37. Anastasia
ANASTASIA
“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Vanessa shuffles her feet, staring daggers at the entering crowd. I’m sure she’s aiming to slice them all at the knees.
“About Zeno?”
“About the wedding. I understand a large ceremony is expected, given our positions, but what if we eloped?” Hope creeps into her voice, making it rise. “Zeno is who matters, so fuck everyone else.”
I tip my head, taking in her floor-length burgundy-almost-purple dress. “You’ve always gone against tradition, so it’d be fitting.”
She purses her lips before casting another glance across the room at Zeno and Serafina, and then sighs. “We can’t. It’d crush his mother, and she likes me, so I’d prefer not to undo that. Besides, I think a part of him is looking forward to the ceremony.”
“It’ll make a statement,” Katya chimes in from my right, where she and Dimitri are standing beside us, doing their darndest to hide inside the walls.
Well, Dimitri is, anyway. I half expected them to skip the party because it places Katya in public.
Which is something Dimitri’s downright annoying about.
When he saw her off-the-shoulder emerald-green dress, he lost it.
Vanessa crosses her arms, pouting at the crowd of businessmen and all the upper-class who enjoy kissing the Bratva’s ass. “It’s irritating because half of these people want me gone because of Zeno. Worse, too, since Georgy Vasilyev is in attendance.”
“Ew. The one who suggested a union a couple months ago?”
“The very one.” She gestures to a group some dozen feet away, a man in the centre belting loudly.
“It’s one thing to call and annoy me, but it’s another to approach me during my own engagement party to say my papa would be horrified to learn I’m marrying an Italian—as if I don’t know that already.
He’s insisting I marry him instead, for the good of Russia, or whatever bullshit he’s spewing these days. ”
Dimitri shifts his death glare away from anyone looking at Katya towards Vasilyev instead. Next to Katya, he’s insanely protective over his cousin. “Too bad he didn’t say that in front of Zeno. No man would stand for that shit. I’ll volunteer if you want him gone.”
“Tempting but no. He’s harmless, albeit annoying.”
Lev pops up beside me, making my skin jump because he’s way too quiet for his own fucking good. “Fuck, Lev, you could—”
“Police just phoned,” he cuts me off, his attention locked onto Vanessa. “Another one of your father’s Elite is dead. Same M.O. Slit throat. They found him hours ago.”
Vanessa’s smile doesn’t falter as the owner of a technology company nods his greeting. Once he’s passed and out of listening distance, it drops, expression flattening and almost deadly. “Who?”
“Does it matter?” I cut in, wringing my hands. “Someone’s targeting them. Taking out two back-to-back is ballsy.”
“Question is, who’s doing this?” Dimitri muses, shifting closer to Katya, who focuses on Lev’s phone, her brows drawing together.
“No, the real question is, when does it stop? Are they going after the old Elite or all Elite?” She scans the four of us—all of whom could be targets if she’s correct. “What other enemies do you guys have?”
Vanessa greets another person who waves as they pass. “None that I know of. None with the ability to pull something like this off anyway.”
“The Famiglia?” I offer, mentally going through the few options and selecting the most likely one. “What if Rossi’s up to something?”
“Why would he when he recently helped us?” Dimitri muses, indicating the time he contacted them for support in tracing his father, who hid after attacking Serafina and Zeno. “Both him and the Corsettis. They wouldn’t turn on us for no good reason. I doubt they’ve even thought of us since.”
My brother, being his socially inept self, ignores the irritation in Vanessa’s expression, the frustration in mine, and the utter fear of Katya’s, and starts listing every criminal group who could come after us.
“Maybe the Irish had issues with Ursin. Geographically speaking, they’re nearby.
The French Milieu enjoy getting into others’ businesses.
There’s the Yakuza of Japan, the Chinese Triad, the Greeks—all a possibility.
Talk to Zeno. What if it’s the other Cosa Nostra families? ”
When Katya grows paler and paler with each possibility, I elbow my brother in the stomach. “You could not stress us all out.”
He makes a face reminiscent of the six-year-old version of himself. “It’s impossible for me to control your emotions when I’m stating facts. You asked who it could be, so I’m providing options.”
“How the fuck does Sera put up with your literalness?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “How’d you put up with it for twenty-seven years?”
“I didn’t.”
Vanessa gestures between us—which is nothing new given that she’s been playing mother hen between our bickering forever.
“Quiet. People are watching. We’ll talk about this another time.
If whoever’s behind this is only targeting my father’s Elite, he’s nearly out of people.
If they’re targeting us all…well, that’s something to focus on after tonight. ”
Lev meets my eyes, both of us thinking the same. We planned to fly to the Cayman Islands sometime in the next day or so, so stationing protection for Papa seems pointless. Although, it’d be fucking hell if a murderer took our vengeance from us within this short timeframe.
Dimitri and Katya wander away, feigning happiness in a moment of darkness, while Lev and Vanessa join Serafina and Zeno, who are standing together across the room.
Alone, I position myself in the farthest corner and in sight of the bar.
For whatever reason, Nero has been keeping his distance ever since we returned from the two other brothels late last night, and into the morning. We slept separately, and he didn’t touch me again after the cellar where I blew him on a whim driven by lust and acceptance.
Though he’s been watching me all night, the same way I’ve been stalking him.
Something is lingering around him. An obscurity that replaced his usual cheery disposition that I’m unsure how to break through, only that I long to. He seems pissed at something, but I don’t believe I’m behind it.
Tonight, he’s back on his heavy drinking, presumably drowning out whatever is bothering him.
I watch him gesture for his fourth of the night as a woman sidles up to him.
She flips hair I have a sudden urge to slice off, and reaches for the drink the bartender slides his way, sipping before he can take it.
