Chapter 19 #2
On the screen, Ryan Gosling yelled in the rain. I didn't hear a damn word. I'd always hated this pink-bubble bullshit. In my world, you took what you wanted. If you couldn't take it, you killed for it. No tragic missed chances. No tears. Just results.
And yet when she'd looked at me earlier with those wet, hopeful eyes and asked for this movie, I'd agreed without a second's hesitation.
I'd even known what she'd been doing. Her little scheme had been written all over her face. She'd wanted a promise. Or—
I looked down at her. At the tear shine still clinging to her lashes from the movie. At the faint furrow between her brows as she slept. At the way her hand loosened on my shirt, then tightened again like she was afraid I'd vanish.
The clumsy kitten had overestimated her stamina.
I stayed still. The posture wasn't comfortable on my spine, but I got greedy for the quiet.
The apartment held only the movie's murmur and the puppy's soft snore. The woman in my arms smelled like body wash—like the strongest sedative I'd ever taken, smoothing the violence that lived in my veins.
Something I'd never had before—something close to peace—spread slowly through my chest.
If time could be frozen right there, it would be perfect.
A low vibration came from the suit jacket I'd tossed on the coffee table.
It wasn't my personal phone. It was the encrypted device for the family's highest-level emergency intel.
The curve of my mouth vanished.
My right arm stayed around Hailey. With my left, I reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out the black device.
Only one line in Russian from Yuri sat on the screen.
"Пахан. По ?Четвертой линии? одновременно ударили копы и итальянцы. У нас крыса. Потери тяжелые. Ты нужен в поместье, чтобы взять всё под контроль. (Pakhan. Line 4 got hit by the cops and the Italians at the same time. There's a rat. Heavy losses. We need you back at the estate to take control.)"
Line 4. Our most secret route on the East Coast. Biggest profit. Fewer than five people in the whole organization knew the full operation.
Now the police and our enemies in the Kalusa Family had taken it down together.
The meaning was obvious.
Fucking hell.
Killing intent surged back through my chest like a storm front.
I looked down at Hailey, still asleep in my arms. Her brows tightened like she felt the shift in me, and she nudged closer, seeking shelter in my body.
I closed my eyes and forced the murder out of my skin, crushed it down.
I shut off the projector with the remote. The living room dropped into darkness. Then I slipped an arm under her knees and lifted her, careful.
She was light. Too light.
Maybe I should watch her eat more.
I carried her into the master bedroom and laid her on the wide bed, gentle. I pulled the blanket up over her.
Her brow still creased, like the dream had turned bad.
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead—soft, controlled, and loaded with a kind of longing I didn't like admitting.
"Sleep, princess," I murmured so low it barely existed. My thumb smoothed the line between her brows. "I'll come back when I finish taking out the trash."
I turned and closed the door. Hailey disappeared inch by inch as the gap narrowed.
The second I stepped into the elevator, I became Pakhan again—the one the entire underworld feared.
Forty minutes later.
A black armored Maybach screamed to a stop at a heavily guarded estate on Long Island.
The thick wrought-iron gates slid open. I marched in, face cold, shoes striking stone, and pushed into the main conference room.
The air inside pressed down like wet concrete. Yuri and the core captains had been waiting. When I walked in, every man snapped straight, barely breathing.
"Casualties." I reached the head of the long table and didn't bother sitting. I planted both hands on the wood and let my eyes cut across every face.
"Seven dead. Three arrested." Yuri stepped forward and handed me a report. Even his usual stone face looked grim. "All the goods got seized. Conservative estimate—over sixty million dollars in losses."
I laughed once, ugly, and bloodlight rolled behind my eyes. "Sixty million. Those pasta-eating Italian fucks are getting hungrier every year. Who leaked it?"
Silence. Total. Dead.
Yuri hesitated, then met my stare. "Pakhan, we're digging. But this hit is... wrong. The handoff time for Line 4 changed forty-eight hours ago, last minute. Besides the people in this room, nobody knew."
"So?" I narrowed my eyes, watching him like prey.
"So..." Yuri drew a breath like he'd already decided to die on this hill.
"The timing is too perfect. It happened while you...
cut off all contact and spent the weekend with Miss Hailey Woods.
And our people found out she wasn't just some bottom-rung analyst. She'd audited classes near Harvard Law. Her ex-boyfriend was a prosecutor—"
"Enough."
The word came out of my teeth, cold as ice.
The room temperature seemed to drop.
Yuri shut his mouth.
I set the glass down and turned fully to face him. I knew my expression had turned lethal—lethal enough that the men around us flinched, and a couple captains reached for their holsters without even thinking.
"Yuri," I said, stepping closer, one slow step at a time until I stood over him, "do you know what you're saying right now?"
"Pakhan, I'm laying out a possibility. For the family's safety—" His voice tightened, but he didn't back off.
Stubborn bastard. "That woman's arrival is too perfect.
She clings to you with that helpless act and gets your attention off everything else.
Maybe she's planted by the cops or the Italians, and she's using you to—"
"I said enough."
I didn't raise my voice. I didn't have to.
Yuri fell silent instantly.
I stared at him, and something hot and nameless burned through my skull until my temples throbbed. I didn't understand why I was this angry. I didn't snap at my most trusted brother over a woman. That wasn't me.
But I couldn't tolerate it.
I couldn't tolerate anyone pointing those dirty, scheming hands at the woman who was curled up in my bed right then, holding a puppy, sleeping without a single defense.
"The leak came from someone else," I said, slow and absolute. "I want you to dig until you find them. Audit the books. Sweep the docks. Check every single person who could've touched that list. I want the rat's name on my desk before sunrise."
"But it isn't Hailey."
I locked eyes with Yuri.
Yuri went quiet for a long time. Finally, he lowered his gaze and dipped his head.
"Understood, Pakhan."
He turned and led the others out without a sound, closing the door behind them.
I stood alone in the empty office and poured myself another drink.
Outside the window, the estate lay under endless, heavy dark.
I carried the glass to the window and still couldn't settle. Yuri's words stuck like tiny splinters. I'd ripped them out with force, but they left pinprick holes that still ached.
No.
I shook my head and ground that ridiculous doubt to dust.
It wasn't Hailey. It couldn't be.
I drained the glass.
I didn't know who the rat was yet.
But I swore, when I found that piece of shit, I'd make him beg for death and never get it.