by LP Lovell
Her eyes dance dangerously and she steps close, trailing the gun from my forehead down over my temple. Her breath plays over my lips and her scent assaults me – vanilla and just a hint of gun oil. She glides the cool metal over my cheek and along my jaw, her eyes never leaving mine. That tight body of hers is so close I can feel every breath she takes as her tits press against my stomach. That ruthless look is in her eye, the same one she wore after she killed my brother. That look, the gun on my cheek… it makes my dick hard. I have to bite back a groan when she leans in, brushing her lips over my jaw until she reaches my ear.
“Send. Them. Out,” she purrs, ramming the gun underneath my chin hard enough to force my head back.
The barrel bites into my skin and a low laugh works its way up my throat. It’s only when you’re staring death in the face that you truly remember you’re alive. My blood rushes through my veins, forcing adrenaline through my body. She pulls back and quirks a brow at me. Smiling, I click my fingers, gesturing for them to get out. Tommy gets up and leaves without a backwards glance. That fucker doesn’t give a shit. Jackson moves next, and Gio is the last, ever loyal, and far too serious.
“You can’t put me down before I put him down,” Una drawls, sounding almost bored, reading him without even sparing him a glance.
“Go, Gio,” I say casually. Maybe I should be more worried about her, but she’s not going to shoot me. I know she’s not.
He sighs and steps out of the room, closing the door behind him. I have no doubt he’s lingering just on the other side. She clicks the safety on and holsters her gun at her hip before stepping back very deliberately. I take slow steps backwards and drop into the chair behind my desk. For a long while she simply stands, surveying every inch of the room.
“So, you kept the ugly house.” She muses.
“A show of power.” I hate this house, but to the family here in New York, this is the capo’s house. To reside in it is symbolic of the power I now hold. I don’t give a shit. I’d happily burn it to the ground with them all in it.
She approaches my desk and hops onto it, moving directly in front of me and making a slow show of crossing one leg over the other, trailing one blood-red nail over her thigh. Tilting my head back, I drag my eyes from her legs to her face. She pulls her hood back and the light touches her fully for the first time since she walked in here. Hers is a cold beauty, almost inhuman, because set into the youthful face of an angel is the hard severity of someone who has seen and done unspeakable things. There’s an argument for everything, and I won’t pretend I’m any better. I’ve done things that would make even the hardest of men flinch, but they were done in the name of something. Power, family, more power…take your pick. What Una does though…she fights for no one, not even herself. Let’s see if I can change that.
“I have a job for you.”
She laughs quietly. “I came here as a courtesy, Nero,” she says, taking a knife out of a thigh holster and casually flipping it through her fingers. “You helped me once. But you do not summon me. You do not hire me.” She slams the knife in the antique wooden desk hard enough that her knuckles turn white around the hilt. “You are a capo.” She spits, those violet eyes locking with mine.
I sigh. No fucking respect. The problem with Una…she’s the top of the food chain and she swims with sharks. She hasn’t realised yet, I am a motherfucking shark, circling in the dark waters right beneath them all, waiting, biding my time. I explode out of my chair and have my hand around her throat in a heartbeat, slamming her down on the desk. She grunts as the hard wood collides with her back.
“You make the mistake of thinking that mere titles mean anything to me. I get what I want, and what I want right now, Morte, is you,” I growl at her. A wide grin stretches her lips. It’s the first time I’ve seen her genuinely smile.
“Nero, you say the hottest things,” she purrs, shifting and wrapping her legs around my waist. I cock a brow at her and then she locks her ankles together, tightening her thighs around me like a boa constrictor. When I readjust my grip on her throat, she bites her lip, as if she fucking likes it. Her hips shift, and I bite back a groan as she yanks me even closer, squeezing me into the gap between her thighs. She narrows her eyes and her body trembles with the effort of trying to hurt me. My kidneys are screaming in protest, but my dick is begging to be inside her. I have a fucking kamikaze cock. Her hips rock, the friction forcing a low growl from my throat. I pull her up from the desk by her throat, holding her only inches away from me.
