defiantly itself: red-checked tablecloths, Sinatra on the speakers, and the kind of marinara sauce that could make grown men weep.
I'd never eaten here before. Being who I was, eating in a family owned restaurant had been strictly forbidden.
That should have been my first clue that coming here was a good idea.
"Hello, sir." The hostess smiled at me like I was any other customer, not the head of the Russian Bratva walking into Italian territory. "Mr. Rossi is expecting you. This way, please."
Maxim moved to follow, but I shook my head. "Wait here."
"That's not—"
"Here, Max." I didn't look back. "If this goes sideways, I need you to get out and warn the others. Get Apolena and run as far away as you can. Probably back to Moscow."
He didn't look happy, but he didn’t argue. He understood the math: if they wanted me dead, there was nothing he could do. But he could give Apolena a chance and warn Sofiya and Daniil.
A comforting thought.
The hostess led me through the main dining room, past families eating pasta and couples sharing wine, to a door marked PRIVATE. She knocked twice, opened it, and gestured me inside.
Giuseppe Rossi stood when I entered.
He was shorter than I'd expected, maybe five-eight to my six-foot-three, with silver hair swept back from a face that had seen every kind of weather.
His suit was immaculate. Brioni, and bespoke, if I wasn't mistaken.
His hands were crossed in front of him, and I noticed the signet ring on his right hand. Heavy gold. Family crest.
"Dimitri." His accent was thick, each word weighed with old-world authority. "Thank you for coming."
"Thank you for seeing me." I moved to the chair across from him but didn't sit. Not yet.
"Please." He gestured. "Sit. Are you hungry? My wife made the lasagna today. It's very good."
This was the dance. The ritual. You didn't walk into a don's territory and immediately talk business. You broke bread first. You showed respect.
"I'd be honored."
Giuseppe smiled and snapped his fingers. A server appeared with two plates of lasagna and a bottle of wine. Chianti, probably older than both of us.
We ate in silence for a few minutes. The lasagna was extraordinary. Layers of pasta, ricotta, and meat sauce that tasted like it had been simmering since dawn. My father would have called this weakness, eating with the enemy, but my father had died alone in his own filth.
Different strategies for different times.
"Your father," Giuseppe said finally, setting down his fork. "he was Pakhan for many years."
"Twenty."
"And now you wear that crown." He poured wine into both our glasses. "How does it fit?"
"Heavy." I took a sip. The wine was perfect. Of course it was. "But a burden I am more than capable of carrying."
"Being capable of something is not the same as thriving in it, my young friend." Giuseppe leaned back in his chair. "I have been watching your organization. The Chechens test you. Your own captains question you. You are strong, but strength alone does not keep a man in power."
"Which is why I'm here."
"Yes." His dark eyes studied me. "You want an alliance."
"I want peace between our families. Cooperation where our interests align. A unified front against enemies who would see both of us fall."
"Very diplomatic." Giuseppe smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Your father said similar things once. Before he started a war that killed three of my soldiers."
There it is. The real conversation.
"My father made many mistakes." I met his gaze. "And I am not my father."
"No?" Giuseppe tilted his head. "You sit in his chair. You give orders to his men. You run his organization. How are you different?"
"I'm smarter." The words came out before I could stop them, but I didn't take them back. "And I understand that power shared is better than power lost."
For a long moment, Giuseppe said nothing. Then he laughed. It was a genuine sound, warm and surprising. "I like you, Dimitri. You have coglioni." He refilled our glasses. "But liking a man and trusting him are two different things. You ask for an alliance. What do you offer in return?"
"Access to our supply chains. Protection for your shipments through our territories. Information sharing when necessary. If you run into trouble, all you have to do is call." I'd rehearsed this list a hundred times. "And a guarantee that the Bratva will never move against your family again."
"Words," Giuseppe said. "Just words. A man can say anything. How do I know you will honor these promises?"
"Because breaking them would be suicide.
Your organization is twice the size of mine.
You have political connections I can't touch.
You have legitimacy." I set down my glass.
"I need you more than you need me. That's leverage.
That keeps me honest." It physically hurts to say the words, but in this moment brutal honesty is necessary.
Giuseppe nodded slowly, considering. His fingers drummed on the table, a soft rhythm that made me think of funeral marches.
"You are right about one thing," he said finally. "An alliance between us would be...advantageous. For both our families. But words are cheap, as you say. I am a traditional man, Dimitri. I believe in old ways. Sacred bonds."
I didn't like where this was going, even though I had known from the moment I wanted the alliance, that we would end up here.
"What do you propose?"
"In the old country, when two families wanted to make peace, they sealed it with blood. A marriage between houses." Giuseppe's expression didn't change. "I have a daughter. Giulia. She is twenty-one years old. She is beautiful and pure. She would make a proper wife for a man of your position."
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Marriage. He wanted a marriage alliance.
My mind raced through the implications. A wife meant vulnerability.
Someone who could be used against me. Someone I'd have to protect, worry about, factor into every decision. My father had claimed my mother as his mistress, and he’d killed her when things got ugly.
In his world vulnerability was just another word for weakness.
But this wasn't about what I wanted. It was about what I needed.