She tries to hand it back, grinning as if she didn’t steal from him.
Giving her his back, he gestures for another from the bartender.
Once it’s in hand, he leaves the bar without a tagalong.
The woman watches him go with a pout before searching for her next victim.
Nero slides into the space beside the window with me, leaning on it as he smirks. “I like you jealous.”
“You need to look up the definition of jealousy because it isn’t even close to what I’m feeling.” I sniff, catching a hint of bourbon on his breath—spicy, warm, and all Nero.
“No?” He ducks his head and traces over my cheek and onto my pulse, making it leap. “You’re tense, Petrov. Have a drink.”
“You should know by now that tense is my natural way of being.”
Banter is good. Banter is familiar and very us. It helps me ignore my ever-changing feelings for this man.
“I like your natural way. I especially enjoy how it makes these eyes of yours”—his thumb strokes beneath one—“green.”
I turn my head into his touch, nipping his fingertips in warning. “They’re naturally green, so that line was terrible. Besides, why would I be jealous when it’s me you run to?”
“She says victoriously.” He shoves off the windowsill to position himself in front of me, scanning my one-shouldered red dress. “I’ll always run to you. The red is a bit too on the mark if your intention is to keep me away.”
“That was a weak joke.” Except it doesn’t conceal the small chuckle, which only gets him going.
“Aha. At least, avoiding women I’m disinterested in earns me points in the trust category.”
“Does it?”
He hums and takes a sip from his drink. “It’s a fact. You saved all your dances for me. What else should I assume?”
I did because it felt right. Because no one here appeals to me enough to even hold out for one polite dance. “You need to get your arrogance in check.”
“Do I?” Downing the rest of his drink, he reaches by me to rest the empty glass on the windowsill. He doesn’t step back as he straightens, crowding me against the chilly pane. “Is it arrogant to say there hasn’t been a moment I haven’t been thinking about your lips around my cock?”
Same. I don’t hand him that power. Instead, I lift my chin. “Then why have you been avoiding me all day and evening?”
“Z had me running errands for Van this morning. As for the party, I’ve been giving you space. Too much of me seems to send you running.”
A comment like that would once have pissed me off because it means Nero sees me, and I don’t know how to feel about that. Not my rapidly beating heart, nor the grip faltering on my glass.
“I’m done running.”
Nero grins and drops his hand to the slit in my dress. A finger slides up my thigh, and I’m powerless to stop him. For once, I’m okay with being powerless. “One day soon, I’ll be inside you so deeply, we won’t know where we start or end. Your pussy, your heart, and your soul.”
“Ew.” My brother’s voice cuts through the fog brought on by Nero’s touch—his entire presence, actually—as he and Serafina appear behind Nero’s shoulder.
Lev’s scrunched face and paler-than-usual skin look seconds away from throwing up while Serafina outright laughs, especially when Nero pulls away after fixing my dress.
“Mini-Mancini, you must fuckin’ hate me or something.”
“Vanessa’s looking for you both,” Lev announces, paying no extra attention to Nero’s irritation. “Dinner’s about to begin. Now that I’ve done my job, I’ll be scrubbing this from my mind.”
“Fucking people need to go away. This isn’t over,” Nero murmurs a threat more than a promise as he snatches my hand and drags me to his side. We follow Serafina and Lev to the others. “You’re sitting beside me, and that isn’t a request. I’ll change the seating chart myself if I have to.”
Which pretty much is what happens. The abrupt switch places Dimitri on Zeno’s left where Nero should have sat, so I’m between him and Vanessa now.
Dinner feels like a bed of knives. His hand rests on my knee, occasionally finding the slit in my dress to stroke his fingertips up and down my thigh. Focusing on anything the others are talking about is lost in a haze of desire soon expanding into utter need on the verge of controlling me.
“Stop,” I hiss beneath my breath.
He ignores me, curling a finger around my panties but not seeking the warmth that has me rocking into his touch. He smirks around a glass and talks to Dimitri across the table while I pretend I’m not on the verge of falling.
Crumbling.
Into the abyss there’d be no coming back from.
Where my trust for Nero demands being freed.
“What’s going on with you two?” Lev nudges my side after dinner breaks up and guests start leaving. We’re trailing the others out of the dining room when Lev basically pushes Nero out of the way to take his place.
“Nothing.”
He scoffs. “You couldn’t be less obvious if you tried.”
“Says the guy who all but announced his relationship with Sera in front of everyone when you shouldn’t have been doing shit all with her.” The memory is still as funny now as it was hilariously shocking back then.
“Stop deflecting. If I noticed, everyone else has too. What’s changed?”
I feel the pressure, the tingle on my neck associated with one person, and he’s easy to spot across the room. “He’s not the same.”
Lev blinks in a strange understanding before turning to locate Serafina. “Yeah, I get that. Maybe he’ll be good for you. Maybe it’s worth letting one person in.”
“She’s changing you too fast. I can’t keep up. Go back to not being perceptive about this stuff.”
He breaks off when he’s forced to say goodbye to one of the guests who strike him up in a conversation about something tech-related. I take the opportunity to escape the crowd and down the hallway, towards the stairs and end this night entirely.
The floor claps with leather shoes, and only one person would be paying me enough attention to have noticed me leave. He catches up, hand melding around my wrist to haul me backwards.
“We weren’t finished speaking.”
“We weren’t,” I agree, my lungs constricting with the words about to come from my mouth. Then again, Nero regularly makes me breathless, so it’s appropriate the idea of more does as well. “We were saying something about jealousy and always getting interrupted.”
His cheek brushes mine, followed by his lips forming the same path. “What’s the solution?”
I turn my head slightly, voice low enough it’s nearly inaudible. “That we go to my bedroom, and I prove how much I’ve come to trust you.”