“You are fucking disposable to me, Una,” I breathe. Her lips part, drawing my eyes to them, so full and perfect. I feel her strangled breaths on my face, her rapid heartbeat beneath my fingertips and most of all, I feel her pussy pressing against my cock. She laughs, breath wheezing past her lips. I fight with my own control as I walk the fine line between wanting to fuck her and strangle her. We remain locked together like that for a few seconds, and it’s torture. Fuck! I don’t have time for her shit. Finally, I release her and push away from her body. Her legs unwind from around me and she coughs, sitting up and clutching at her throat.
“You have a firm grip.”
I release a long breath and walk to the wall, bracing my forearm against it. I need her. I can’t kill her, and as for fucking her…they don’t call her the ‘kiss of death’ for nothing. Apparently, my dick didn’t get the memo.
“I don’t have time for this bullshit, Una!” I shout.
She lets out a tinkling laugh, so at odds with the killer she is. “I like you, Nero.” I turn to face her, watching as she crosses her legs on the desk. “I respect you, and you’ve moved up in the world.” She gestures to the room around us, the very room in which she killed Lorenzo. “But not enough that I work for you. There’s an order, a balance. You may not care for titles, but the world does. You may think I’m disposable, but let me assure you, there’s only one Una Ivanov and my services are very much in demand.”
“I’ll pay you.”
She smiles and drags her hand through her long blonde hair. “You couldn’t afford me.”
Taking a deep breath, I reach for the packet of cigarettes inside my pocket. I watch her tense, and suddenly, the blade she impaled in my desk is in her hand. I narrow my eyes. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.” I repeat the words she once said to me as I pull the cigarettes out.
She drops onto her feet, pulling her hood up and making her way towards the doors she came in through. “See you around, capo.”
I take the unlit cigarette from my mouth and hold it, pausing. This is it, the pivotal moment where all my plans will either succeed or fail, because without her, it all falls to shit. “I know where your sister is.” She freezes, and I put the cigarette back in my mouth, lighting it. By the time I take my first drag, she still hasn’t turned around. I wait, watching the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders.
“I don’t have a sister.” Her voice is like thunder, rolling, building.
I fight a smile. I have her. “Anna Vasiliev, born March 6 1991.”
Whipping around to face me, I see the indecision written all over her face, the confusion, the fracture. I watch as the cool calm, the sheer indifference that makes up Una Ivanov, cracks and splinters. She might as well have exposed her jugular to me. Getting what you want from people is easy, you just have to find their weakness. I’ll admit, finding hers was difficult, until I had someone go to Russia and start digging. I’ve had to pay more money for information on her than I think I would have to for the president. Of course, Una Ivanov isn’t her real name. Nicholai Ivanov, boss of the Russian Bratva, gave her that name. He thinks of Una as his daughter, and named her so. The woman has powerful allies; I’ll give her that. Her real name, Una Vasiliev. An orphan. Until she disappeared at age thirteen that is. I guess not many people would go out of their way to find an orphan. For the most part, she’s a ghost.
I look in her eyes and see it, a spark, hope. She wants to believe me. She wants what I say to be true. I see the
divide, the fight within her. Hope versus the rational, the smart decision, because hope without reason is such a frail, weak emotion. But weakness is a part of human nature. Una barely seems human, always rational, professional, deadly. Will she be rational now, or will she find a slither of humanity? Heart or head? That is the question.
9
Una
My heart is hammering, the pulse in my throat pounding so hard I can barely breathe. Nero takes a slow drag of his cigarette, his narrowed eyes watching me like a hawk, looking for any sign of weakness. Little does he know, he might as well have liver punched me, because I feel paralysed right now. How does he know about Anna? No one knows about Anna. I spent years with the bratva, being trained, beaten, broken, only to be rebuilt into the embodiment of the perfect soldier. They made me strong, they made me a warrior, they made me exactly what they wanted. Una Vasiliev died in that place, everything that she was stripped from her. Except Anna. Never Anna, because I could never let her go, even when I wanted to, even when I knew my obsession with her brought me nothing but pain and unanswered questions.
