Chapter 28 OKSANA
This is the way to start a day.
Hot sex under hot water. A covert pickup at a bank that smells like old money. A street turning into a shooting gallery, and my husband and I walking out of it with our prize.
Now Pandora’s Box waits for us to open it in a cheap hotel room, and I’m with the man I… love?
Do I? I suppose I do. I married him, didn’t I?
The corridor hums with air-conditioning and bad carpet decisions.
I’m still tasting cordite and soap; my pulse is a strange, satisfied drum.
Stephano—my marito—slides the keycard, and the green light blinks its blessing.
We smile at each other. Yeah, I'm definitely falling for this man with his arrogant charm and self-assured swagger.
The door swings open.
I see it before he does. A gun. Not just a gun, a hand that knows guns, holding it, aimed at Stephano’s sternum. A voice I recognize from a dozen clipped briefings. "Your dad says hi," Gianluigi Bocelli announces, as dramatic as an opera ghost.
The dramatics cost him the element of surprise.
I don’t think. I shove Stephano hard enough to bruise, step into the muzzle, and pivot.
Stephano uses the momentum to free his own gun; his weapon clears leather like it’s been waiting for this second all his life.
Two shots ring out. One goes into the wall beside me, the other into Gianluigi's upper shoulder, near the joint.
He doesn't get a chance to fire again before his now useless hand lets go of the metal; wood splinters against my cheek like sleet.
Gianluigi stumbles back over the hotel chair and hits the floor, cursing in Italian that would make a priest blush.
"Gianluigi?" Stephano’s voice detonates. Not disbelief, pure betrayal, sharpened into a blade. "You fucking bastard."
Gianluigi tries to skitter across the floor towards the gun. I realign—clean, finishing angle, no hesitation—because traitors don’t get second chances in my world.
"Oksana, no," Stephano snaps, and his palm lands hot on my wrist. "Hold. We need information."
I grind my molars. I want to end this. I want his blood to drench the carpet as it flows out of my husband’s life. But I lower the barrel a hair, enough to make room for a miracle or a confession.
Gianluigi spits pink, laughs a little, hates a lot. "Your father says you always were sentimental."
"Say another word about him," Stephano says, low and lethal, "and you’ll sing through a hole in your throat."
I pick up Gianluigi's weapon and press a towel hard into his shoulder. He hisses. The stain blooms like a black flower on white.
"Up," I order. "You can walk or be dragged."
He tests the arm, goes gray, and nearly faints. Wimp.
Stephano eyes are fire and ash. I know that look. It’s the moment before the match meets the fuse. The door bursts wide—Ettoro first, gun leveled, Sasha right behind him—thunderclouds in suits.
"What happened?" Ettoro barks.
"A damn traitor," I answer, already moving. "That’s what."
Sasha takes Gianluigi's other side without ceremony. "We go now."
"Jet," Stephano orders. Clipped and commanding. "He’ll tell us what we need to know on the way home."
We don’t bother with explanations or apologies to the hotel.
Money talks in all languages. More guards flank us down the hallway, and the elevator gets too crowded for my taste.
Gianluigi tries to smirk through pain and fails.
The thought that he could have killed my marito sends a wave of hot anger through me, and I shoulder him hard into his wound.
He nearly goes down, but Ettoro catches him.
Stephano gives me a questioning look, and I shrug.
In the lobby, people pretend not to see us. Mexico City knows when to look at its shoes. Outside, the Suburban crouches at the curb like a patient animal.
"Load him," Stephano orders. Sasha folds Gianluigi into the back seat like luggage you hate.
Ettoro takes the wheel. I slide in beside Stephano, thigh to thigh, heat to heat. He doesn’t look at me, not yet, but his hand finds my knee and squeezes once, gratitude, apology, promise, all of it in a single press.
I let myself breathe.
"Marito," I murmur, quiet enough for just us.
He nods, jaw tight. "We'll find out what he has to say first, then we'll open the drive," he suggests, meaning Gianluigi, meaning answers.
The Suburban pulls into traffic, and the city pours around us like a river that can’t decide which way is down. I watch our rearview for the next ghost. None appears. Not yet.
