Chapter 5
Five
Luca
The Rosetti brothers are giving me a fucking headache.
I lean back in my chair at the head of Redthorne's executive boardroom, watching two middle-aged men in suits designed to project power they don't actually possess argue about territory lines like children fighting over who gets the bigger piece of cake.
Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Chicago skyline behind them, all steel and glass and power, but these two wouldn't recognize power if it walked up and introduced itself.
The afternoon sun slants through the glass, casting long shadows across the polished mahogany table and illuminating the dust motes that drift lazily through the climate-controlled air.
"The north side belongs to the Castellanos," Ambrose Rosetti insists, his aging face flushing an unflattering shade of purple.
Sweat beads at his temples despite the perfect temperature, and his cologne, something aggressively musky and far too strong, wafts across the table every time he gestures.
"It's always belonged to the Castellanos.
You can't just waltz in and claim half of it for your casino. "
"Half?" His brother Giorgio leans forward, his gold cufflinks catching the light from the domed lights overhead.
His jaw tightens, the muscle jumping beneath skin that speaks of too little sunlight and way too much rich food.
"I'm asking for three blocks. Three blocks that are practically abandoned anyway. You're being unreasonable."
I drag my hand down my face, my fingers catching on the beard I've been growing out from pure lack of giving a fuck.
The scrape of coarse hair against my palm grounds me in the present when my mind wants to drift elsewhere.
Eight weeks since I woke up alone in that glass room at Scarlet Thorn, reaching for a woman who had already vanished like morning mist. Eight weeks of knowing exactly where to find her and choosing not to.
Eight weeks of waking in tangled sheets that smell like nothing but laundry detergent when they should carry the scent of jasmine and green grass after a summer rain.
The scent of her.
Eight miserable fucking weeks of a situation that should have stayed operational and didn't.
"Gentlemen." My voice cuts through their bickering.
Both brothers fall silent, their attention snapping to me with the wariness of men who understand, on some primal level, that the man at the head of this table is far more dangerous than either of them will ever be.
Ambrose's hand freezes mid-gesture. Giorgio's spine straightens against his leather chair.
"Now that I have your attention, let me clarify something for you."
I rise slowly, buttoning my jacket as I move to stand at the windows.
The leather cord holding my hair back pulls slightly as I tilt my head, surveying the city spread beneath us like a map of possibilities.
The glass is cool when I rest my fingertips against it, a sharp contrast to the restless heat simmering beneath my skin.
"You don't get to cut up Chicago. It doesn't belong to you.
" I turn to face them, letting them see the cold certainty in my eyes.
Both men shift in their seats, their expensive suits suddenly looking like costumes on boys playing dress-up.
"The Syndicate controls territory distribution in this part of the city. You want to open a casino? Fine. You rent space from us. You follow the rules laid out in the contract. You operate within the boundaries we establish, and you pay tribute on a quarterly basis. Everyone makes a shit ton of money, to put it bluntly. More than any one of us will spend in our lifetimes. Problem solved because you’re following the rules. "
Giorgio opens his mouth to protest, his lips parting around words that die in his throat. I silence him with a look that has made harder men reconsider their life choices.
"Let me be even clearer. Those are not suggestions. Those are terms. Take them or leave them, but make your decision in the next thirty seconds because I have somewhere else to be."
The brothers exchange glances, a silent conversation conducted in raised eyebrows and tight jaw muscles. Whatever they see in each other's faces convinces them that arguing further would be inadvisable. Smart men. Annoying, but smart.
Ambrose reaches for the pen I've set on the polished mahogany table. His hand trembles almost imperceptibly as his signature scratches across the contract, followed by his brother's. The sound is satisfying in a way that does nothing to ease the restless ache beneath my ribs.
It's more money and before Ilona came into my life, I was all about the money. I would have sat here and bartered with the brothers before lowering the guillotine on their plans just to have a little fun.
Now I want them the hell out of my sight.
"Excellent." I gather the signed documents and slide them into a leather folder, the soft whisper of paper against paper filling the momentary silence. "My associate will show you out."
The door opens on cue, and Kon appears like a shadow taking form.
His massive frame fills the doorway, dark eyes sweeping over the Rosetti brothers with the kind of assessment that makes men check their life insurance policies.
He says nothing. He doesn't need to. His presence alone speaks volumes, six and a half feet of silent menace wrapped in a perfectly tailored black suit.
The brothers leave faster than they arrived, their footsteps echoing down the marble hallway with undignified haste.
When the door closes behind them, Kon's stoic expression softens by exactly one degree. On him, that's practically a grin.
"You look like shit," he observes, the words clipped and precise, his Russian accent softening the vowels in a way that makes even insults sound vaguely poetic.
He moves to the sidebar where a carafe of coffee sits next to crystal decanters of bourbon.
The rich aroma of freshly ground beans mingles with the sharper scent of aged whiskey, creating a combination that usually comforts me. Today, it barely registers.
"Fuck you too." I drop into my chair and scrub my hands over my face, pressing the heels of my palms against eyes that feel gritty from too many sleepless nights. "Those assholes took three hours to sign a contract that should have taken less than thirty minutes."
Kon pours two fingers of bourbon, the amber liquid catching the light as it splashes against crystal, and sets it in front of me.
He doesn't pour one for himself, never does when he's working.
But he settles into the chair across from mine with the patience of a man who has learned when to wait and when to push.
"That is not what I meant, and you know it." His voice is low, measured, the voice of a man who has witnessed enough suffering to recognize it in others.
I knock back the bourbon, letting the burn chase some of the fog from my mind. The heat spreads down my throat and into my chest, a brief flare of sensation that fades too quickly. "Just a case of the blues, I guess. Some days I wish I'd never walked away from my old life."
Kon's eyebrow rises a fraction of an inch, the only indication of surprise he ever allows himself. "The grave-digging days?"
"Being a runner for Club Genesis was easier.
" I stare into my empty glass, watching the amber residue cling to the crystal like memories I can't shake.
"All I had to do was make sure fresh graves were ready for the bodies I had ready to go in them.
Easiest fucking job on the planet." A dark smile curves my lips, the kind of smile that makes most people take a step back.
"Assholes like the Rosetti brothers were my favorite targets. Made me happy."
"Mmm." Kon's dark eyes miss nothing, and he rarely judges. He steeples his fingers beneath his chin, studying me with an intensity that would unsettle anyone who didn't know him. "You're pining over a girl."
"Fuck you, Kon."
But I don't deny it, and we both know what that means.
I palm my glass and push back from the table, heading for the door, my footsteps silent on the thick carpet. "Drake and Katriana are having some kind of celebration upstairs. I should make an appearance."
"You should find her. Apologize." He pauses, then adds with dry precision, "Stop being a dick."
I pause with my hand on the door, the cool metal of the handle biting into my palm. The laugh that escapes me is hollow, scraping against my throat like broken glass.
"Find her." I don't turn around. Can't. The weight of what I'm about to say is heavy enough without watching his face as I say it. "I know exactly who she is, Kon. I've known since the moment I saw her walk into Scarlet Thorn."
The silence behind me thickens.
"You and all our brothers know I've been building intelligence files on Enzo Marchetti.
His operations, his weaknesses, his pressure points.
" My fingers tighten around the door handle until my knuckles ache.
"What you don't know, what nobody knows, is that eight weeks ago I spotted his daughter at Scarlet Thorn.
Ilona Marchetti. And I saw an opportunity I should have walked the fuck away from. "
I turn to face him, letting him see the weight I've been carrying alone. Kon's expression remains stoic, but his stillness deepens. The stillness of a man recalculating everything he thought he knew.