I never mention her, and my silent search for her is my own. Finding her is near impossible. All the answers lie within the bratva, a place in which I have status and privilege, but if Nicholai realised I had a weakness, he’d search for her and kill her himself. And he’d genuinely believe he was doing me a favour, setting me free. He believes that what he’s made me is a gift, and it is. Maybe he would be doing me a favour, but when I think of her, a deep ache buries itself into my chest. Anna was never strong. She was sweet and good, and she depended on me. I shielded her innocent eyes from the ugliness of the world, corrupted myself, sold my soul off piece by piece, and I did it willingly, to keep her safe, to keep her pure. And that was just in the orphanage. My greatest failing in life is the inability to protect her. But now I can…if I could find her.
Do I believe Nero? I don’t know. But just hearing her name fall from his lips has something inside of me shifting. A door that I firmly slammed shut when I was fifteen years old is now open a crack. Emotions are seeping out and I’m fighting to shove them back into that dark corner of my mind, the corner where Una Vasiliev lives, the young girl crying for her sister, hurting for all that she has lost, for all that she has had to do to survive. I feel. For the first time in a very long time, I feel something besides the cold detachment that comes with killing. I’d forgotten what anger feels like…to be so consumed, so utterly driven by that sole emotion. I’m angry at myself, but mostly I’m angry at Nero for using her against me, for cornering me, despite the fact that I know I would do far worse to get what I want. I feel threatened, and that’s never good. Rolling my shoulders and closing my eyes, the icy rage locks around me, imprisoning me in its grasp. And the switch flips. I have no more control over it than the urge to draw breath. When I open my eyes, my senses have sharpened, my vision becomes clearer, the hairs on my arms stand up, and I can sense every single breath he takes. Adrenaline courses through my veins. My mind perceives a threat and my body is responding automatically. After years of training it’s no more than a reflex, like someone throwing you a ball and your arm moving to catch it. I’m ready to fight. Ready to kill.
“You found a name. Well done,” I say. Even to my own ears I sound cold, efficient. Nero raises an eyebrow. His eyes lock with mine and I see wariness there, but not fear, never fear with him. Silly. “What did you think, Nero? That you’d dig up a name and have me doing your dirty work like some pet?” A smile pulls at my lips. “I’ve been very nice to you until now, I really have, but do not lie to me. Do not piss me off. I will end you and never think of you again,” I whisper.
His expression remains impassive, almost bored looking. Something in me delights in his unspoken challenge. He stands there, authority and power pouring off him in waves. The dark lord on the mafia throne. “I’m not lying. And you could kill me, but then you’d never know, would you?” Those deep brown eyes hold my gaze, and doubt starts to take hold of me.
What if he’s telling the truth? Or maybe I just want to believe him. Shit, I hate myself for the fact that this is even a subject of discussion. Why can’t I just shrug and walk out? It’s what I should do. I haven’t seen Anna in over thirteen years; she should be nothing more than a ghost to me, the sister of a girl that I haven’t been in a long time.
“This isn’t a trap, Una. This is a simple exchange of favours,” he says, his voice deep with that barely audible accent tingeing it. I stare at him for a beat longer, disarmed by the fact that he doesn’t flinch. I think he’s telling the truth.
I move back towards the desk, bracing my hands against it and keeping my back to him. “Fucking mafia with your favours,” I grumble. Shit. I don’t like this. I’m untouchable, but right now I feel like I’ve torn open my own ribcage and am daring him to thrust a blade into my beating heart.
I pause with my back to him and glance over my shoulder. “What do you want?” I ask, and he smiles, blowing a long stream of smoke through his lips. I’m the starving lion lingering just outside the confines of a trap. Do I walk into it and risk being locked inside for the prize of a meal? Nero is dangling Anna in front of me like a piece of prime rib, and he knows I’m going to walk inside. I can’t resist. I guess we all have our weaknesses, even me.
