Chapter Twenty Two Dragna
Chapter Twenty Two
Dragna
I wake up with a backache from hell. As my eyes adjust to the light I realise I fell asleep at Willows apartment and not only that, but against the wall outside her bedroom door.
I could hear Alina crying into the night and it pained me to know that she couldn’t tell Willow anything. She wasn’t just crying for Lev either. I know she was crying because she’s hurt finding out about Marco too.
I scrub my hands over my face still in disbelief about Marco being her father. I quickly realised that any thoughts I had about him sending her to Lev to get to us were out of the question when I saw her genuine shock and anger at finding everything out.
I do feel for her, I’m not a complete heartless bastard who only cares about a few people.
Okay I am, but Alina practically being Willows sister and Lev being in love with the girl means she’s now in my inner circle of people I care about by proxy.
We have only ever had one real conversation, said conversation being last night where she sent threats my way worse than most I’ve heard come from ruthless underworld leaders mouths.
But still, her pain isn’t what I wanted to hear or to cause.
I pull my phone from my pocket and see a bunch of missed calls from Lev and a string of texts.
Fuck I forgot to text him to tell him Alina was home safe.
I’m about to reply to him when I remember Alina arrived home after I got here.
Lev said Ivan was dropping her home, so where the fuck did they go last night.
She arrived home well after the amount of time it should have only taken.
Instead of texting Lev I pull up the camera footage from outside the club for the time stamp Ivan left with her and then check the time stamp of when she arrived here last night on Willow’s cameras.
An hour and a half. No, there’s no way Ivan fucked with Lev’s girl, they are practically like brothers, so what the hell were they up to.
I’ll have to get Alina on her own to ask her at some point today because as much as I don’t believe she was sent to us for the Italians benefit, it’s suspicious as fuck she didn’t arrive home when she should have.
Just as I’m about to reply to Lev the bedroom door opens and Willow walks out while rubbing her eyes. She walks straight into my stretched out legs and almost falls flat on the ground before I catch her in time.
“Good morning moya dusha.” I grumble into her hair, pulling her close to me. She looks up at me completely bewildered.
“What the hell are you doing out here?” She asks as I begin to stand while cradling her. She wraps her hands around my neck and I carry her to the kitchen.
“Keeping watch.” I say nonchalantly like it’s an everyday thing for me to fall asleep outside her bedroom door.
“You got cameras installed, you don’t need to literally sleep outside my bedroom door like an unwanted dog.”
I set her down on the kitchen counter, the memory from last night coursing through my mind and all I want to do is throw her over my shoulder again and find the nearest empty bed.
“If it means knowing nobody can get to you, I’d sleep outside your room every night.
” I say before kissing her. She deepens the kiss and moans softly into my mouth, the noise going straight to my cock.
I really need to get some self control otherwise I’ll end up fucking her every time she kisses me, not caring where we are.
“Do you want coffee?” She asks as she breaks the kiss and I nod as she slips off the counter only to be caged in by my arms. She looks up at me and smiles and I don’t know whether I’ll regret the thought I’ve just had, but I know it will mean a lot to my mother.
“Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?” I ask her as I smooth some of her bedhead down.
“I would really love that, but I need to see how Alina is feeling after last night. I don’t want to say yes right now if she might need me here with her. I hope you understand that.” She says as she takes one my hands in hers.
“Of course, I wouldn’t ever want to take you away from her or any of your friends. You can let me know once you’ve spoken to her.” I say as I rub the back of her hand with my thumb.
“If I say yes, where were you thinking for dinner?”
“Well, it would be at my house, and my mother would also be there.” I look her in the eyes as I say the last part and her smile falters slightly.
“You want our second time having dinner together to be with your mother? Are you a mummy’s boy Dragna?” She teases and I laugh as she ducks under my arm to turn some music on and make us coffee.
‘So Good To Me - Chris Malinchak’ starts playing from the speaker and I watch as Willow starts to dance a little along to the beat while prepping the coffee mugs.
