“Don’t worry,” I promised as I stroked his hair while a fierce rage—a kind like I’d never felt before—started to boil in the pit of my stomach. “I’ll take care of it. All of it.”
I silently vowed I wouldn’t stop searching until I’d destroyed whoever had brutalized my brother.
Dmitri gave me a ghost of a smile. “Knew you… would… always so smart… so capable…”
He drew a small, gasping breath, then another. Something fearful crept into his eyes, and he turned his head towards our mother.
“…Mama?” he whispered, like he was a little boy again, scared of the dark.
Before she had the chance to respond, his eyes glossed over and his chest stilled.
My mother screamed, but I barely heard her. An odd ringing sounded in my ears, and the blistering, searing anger began to rise through my body, all the way up until it sat inside my throat and tried to strangle me.
Someone had killed my brother.
And no matter what I had to do, I was going to make them pay with their own life.
Chapter Three
Vincent
* * *
“No,” I said, tossing aside the latest file I’d been given, along with the glossy photo of a woman and complete dossier inside.
Paulie and Toby—my bodyguard and right hand—stood on the opposite side of my office desk and exchanged exasperated looks.
“With all due respect, Vincent,” Paulie said, shifting on his feet as he scrubbed a hand over his close cropped hair. “We’re running out of girls for you to consider. There has to be someone in these files that you like. They’re all real pretty and easy on the eyes.”
I rubbed at my throbbing temples. “I don’t want just pretty,” I snapped. “Do I look like Marco to you?”
I knew I was being irritable, but the search for a woman to pick as my wife was proving harder and more tedious than I’d expected. None of them had the fire and confidence that I was searching for. They were all dutiful daughters in the mafia, most of them prim and proper, overindulged princesses (and the majority confirmed virgins) ready to be used as political pawns to secure alliances, and nothing more.
Jesus, I’d never survive marrying someone pampered and spoiled and docile, and I didn’t give a shit about their hymen being intact. At my age, I wanted a real woman, not an innocent, chaste girl who’d feel obligated to have sex with me because it was their duty as my spouse, but was too inexperienced, or nervous, to enjoy the pleasure of dirty, filthy foreplay and the raunchier side to fucking.
If I had to take a wife, I wanted her at least sophisticated enough to appreciate my more dominant side in the bedroom—a woman who’d go breathless with anticipation when I ordered her to get on her knees to suck my cock, and swallowed my dick with enthusiasm. A woman with lush, mature curves who could handle a hard fucking, and would beg me for more.
In private, I wanted a bad girl with no inhibitions, and in public, I expected a refined lady to stand beside me as my equal—a self-assured, fearless queen to sit on her own throne beside mine.
Yeah, good luck with finding that anomaly, Vince.
“How about we take a break?” Toby suggested wisely. “We’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime you can have a nice evening, sir, and look over the files again at your leisure. I can order that Chinese takeout you like so you don’t have to go out.”
I sighed and leaned back in my desk chair. “Yeah, yeah. That’s a good idea,” I said, burying my own frustration over the vetting process. “And I appreciate the hard work. These files and reports are very thorough. Thank you.”
Always make your men feel appreciated. I’d learned that early on. We fought too many outside enemies to have to deal with inside ones, too.
“Get some dinner for yourselves too, on my dime,” I added as they exited.
I walked into the kitchen to get myself a beer. I needed to think. Paulie and Toby had narrowed down the list of possibilities to about thirty, and I hadn’t gone through all the files yet—the rest were waiting for me out on the coffee table in the living room. Somewhere in that list there had to be a woman that would make me a good wife, both politically and in personality.
Only ten minutes later there was a knock at my apartment door. Huh. The food had gotten here fast.
I walked over, my fingers ghosting over the piece I kept on me at all times. “Toby?”
“Yes, sir.”
I opened the door—but Toby wasn’t alone.
There was a woman with him. A woman that I recognized all too well: Marla Preston.
The Preston’s were a small, lower-level Russian family that’d changed their name from Popov when the grandparents had come over to the states years ago. We were on good terms with them. They were one of our… well, allies was putting it strongly. We let them control a small amount of turf and in exchange, they owed us their allegiance during any possible flare-up between families. Basically, my father was the king, and the Preston family was one of his feudal lords.
Marla Preston was the youngest of the three kids, her brothers close to my age, and I’d decided a few years ago that she was nothing but trouble. Not the problematic kind of trouble—she wasn’t the type who’d turn traitor with the feds, or be stupid enough to ruin your bank accounts and be a weak spot for the family. No, I thought of her more of the you’d better use two hands to handle her kind of trouble—a headstrong, cultivated woman who wasn’t about to accept anything less than the best.
For a wild second as she stood in my doorway with her thick brunette hair curling around her shoulders to frame her deceptively delicate features, and in her tight dress that showcased her curves and showed off her legs for days, I thought Toby had taken matters into his own hands and simply brought me a woman to marry. One I had to admit had always intrigued me.
Then I realized that there was no way Marla Preston would have let a man just drag her to someone’s doorstep. Not without causing some major injuries to the idiot who tried it. Which meant she was here of her own accord.
Interesting.
“Ms. Preston,” I said, greeting her as I glanced at Toby, who shrugged in confusion, which told me he had no clue what she was doing here, either. “This is a pleasant surprise. Come in.”
I opened the door wider, and Marla entered as if she owned the place, passing by me and leaving the lingering scent of something floral in the air. After a nod of assurance, Toby left to give us privacy, and I shut and locked the door, then joined her in the living room, where her gaze unabashedly took in the apartment and furnishings.
“This is a lot nicer than I expected,” she said, turning back around to face me, her direct gaze meeting mine.
Wow, she was blunt. More so than I was used to from a woman. The fact that she felt no need to impress me was both shocking and strangely arousing. “What did you expect?”
“A mess,” she replied shortly.
I swallowed back an unexpected laugh at yet another unfiltered reply.
I took pride in my apartment. Picked it out myself and worked with a professional interior designer to keep things modern and simplified, but with understated touches of wealth. If I was going to be top dog of the underworld someday, I wanted to feel the part in every aspect of my life.