Gianluigi glares at the floor mat like it offended him. And my husband—mio marito—is burning cold beside me, ready to turn the sky into a thousand tornadoes.
Love? Yes. I think that’s the name of the thing that makes me reach over, lace my fingers with his, and smile like we haven’t just declared war on a continent.
"Let’s go to work," I say.
"Work," he echoes, and the word sounds like a threat and a vow.
We head for the airport. The day isn’t even half over. Perfect.
Not even half an hour later, we're on the jet. Which, by the way, is ridiculous. Not surprising—it’s Stephano—but still ridiculous.
It’s all gleaming chrome, stitched leather, and quiet power.
The kind of wealth that doesn’t need to show itself but can’t resist doing it anyway.
Everything hums at a frequency that says money and legacy, and I own the sky.
The aisle carpet is the color of espresso, so thick, my boots leave no sound.
The cream seats are wide and buttery, each one with its own control screen that could probably fly a smaller plane.
Polished walnut runs along the cabin walls like a river of dark honey, interrupted by brass trim and the occasional flash of glass.
There’s a bar at the back—cut crystal, a bottle of Dalmore that probably costs more than my first kill—and a compartment I already found out hides a weapons locker. And the bedroom, of course.
My pussy begins a low throb at the thought of the things Steph and I did in there just twenty-four hours ago. I check the time and wonder if there will be enough of it for a repeat.
Stephano’s taste lives in every inch of this aircraft: elegant, ruthless, and understated until you look closely and realize the details are surgical. No clutter. No sentiments. Precision disguised as comfort.
I take the window seat across from the small conference table. Outside, the tarmac glows gold under floodlights. Inside, the world is soft, expensive, insulated, an illusion of safety wrapped in luxury.
Stephano moves through it like it was built for him, which it probably was.
He doesn’t need to check his balance or his position; the jet, the men, the noise of engines, they all pivot around him naturally.
He tosses his jacket over a chair, opens the bar, and pours two fingers of whiskey into a cut glass.
It catches the light and paints his hand in amber.
When he looks at me, there’s a spark of pride, like he’s pleased that I see this world through his eyes. I let my fingertips trail across the leather armrest. It’s smooth, cold at first, then warms under my skin. I can’t help but smile. "You really don’t do modest, do you?"
He grins, a flash of white and danger. "No point in owning a kingdom if it doesn’t feel like one."
The engines rise to a steady roar; the cabin tilts; city lights fall away beneath us. For a heartbeat, everything that matters fits inside this perfect, impossible machine: the sound of power, the man who wields it, and me, the woman he’s still trying to figure out how to keep.
Gianluigi is strapped into the forward seat, mouth bleeding where I snapped it open with a palm in another quick temper flare, more for show than need, after we got out of the Suburban. He glares at me like a dog who still thinks he might be invited back in.
Sasha sits opposite him; his face is made for winter.
Ettoro leans against the galley with his arms folded, too calm.
The kind of calm that smells like petrol before a fire.
Stephano stands with his back to the door, fingers closed around the whiskey as if it were a detonator.
He doesn’t look at me; he looks at Gianluigi the way men look at problems they mean to enjoy solving.
"You know how this goes," he tells him. "Sing or sleep."
He laughs, a sound like a man trying to sell you poison. "You’ll kill me anyway."
"Not yet," I answer for Stephano. "But I can make you wish I would."
Sasha takes a soft pouch from under his jacket—nothing complicated—and presses a cold coin of metal to his palm. It’s a cheap thing, a reminder: we make men talk; we don’t have to be elegant about it. Gianluigi spits more blood, his eyes on Stephano in defiance.
"How long have you been spying on me for my father?" Stephano wants to know.
Gianluigi stares out the window, where the tarmac quickly becomes a blurred object as the jet engines whine and we move faster.
Sasha leans forward, ever so nonchalantly; the coin glints in a sunray that is there and gone in an instant as the plane lifts.
Just like that, he cuts a line on Gianluigi's wrist, ragged and painful.
"One time I met a man who refused to answer my boss's questions," Sasha makes another cut, and Gianluigi winces back.
"I peeled his skin off, little by little, with this.
" He holds the coin up for Gianluigi to peruse.