I could watch her forever just going about her day doing the most mundane things and I would never get bored. How can she make making coffee look like the sweetest thing in the world.
“Sugar?” She asks as she looks over her shoulder to me.
“No thanks.” I lean back against the counter and fold my arms over my chest, continuing to watch her go about her task. ‘No Place - Rufus Du Sol’ plays next and she runs to the speaker to turn it up.
“Oh my goddddd, I LOVE these guys.” She says as she starts singing along.
“Lev loves them too.” I say without thinking because I’m lost watching her. She stops making the coffee and turns to look at me at my mention of Lev.
“What happened last night Dragna? I saw the look you gave Alina when she mentioned Ivan dropping her home.”
Fuck, I have to be honest with her. If I’m lying about so many things, I have to at least be honest with her when I can. I sigh as I walk over to the armchair.
“Lev saw me last night before I left and told me Ivan was dropping Alina home. They left a little bit before I did but I got here first. I checked the time stamps from the club and then she arrived about fifteen minutes after I did but it took her an hour and a half to get home.” Willow looks at me like she isn’t sure what I’m insinuating and it puts me on edge.
Imagine, Pakhan of the Bratva and the only thing in the world I’m terrified of is Willows wrath.
“Listen, I’m not saying anything happened, but I want to know what did happen because if Ivan’s fucked up in any way then I need to know.”
She puts her hand up to stop me from talking and I immediately shut the fuck up. God I am fucked. She has me by the balls and I just know I’m going to marry her someday.
“If you think for a second that Alina would spend the entire night crying in my arms, literally crying herself to sleep over Lev, after immediately getting with someone else, especially that someone else being Lev’s friend then you can get the hell out of here right now.
I won’t let you disrespect her like that.
” She shouts the last part at me a little louder and I understand now that these two girls would literally go to war against anyone for each other.
“No, no I’m not, I just need to know everything was okay on the drive over. I just need to know where they went, especially with some lunatic stalking you. Who is to say they aren’t doing the same to Alina and we just don’t know yet.” I say trying to calm her down.
“Who’s doing the same to Alina?” I hear a voice come from the doorway and I look to see Alina standing there and I sigh into my hands.
“Tell her Dragna.” Willow says sarcastically, waiting for me to land myself in more shit than I can cope with between these two women.
I feel more threatened now than I ever have under actual interrogation.
I look from Willow back to Alina who now has her arms folded with narrowed eyes staring at me waiting to hear what I have to say.
“Where did you and Ivan go last night? It took a lot longer for you to get back here than it should of. I’m not insinuating anything, I just wanna know if the drive was okay and if you noticed anything suspicious.” I hold my hands up in surrender to them both waiting for her to speak.
“We went to get food. JUST food, okay? I was upset, I’ve got to know Ivan and he was pissed at Lev for hurting me. He wasn’t weird, it wasn’t a date. I just wanted comfort food and he said he’d take me to make up for Lev being such a twat.”
Despite Alina knowing the truth about us, what she doesn’t know is that I’ll be able to check if that’s true by checking Ivans car tracker when I get back to my office later. I should just trust her and I should trust Ivan too, but I just want to check to be completely sure.
“Thank you.” I tell her as I make my way to the living room while feeling her glare at me. If looks could kill I would be cut up into inch pieces and being fed to pigs right now. Alina would fit in with this world a lot more than what she thinks.
Willow walks over to hand me my coffee and I take the mug from her and pull her onto my lap.
“So, dinner tonight?” I whisper to her to remind her to speak to Alina. She looks up at Alina who is standing in the kitchen and clears her throat.
“How are you feeling today Ali?” She asks and Alina looks over at us and purses her lips.
“You think I’m going to let him take up any more of my time after spending last night crying about him?
Yeah, no, not happening.” She says folding her arms over herself again.
She’s defensive. She might not think she’s giving it away but she is constantly guarding herself with those subtle movements.
