by Maura Rose
But he liked Sean, and it would be unfair to all the families who needed the docks if the Murphys got a monopoly on it.
It was all up to Kelly.
She seemed to know it, too, lost in thought as they walked quietly towards the exit to the docks. When they were almost there and Ivan was about to despair and just fucking ask her, she spoke.
“Were you serious, about your offer?”
He frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Kelly snorted. “Oh come on, Ivan, I know your reputation. You wouldn’t be the first man to lie to a girl to get her in bed.”
“Maybe not, but I’m not going to lie about something like this. Not about family matters.” That was far too important.
Kelly grew silent again for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was carefully neutral. “Then if you were serious, I agree to it.”
Ivan stopped walking. He honestly had been expecting her to say no, despite that mind-blowing sex they’d just had. “You’re—you’re agreeing?”
Kelly nodded, putting her hands on her hips. “You’re right. This is a good deal for both of us. There’s no way that we can stand against the Murphys alone, not as we are, and you get better deals on the docks and exclusive mentorship from my father without having to do any other favors for him. You have a guaranteed family at your back if you need, and vice versa for us. It’s logical.”
“You could stand to be a little happier about it.”
“You could have found a more romantic way to propose marriage, but then, we don’t always get what we want now do we?” Kelly replied.
Point taken.
“I have to go to Moscow to alert some contacts,” he told her. He’d been needing to do it anyway, what with taking over the family and all, but now with the Murphy thing coming to a head he needed to up his trip. “I can get some allies there, if they send word to some of the other families, they’ll listen. Moscow still carries a lot of influence over the families here. And they won’t send anything to the Murphys either in the meantime, they won’t want a monopoly raising prices on their shipments either. They’ll support us.”
Kelly nodded. “I’ll need to prepare everyone for war. If my father will listen.” She snorted at that, as if laughing at herself. “I doubt it.”
“I think you underestimate yourself.”
Kelly shook her head, tucking some of her now-loose hair behind her ear. “It’s nice of you to say so, but if my father truly thought that I was valuable he would give me an official position instead of just letting me a catch-all so nothing falls through the cracks.”
Ivan thought about that. Perhaps… perhaps Kelly’s aggression towards him hadn’t been actually at him, but rather at once again another person being given her father’s trust and authority rather than her.
“My father…” Ivan sighed. “I don’t have to tell you that he was an asshole. Everyone knew it. And—you know how it is, you can be an asshole but you can’t be a stupid asshole and he was that. He squeezed people to death over small debts, he scared people to the point where they didn’t want to work with him, he overextended himself.
“And I let him get away with all of it. I never said anything. I just partied and did what I was told. I was the heir and I let him get away with not teaching me a damn thing. I just enjoyed my wealth and my freedom.
“What my brother did—I still don’t know. If I agree with it. A part of me is still furious with him. But if anything, he freed all of us. We were on a drowning ship and none of us wanted to see it.
“I’m a fuck up.” Ivan took a deep breath. It was kind of freeing to say it all out loud, here in the darkness, with only one person to hear him—someone who already didn’t care all that much about him and didn’t have a high opinion of him anyway. It wasn’t like he could say anything to make Kelly like him less.
“I never acted the way an heir should. Our family was going down and we’re still going down and I’m just trying to keep it afloat as best I can. So listen—your father’s not perfect. He’s your father, but he’s not perfect, and he’s going to have blind spots and fuck up like we all do. And maybe you’re right and he’ll never give you an official position but that’s not from any fault on your end.
“You’re way ahead of where I was when I was in your position. I was in a better position than you were, arguably, and I did nothing about it. Your time is going to come and you’ll find yourself the head of a family or something, just wait and you’ll see.”
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Fat chance of that when I’m going to be married to you, unless you feel like sharing power.”
Ivan wasn’t sure what to say to that. “We could get a divorce a few years down the line if we really hate each other that much,” he joked, falling back onto humor for lack of anything better to say.
Kelly cracked a small smile at that. “Look, it’s not your business whatever my—my personal family issues, they’re mine. This isn’t family business, this is family business. If that makes sense.”
“Yeah, no, I get it.” That was the problem with their world—your sibling issues, your parental issues—they had a bearing on the business end of things as well. The line between ‘family’ issues and family issues was so blurred that sometimes it was nonexistent.
They walked in silence for a little longer, and then Kelly said, “You’ll contact us when you get back from Moscow?”
Ivan nodded. “It should only be a few days, that’ll give you time to prepare to go on the offense.”
Kelly grinned, looking relieved. “I’m just glad we finally have a plan. But—Bates.”
“Yeah?”
Kelly’s grin morphed into something sharper, more dangerous. Grim. “Nobody else touches him. You leave him to me.”
Ivan knew how she felt. When he’d learned that his father had been murdered, he’d wanted to stop at nothing to kill the person who had done it. When he’d learned that person was his own brother… he hadn’t known what to do. He didn’t regret letting Viktor go—most of the time—but he knew what it was like to want revenge on someone for hurting your family.