One side is raggedly sharp, the other honed, precise as a scalpel.
He flips the coin, and before he catches it, he says in his deep voice, "Heads, a cut on the cheek; tails, I'll cut into your cock. "
Beads of sweat run down Gianluigi's face and neck. His eyes are glued to the coin that vanishes in Sasha's palm. Stephano puts his drink down and crosses his arms, very interested in Sasha's techniques.
"What do you know?" Sasha looks up from the coin, still hidden, before, quicker than a snake, he runs it over Gianluigi's cheek. "Let's try that again." He flips the coin, and Gianluigi cries out.
"For years. Ten years."
Stephano looks disgusted, ready to wring Gianluigi's neck, but keeps himself in check. "Who else?"
When Gianluigi doesn't answer immediately, Sasha clears his throat and holds up the coin against the window, as if inspecting it for impurities.
"Luigi! Luigi and Bo."
"Hmm, I don't think that's all of them, look," Sasha grins at his palm, and like a waterfall, names pour out of Luca's mouth.
Sasha pats him on the back of the head, "Good boy. Who else?"
Stephano is on the phone, relaying the names to Dre.
By the time Sasha deems Gianluigi done, blood is soaking into Stephano's expensive carpet.
Gianluigi seems to think of something he can use to bargain. "It wasn’t—listen, I—Gustave—I can feed him false information."
Stephano snorts and pours another whiskey, then walks over and pours it over Gianluigi's arm, which looks like someone practiced tying Christmas ribbons from his skin. Gianluigi screams. Sasha looks like he's filing the new trick away.
Gianluigi chokes; his bravado curdles. Ettoro steps forward, and Gianluigi flinches like a man set on a pyre. He pleads. He offers smallness. He offers excuses.
Stephano looks up, catching my gaze. He’s quiet.
"Do you want to play nice with your dad, or do it the Russian way?" I ask.
Stephano tilts his head, "Russian way?"
"We can be a bit dramatic," I admit, "but we usually get our messages across. Send Gianluigi's head to him, sans tongue, that we'll stuff back into his mouth. If you want to add some Italian flair, we can put his balls in there too."
Gianluigi's face drains. He tries one last move, a small laugh, a small stinging apology. Sasha steps forward, grabs him by the arm, and Ettoro opens the door to the bathroom. No reason to mess up Stephano's carpet even more.
A cruel smile plays along Stephano's lips as he massages the short stubble already forming in his cheeks. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."
I grin, "Oh, I'll remind you, Marito."
"Send the message in Italian/Russian."
I can't help but correct him. "Russian/Italian. Two mouths, one message."
He chuckles, the sound brittle. "I think I like the Italian/Russian way."
Since I know this latest betrayal was a shock for him, I let it slide, while Gianluigi starts to beg.
The begging is ugly and familiar. Men always beg when they realize their math was wrong.
He throws out a couple more names, unimportant ones.
The door to the bathroom closes behind the three men.
A cry is cut short, turns into a whimper.
The plane hums as it cruises through the sky.
Stephano and I sit around a mahogany table, away from the blood on the carpet, holding a laptop with several screens attached.
He pulls out the thumb drive and moves it through his fingers like Sasha did with the coin.
Slowly, he slides the drive into the port.
He enters a password. Nico didn't mention one, so it can only be one thing: Temporale. I watch Stephano's face as the folder pops open, blood-orange light reflecting in his pupils.
The files ripple across the screen. Ledger entries. Payoffs. Receipts that smell like someone’s death wish. A list of men who signed their allegiance for a better price.
Gianluigi's pleas go from air to background noise to nothing. We have what we need. In an hour, Dre will move. In two, men will vanish. In three, a message will be delivered to Gustave.
I glance at Stephano. He looks tired—older, maybe—and fierce. He reaches across the table, and his fingers brush mine for a fraction of a second.
"Zhena," his voice is soft, hoarse, letting all the betrayal he feels out for me alone to hear.
I let the title sit between us as the drive hums. "Marito," I answer in the same soft voice, letting him know I'm here, as the plane carries us forward toward a sky that is suddenly very small and very loud with the sound of decisions being made.