“So he’s still part of the problem.”
“Of course, he is.”
He hums. “But his sister should be easy enough to control, yes?”
“She’s afraid of me. I can tell.” My heart quivers at the thought of her cowering from me. The reason why I would ever care about that eludes me—yet another part of me is irritated by it. “She’ll follow my lead if she knows what’s good for her.”
“It still sounds like you care.”
“I don’t.”
“Does that help you sleep at night?”
“I will fight you, Styopa.” I switch to his diminutive, dropping all formality now.
He grins at me in the rear-view mirror. “I’ll let you win,molodoy chelovek.”
“I think those Chechen artillery shells might have knocked your head a little too hard.”
“Don’t worry. The metal plate helps with that.” He knocks on his head, the resultingthunksounding a lot louder than I expect despite how many times he’s done it. “I think you’re the one who hit your head over this whole thing.”
“Like hell I have.”
The shit-eating grin on his face spreads. “You keep saying you can’t fall in love with Liya, but I see the way your brows furrow each time you say her name. Nothing is stopping you from doing just that.”
“Everythingis stopping me.”
“Is that true, though?”
My fist curls as I growl through my teeth, “I can’t love her because that would risk the real stakes in the game.”
“So, the heart of the issue isn’t the heart itself.”
“I will choke you while you’re driving.”
He laughs. “Then who will get you to your sister, I wonder?”
“I can walk.”
Thunder cracks beyond the windows, shaking the vehicle. Once the sound fades, Stepan clicks his tongue and says, “You might get soaked. That suit looks expensive.”
I close my eyes and grip the leather of the seat beneath me. Anger, fury, irritation, longing—it’s all a storm of its own now, shoving me into a corner where I can’t seem to fight my way out.
I told Stepan why I can’t love Liya. I shouldn’t feel guilty about it.
So, why do I feel so weird?
“We’ll arrive at your sister’s house soon, Pavel Sergeyevich.”
The road ahead steals my attention. I didn’t realize we were so close. Thinking about Liya and her idiot brother kept me distracted.
Which is fine. I need to plan it out properly. Stepan has a good sounding board for a brain. Even with the metal plate.
Karina will help. The rain falls harder in the background, a thrum of tension slipping through my gut as I frown at the window.She might not fully understand my position, but she’s always willing to help.
“Jonas is useless to everyone,” I say to Stepan. “I still haven’t decided if I want to kill him yet. But he can’t put himself at the top of Citta Nostra. I want to be at the top.”
“That’s a lot of people to oversee.”