Kelly, at least, would get that revenge in a way that Ivan never would.
He nodded. “Bates is all yours.”
The look on Kelly’s face, oddly enough, was the one that he remembered when he fell asleep that night: the way her blue eyes glittered in the night, the sharpness of that grin.
An Irish mob girl, through and through.
She’d make a goddamn queen, he realized.
And didn’t that do odd things to his chest.
Chapter Eighteen
Kelly collapsed into bed the second she got home, waiting only until after she’d peeled off her clothes and had the world’s fastest shower.
That had been unexpected.
If someone had told her that morning, hey, you’re going to find out that one of your father’s trusted long-time lieutenant is a traitor and you’re going to sneak into the Murphy docks, and oh, you’re going to have mind-blowing sex with Ivan Sokolov and then he’s actually going to be nice to you afterwards, she would’ve told them exactly where they could shove such an insane idea.
And yet that was exactly what had happened.
She stared up at the ceiling. Her skin was still tingling slightly and if she concentrated, she could feel the ghost of his touch on her skin.
Fuck.
The thing that most disoriented her was afterwards. Ivan had seemed… awkward, almost. She wouldn’t have expected that from him. Surely he’d dealt with the afterwards of a one night stand before.
Okay, to be fair, that had been far from a typical one night stand. It was practically an audition. And boy, had he passed with flying colors, at least where the sexual compatibility was concerned.
The way he’d been silent afterwards though, like he was unsure of what to say and how to treat her. She’d been silent herself, unwilling to break this strange equilibrium they’d found for themselves. She’d known that if she said something
she’d fuck it all up, so she’d just kept quiet. She had no idea why Ivan was finally finding a reason to keep his mouth shut, and she didn’t even know why she was complaining about it when that was all she’d wanted him to do since she’d met him, but… there it was.
And then he’d gone and been sweet to her.
Not just nice, but kind. Sweet.
She knew what an effort it must have been to admit that his father had fucked up. They were loyal, all of them, it was the mob way. Drummed into you from the moment you were born was the idea of loyalty. Morality, the law, other people, none of it mattered before the ties of family. Family could be non-blood related. Plenty of members were people taken in, orphans, street kids brought up and all but adopted into the fold. But blood ties carried an extra layer of it. You didn’t betray people who’d taken you in and made you own of their own, but to turn against the people related to you by blood—it was an old-fashioned notion, maybe, but it was a strong one, the idea that to turn against one’s blood was to turn against one’s self.
Especially the Russians. The Italians had a special kind of viciousness, and her own Irish roots cried out for defiance, rebellion, not to mention a certain morbid fascination with death, but nobody could do stubborn pride like the Russians.
But he’d reached out to her, volunteered that information. Let her know that she wasn’t alone in being upset with a father—and that it was okay for her father to be wrong.
Was her father wrong, not to promote her? To pass over her as heir?
She’d never cared so much about being heir as she’d cared about being heard. Being listened to. Sometimes it felt like it would kill her brothers and her father to just consider her ideas. She’d fought with them, often and bitterly. She regretted those fights now, fights full of things she’d never be able to take back, never be able to apologize for to Connor—things she was still in danger of never being able to say to Shane.
But that hadn’t been because she wanted to run things or at least, she hadn’t thought of it that way. She just wanted her good ideas acknowledged, damn it. She wanted people to listen to her because she knew what the hell she was doing.
Maybe all this time, she had been feeling resentment at being passed over, and she just hadn’t realized it. But Ivan had seen it, and called her out on it, and then comforted her about it.
It was… nice.
He had finally treated her like an equal, someone he could understand and support rather than just fight with. She didn’t know if it was just post-sex haze and he’d be back to being a dick when they next saw one another, but she appreciated it.
It made her consider that maybe, if he was like this all the time—and if she found a way to not just snap at him automatically, to take a breath and to not take her frustrations out on him—maybe they’d actually work, as a team.
Kelly snorted to herself. What was she thinking? He was a Sokolov. Russians didn’t share power. If she was his wife he’d never treat her as a real partner. She’d be stuck the same way she was now, with Father not listening to her and not giving her the same respect and free reign that he gave Shane and Connor.
She couldn’t live like that. She needed to be with someone she could be a true partner to. Call her stubborn or ridiculous for it, but it was the goddamn 21st Century, she could at least hold out for that in her spouse if she was resigning herself to a political marriage.
But she didn’t have a choice. She’d already said yes—and she had to. Ivan was right, his aid would help them be able to hold their own against the Murphys. The O’Gills would never survive on their own. Even if their leadership had been at full strength, they were in no shape, with either manpower or weapon-wise, to fight in an all-out war.
At least with Ivan’s help they knew what was being planned and there wouldn’t be any in-fighting between the lieutenants as to who the traitor was. That would have absolutely gutted them if their leadership had been that divided when the Murphys attacked.
She was going to track down Bates and she was going to rip his throat out.
