We all knew that. Bastian most of all. He knew he was surrounded by family that was supposed to protect him but that would protect her instead. She’d outmaneuvered him and the family with a love she didn’t even express.
Dante trained her, and Cade talked with her when he wouldn’t open his mouth to anyone. And I slept next to her like a cub trusting a lioness.
We respected Bastian as the king of the family.
But we loved Katalina.
In the family, men aren’t supposed to get close to any woman unless we claim them as our untouchable. None of us had claimed her; none of us had claimed anyone. We’d all been without that love, sailing through life completely oblivious to the absence of it. Then, like a colossal tidal wave, she crashed down onto our boat and we couldn’t escape. Maybe we wanted it so badly—to be loved and to love in return—that we welcomed it. I don’t know. The only thing I knew for sure, though, was that once a person felt love, the absence of it was all-consuming.
Once the love was there, people lived for it, died for it, and killed for it.
These men, they’d kill for her. They’d murder their king if they had to.
“Seems I’m in the hot seat, then, no?” Bastian shifted in his chair without peering around to look at his closest allies. He’d pinpointed the threat in the room.
Katalina stood like a dominatrix over him, looking down on him like he was beneath her. “You make the rules. You’re the boss, Bastian. You own this city and everything in it. Including the hot seat, tonight. You know my place in the Russian bratva, no?”
Bastian licked his lips but didn’t answer.
“You all know my place, right? You all wear that ring on your finger like you’re brothers with no secrets.”
“Katalina, the ring isn’t anything against you,” I murmured.
Her gaze slashed to me, and her steel-gray eyes narrowed. “It means everything. It means you’ve officially had a place at the top of this family for as long as you’ve worn it. And for you, even before then, because your blood bleeds the same DNA as theirs.”
“Family ties only solidify responsibility. Not trust or respect. The ring is for the men of the family. It’s just a tradition carried on—” Bastian tried to explain.
“Does tradition make something right, Bastian? Tradition was men before women, tradition was my skin in the fields, beaten and bloody, working for men who thought they owned us. Your tradition has set in stone the impossibility for a woman to stand just as tall as a man in this family. It’s made me a pawn and a tool. Disposal never suited my character.”
“No one was trying to use you. I was ready and willing to have you on my arm—”
“By your side, as an extension of you. I would be owned by you, not respected.” She spun around the room, and her hair whipped around with the same fury we all felt coming from inside her. “Can’t you all see? You’re pacifying me when you should be just as angry at the inequality.” Her gray eyes glistened like smooth stones wet from a fresh rain—hard, cold, beautiful, and unbreakable. I started toward her, but she held up her hand. “I want you all to let me go,” she whispered, staring out the window into the dark abyss of our city. “If you truly want to understand and to make this right, you’ll let me go and let the bratva have me.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I roared.
Bastian jumped from his chair. “Absolutely not.”
She stalked up to him and shoved him in the chest. “Why? Tell me. Are you scared I’ll share the family’s secrets, or are you scared to lose me as part of the family?” She paused, long enough for him to answer. When he didn’t, she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Did you know I had Russian blood in me? Before Rome found out, did you and Cade know? Mario has always known everything. Telling his sons—”
“I didn’t know, Katie. I swear.” Bastian held a hand to his chest like her accusation hurt him, but we’d all wondered it. I’d mulled it over and still had my ideas about Mario’s involvement.
Cade piped up. “I never thought to do the digging until now. We did it a long time ago when Jimmy first brought you in, but there was nothing then. I remember thinking you were just some. . . well, anyway, I didn’t know. As for Bastian, Dad shares more with him.” He shrugged, almost unaware that he had put Bastian back under the gun.
Bastian looked around the room, sweat beading his brow. He yanked at the collar of his shirt. “You guys know I wouldn’t have hidden that. This is my family, but us, in this room, we’re a unit. I would have . . .”
“You would have what?” She egged him on when his voice trailed off. “Done exactly what you did now? Asked me to be on your arm? Embedded me in this family?”
“My father could have killed you,” Bastian shot back.
Dante tensed, and I’d had enough. “You’re out of line, fucker,” he said.
“Me?” Bastian slammed his hand into his chest. “Katie knows me!”
She shrugged like she didn’t. “I’ve had a lot of men in my arms, Bastian. I wouldn’t say I knew all of them that well.”
“Woman, I swear to Christ.” He stepped toward her, but Dante got in between them as I stepped in front of her. “You’re all kidding me, right? I take control of the damn city, and you question what I know about the one fucking woman we all have ties to. I love her.”
An uncontrolled rumble rolled out my chest.