"You would give your daughter to the Bratva?" I kept my voice neutral. "After everything my father did?"
"I would give my daughter to you," Giuseppe corrected. "Not to your father. Not to the Bratva. To the man sitting across from me who understands that the old ways are dying, and we must adapt or die with them." He pulled out a photo from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table.
Giulia Rossi.
The surveillance photos hadn't done her justice. Dark hair, haunting light eyes, a genuine smile that made her look younger than twenty-one. She wore a simple dress and held a book in one hand, caught mid-laugh at something off camera.
She looked nothing like the mob princesses I'd seen at various functions over the years. No designer clothes, no hard edges, no calculating expression. She looked...soft. Unguarded.
Dangerous.
"She's beautiful," I said, because it was true.
"She's smart." Pride crept into Giuseppe's voice.
"Graduated from Columbia. History degree.
Reads everything. Drives her mother crazy because she can't be a normal girl, never was interested in anything but putting her nose in a book.
" He smiled. "But she's a good girl. Loyal.
Obedient. She will make you a fine wife. "
I stared at the photo. At Giulia's laugh, frozen in time.
This was a business transaction. Nothing more. Giuseppe needed to tie our families together in a way that couldn't be easily broken. A treaty could be torn up. An alliance could dissolve. But family? That was permanent.
And I needed his resources, his connections, his legitimacy more than I needed freedom.
The math was simple.
"I accept," I said.
Giuseppe's eyebrows rose. "You don't want to think about it? Meet her first?"
"You're a traditional man. I respect that. In traditional arranged marriages, the couple doesn't meet until the wedding." I slid the photo back across the table. "If you vouch for her character, that's enough for me."
It was a gamble. But I'd learned to play poker with men who'd kill you for bluffing. Giuseppe wanted to see if I was serious, if I understood what this alliance would cost.
Hesitation would have been fatal.
"Then we have an agreement." Giuseppe stood and extended his hand. "Your Bratva and my family, bound by marriage. You will treat my daughter with respect. You will protect her. You will never raise your hand to her. This is my condition."
I stood and took his hand. His grip was firm, callused.
"You have my word." After witnessing the way my father treated women, I could never be like him. Women in our world were innocent, they deserved protection. And after witnessing the vengeance my sister Sofiya had wreaked on the world, they couldn’t be underestimate either.
"Good." Giuseppe released my hand and moved to a small bar in the corner. He poured two glasses of grappa. "We will announce the engagement at the end of the week. The wedding will be in one month. Traditional ceremony. Both families present. Are you agreeable to this timeline?"
One month to prepare the Bratva for this news. One month before I had a wife to worry about.
"Yes."
We toasted. The grappa burned going down, cleaner than vodka but just as potent.
"My daughter doesn't know yet," Giuseppe said quietly. "I will tell her tonight."
For the first time since entering the room, I felt something like guilt. This Giulia, laughing in her photo, reading her books, living whatever life she'd built for herself, she had no idea her father was about to upend everything.
But then again, neither had I when my father named me his successor.
We all had our burdens to carry.
"Tell her..." I paused. What could I possibly say? "Tell her I'll look forward to meeting her."
Giuseppe studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded. "I believe you will try to be decent to her, Dimitri. That is all anyone can ask."
The ride back to the estate was quiet. Maxim didn't ask questions, which I appreciated. I stared out the window at the city sliding past, all lights and shadows and people who had no idea what deals were being made in rooms like Giuseppe's.
I was getting married in a month.
To a woman I'd never met.
Who probably had her own ideas about what her life would look like.
The laugh in that photo haunted me. It was so open, so unguarded. How long before being married to me killed that laugh completely?
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.
It's done. Giulia knows. She has agreed. Giuseppe.
Fast. He'd wasted no time.
I imagined the scene. Giuseppe calling his daughter into his office. Telling her she was getting married. To a Russian. To the head of the Bratva. Watching that laugh die in her eyes.
I deleted the text.
"You alright?" Maxim asked.
"Fine." I pocketed my phone. "Just made a deal with the devil."
"Which one of you is the devil in this scenario?"
I smiled despite myself. "Depends who you ask."
We drove in silence the rest of the way. When we reached the estate, I went straight to my office and poured myself three fingers of vodka. Then I pulled out the surveillance folder on Giulia Rossi and went through every photo, every detail, every scrap of information.
History degree. Columbia. Loves to read. Can't cook. Hates heels.
Twenty-one years old.
I was thirty-five. Fourteen years older. A lifetime older in the ways that actually mattered.
What was I supposed to do with a wife who read history books and couldn't walk in heels? What conversations would we have? What kind of life could I possibly give her?
The vodka didn't have any answers.
I closed the folder and stared at my father's desk. At the bloodstain that still marked the wood.
Power required sacrifice. I'd known that walking in. I'd accepted it when I took this position. But somewhere in Little Italy, a girl who loved books and genuine laughter was learning that her sacrifice was me.
I raised my glass to her, wherever she was. "Sorry, Giulia Rossi," I said to the empty room. "But welcome to the family."
I drank, and the vodka burned away everything except the cold certainty that I'd just traded a stranger's happiness for an empire.
Some Pakhan I was turning out to be.