“We were going to have dinner tonight but I can stay here with you if you need me too girl, don’t tell me you’re okay if you’re not.” Willow tells her and Alina almost looks offended.
“I love you, but you should know me better than that Wills, come on. Go out for your dinner! Don’t let Lev get in the way of what you guys have okay?” Alina responds while looking between Willow and I.
“I won’t keep her from you for long, just dinner at my house to meet my mother.” I chime into the conversation to let Alina know I’m serious about keeping Willow safe by introducing her to my mum.
“You Russians move quick.” Alina laughs while making her way towards us.
“Play nice kids.” Willow speaks again with playfulness to her voice.
“Okay then, dinner at yours.” She adds, facing me and sounding nervous. She has no reason to be. My mother is going to love her.
“I’ll come back with Mikhail at seven to pick you up.” I say before taking a sip of my coffee. She sips her own and nods.
“Sounds good! I finish work at three thirty today, plenty of time to get ready.” She says smiling at me.
“I’ll drop you both to work since Alina’s car is still there.”
“We can get the train. It’s fine.” Alina says as she turns her phone with the train times on it.
“Not with someone stalking Willow. If you can’t drive yourselves, I’ll send my driver to take you both where you need to be, anytime, not just today.” I say sternly because this is a non-negotiable.
“Fine.” Is all Alina says before she stalks out of the room and back down the hallway.
“She’s pissed right now, and hurt. She’s taking her attitude out on you because you’re Lev’s cousin. I promise she’ll come round again to you soon.” Willow says as she sips her coffee and leans into me. If only she knew the real reason why Alina hates me so much right now.
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Mikhail and I dropped the girls to work earlier and I’ve been in a mood all day because Willow has been separated from me.
I’ve taken calls with our other territory leaders, trained with my men for their upcoming fights and ensured everything is in order with our arms deals as well as making sure the upcoming trade to the Italians runs smoothly.
“Moy brat, please. Just tell me if she’s at least okay?” Lev says from beside me. I actively avoided his questions when he first got to the club earlier.
“What do you think Lev? The poor girls life just got upended. She finds out her father is a scumbag mafia leader and finds out her boyfriend is Russian Bratva and not just that, but that you both know each other and have business together. How the fuck do you think she’s feeling?
” I grumble back at him and he stands and throws a fist at the wall.
“I fucking hate that slimy Italian bastard. She would of never of found out like this if he wasn’t such a fucking idiot!”
“Calm down, don’t break your fucking hand before your fight.
You knew this was always a risk. Either of them finding out about our business was always a possibility, it’s why I tried to stay away from Willow in the first place.
She might come round eventually, you never know moy brat.
” I tell him because seeing him so wound up over Alina and knowing exactly how he feels is killing me.
If Willow walked away from me I’d set the world on fucking fire.
Oh how life has changed lately. I’m a thirty four year old unforgiving Pakhan obsessed with a twenty two year old woman who probably hasn’t even killed a fly, all while now taking her best friend under my wing and no doubt will end up playing matchmaker for Lev by trying to talk to them both into seeing each other again.
My mother is going to have a field day with all of this when I tell her.
I check my watch and see it’s time Willow should be finishing work. I pick up my phone and dial Andrei, it rings three times too many before he answers.
“Hey boss. The girls are locking up.” He says down the line.
“Follow Mikhail as he takes them home and let me know if you see anything suspicious on the drive.” I say before hanging up and standing.
“I have dinner with my mother tonight, Willow is going to meet her, so I’m going home to get changed before I pick her up. You good to stay here?” I ask Lev who still looks like a wounded puppy.
“Yeah, sure.”
“I know you care about Alina, but don’t do anything stupid that’s going to make her push you away any further. She’s processing a lot of information right now. Just give her time.” I say to him as I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Let me know if there’s any trouble later.” And with that I walk out of my office and mentally prepare for the two most important women in my life to meet each other.