“Simple. You help me destroy my enemies.”
Simple, he says. I know all about his antics in the last two weeks since I killed Lorenzo. Turns out, Nero is the bad boy of the mafia, and considering it’s the damn mafia, that’s saying something. Apparently, he’s implicated in hiring the kiss of death to take out his own brother. Little do they know. Then of course, Arnaldo appointed him capo and now shit is hitting the fan big time. The Italians value family and honour above all else. Turns out Nero values neither. He’s a ruthless fuck, but then I already knew that. I had him pegged the moment I met him. Still, decapitating Lorenzo’s second was extreme and probably isn’t in the team building and leadership manual. Nero Verdi has enemies coming out of his asshole. I have no desire to share them with him.
Turning to face him, I square my shoulders and tilt my head to the side. “I hear you have many enemies, Capo. What with killing your own brother for the throne.” I tsk. “Nasty business, especially when you Italians value family so much.”
A twisted smile pulls at his lips and smoke drifts around his face; rising and making him look like the devil himself. “Ah, but the question is, how much do you value your family, Morte?” He emphasises the word, purring it as though it were an endearment.
I grit my teeth, bristling under his words. “What’s the job?”
He approaches and pulls a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, holding it out to me. I take it from him, and he drops into the chair behind his desk. Unfolding the sheet of lined paper, I find four names scrawled one below the other.
Marco Fiore
Bernardo Caro
Gabrielle Lama
Finnegan O’Hara
I recognise three of them and two of them are no street rats. Bernardo Caro is another New York capo, and Finnegan O’Hara…well, he’s into everything and everyone. There are several hits on his head. I’m already thinking of my contacts, how I could get to them, who I should hit first… I slowly lift my eyes from the paper to him. He’s watching me, one elbow resting on his desk and his index finger tapping over his bottom lip. I fold the paper and hand it back to him.
“I can’t hit this many in one network.” Three of those guys are Italian. It would draw too much attention, and in this business, attention is never good.
He shrugs, pursing his lips around his cigarette as he inhales. The end glows a bright cherry red and he flashes me a dark look. “Then good luck finding your sister.” Smoke drifts between his lips as he speaks.
I clench my fists so hard that my nails break the skin on my palm. “You don’t understand,” I growl. “The way I work, I maintain a fine balance. I’m unbiased in my services, and therefore I have so
mewhat of a diplomatic immunity among the crime organisations.” He takes a deep breath and rubs a hand over his jaw. “If I do this for you, I’m not leaving my name on it. It’s bad for business.” Not to mention that if someone decides I’m a threat or that I’m taking sides, it’ll be open season on my head. I’ll have no choice but to go back to Russia for protection, and I may never find Anna.
He shakes his head. “I need them to know it was you and not me.”
“Does it matter? Someone has to hire me.”
He smirks. “Plausible deniability.”
This is suicide, but it’s amazing what you’ll do for the thing you want most. I’ve spent my entire life alone, an island surrounded by waters so deep and dark, no one could ever hope to cross them. But Anna…she walks on water. My boundaries don’t apply to her, or the fantasy of her at least. Who knows who or what she’s become now. “If I agree to this, it will take time,” I say reluctantly.
“I’ve got time.” His lips kick up at one side. “I’ll pay you three for each one. Plus your sister. You work no other jobs until this is complete and you stay with me.”
Jeez, I guess he’s wealthier than I thought. Wait, what?
I tilt my head, narrowing my eyes. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. I’m not good with people.”
He smirks. “No people, just me. I have a penthouse in the city.”
I glare at him. “Why? I have an apartment in the city. Surely you know my sister is enough incentive for you to trust me.”
He moves back to his desk, stubbing out his cigarette in the steel ashtray. His head remains tilted down as he flicks the butt away. “My reasons are my own. Take it or leave it.” He repeats, accentuating each word. Why would he want me in his house? That’s where he’s most vulnerable.
“I’ll agree if you can give me proof.” I swallow hard, trying hard to hide just how much this means. “I want proof that you have something on Anna.”