He’d helped to raise Shane and Connor. He’d been there for them for years, had watched them grow up. And he’d sided with the enemy, arranged for Shane and Connor’s deaths without a second thought.
Oh, she was going to make him pay for it all right. She was going to make him suffer and make him know what it meant to cross an O’Gill. She might not be a scary six-foot Russian or a psycho Caparelli but damn it, she was a mobster’s daughter. Her people had fought off the damn Roman Empire back in the day, naked and covered in blue paint, screaming wild and scaring the Romans shitless. She could take down one rat bastard traitor.
As for Ivan… well, she’d find a way to make it work, wouldn’t she? It would be fine. It could certainly be worse.
Her thoughts kept drifting to how he’d held her afterwards, when it had just been the two of them in the darkness. The way that she’d lain on his chest, his fingers trailing lightly up and down her spine, his other hand gently tangled in her hair.
She’d felt stupidly safe in that moment, which was especially ironic given that they were literally in enemy territory in a goddamn shipping crate surrounded by illegally smuggled materials. But all she’d cared about, then, was his hands on her, the way he was holding her, the rise and fall of his chest against her cheek.
In that moment she’d wanted nothing more than to stay there. She hadn’t wanted to pull away, hadn’t wanted it to end.
She felt like a stupid young schoolgirl, feeling that way. This wasn’t—she was supposed to be past all that ridiculous romantic stuff. She wasn’t the kind of person who got swept off her feet.
But he’d just felt so safe and warm. Protective. In that moment she hadn’t been irritated with him, hadn’t wanted to fight him. She’d realized that she actually felt comfortable around him. Comfortable enough to snap and snarl but not really wanting to bite. She’d wanted more of this. Wanted it to be normal. Wanted it every night. Had found herself wondering if maybe, they could turn their banter into just a way to challenge one another without actually wounding, a kind of lead-in to tearing each other’s clothes off at night. What if that teasing glint in his eyes was one that she knew would lead to his tongue in her mouth, what if her calling him out on his bullshit would lead to his head between her legs, what if—
Kelly sat straight up in bed. She could feel her chest heaving and she was probably gaping like an idiot.
Fucking fuck.
She had a goddamn crush on Ivan Sokolov.
Chapter Nineteen
They went to Sean with their findings the next day, bright and early.
He was reluctant to believe it at first.
“Bates is my best,” he said, sitting next to Shane. His condition was improving, or so the doctor said, but he hadn’t woken up yet. Ivan felt bad for the guy. Being stuck in a coma, that wasn’t any way to go.
“Bates is also a lying fuck,” Kelly spat.
Ivan could sense the anger radiating off of her. He wanted to take her outside and tell her to cool down—anger wasn’t going to help them here. Instead he just laid a hand on her shoulder.
That seemed to calm her down. Kelly glanced at him, but toned down the anger a bit. “The evidence we’ve found is indisputable, Father.”
“I back her up,” Ivan said. “She found that it was Bates but I was already seeing that the trail of clues leading to the other two lieutenants was too obvious. It had to be a false trail, and it had to be planted by someone who knew your organization and how you operate and could have had an opportunity to plant that information.”
“The Murphys have been waiting for an opportunity like this for years,” Kelly said. “Please, give us permission to move against them. Ivan and I can lead the charge if you don’t want to. We’ll take full responsibility.”
“Sir, they’re going to go against you,” Ivan pointed out. “It’s only a matter of time, especially when they realize that their ploy to have you and your lieutenant
s all turning against each other didn’t work. We have to at least be prepared for them to strike, even if you don’t want to be the one who starts the war.”
“Ivan’s going to head to Moscow to secure his contacts there and get support,” Kelly added. “I can run things on our side.”
Sean looked from one to the other, his blue eyes twinkling. “You two are presenting a real united front, aren’t you?”
Ivan looked at Kelly, who went a bit pink and then looked back at her father. “That reminds me—we’re going to unite the two families, so that Ivan has an excuse to publicly throw his lot in with us.”
Sean sat up a little straighter. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I’ll get her a proper ring and everything,” Ivan added hastily. “It was kind of last-minute.” He winced. Not what a man wants to hear when he learns his daughter’s engaged.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Kelly said. “It’ll secure both of our families.”
Sean nodded. “I can’t say that I’m… not a little surprised. I wasn’t under the impression that you two got along. But I’m glad to see that you’re working so well together on this. Presenting a united front, and you’re doing it very well.”
Ivan and Kelly looked at one another. She looked about as surprised as Ivan felt. “We’re not—”
“We realized it was necessity,” Ivan said quickly. “That’s all. You have to do what you can to survive, right?”
“I could do a lot worse,” Kelly acknowledged. “And hey, I can always kill him and take over.”
She was joking, but Ivan was grateful for it. It diffused some of the tension that he felt between them, in his own chest, a confused sort of tension that made him want to preen and also flee the room.
It was good that he and Kelly were working together now—finally. He should be pleased about that. Yet he also felt like he should be playing it off, not making it a big deal.