I understand why men want her. She is gorgeous. Her full, rosy lips, button nose, and long eyelashes make her look innocent—and she probably is. In her sweet mind, there isn’t any darkness.
“You like it here, Sloane?”
“No.”
“That’s unfortunate.” I take another sip of vodka and click my tongue. “You might be here for a while.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” she says as she grabs a banana from the bowl in the center of the table, along with a slice of toast.
She’s feisty, I’ll give her that. I expected her to obey my every command, but she fights back. Which means this will be fun, no doubt—but she’ll also be a pain in my ass. No one has fought me since Kirill died.
“I’m many things.”
She reaches for the butter and spreads it over her toast. Her bright doe eyes look at me and then dart back down, her emotions written all over her face. When her grip tightens around the knife, I don’t stop her. I can read her actions from a mile off and know before she moves that she’s going to try to stab me with it. I can take the hit. It’s a butter knife after all—it won’t do anything. I’ve had a sharp knife plunged into my palm before, and this is nothing compared to that.
“That was a perfect way to ruin breakfast,” I say, turning the knife back on her.
Her body stiffens under my touch. She looks at me in pure disgust. I don’t feel guilty or ashamed of my actions, but it seems she does. She can’t even attack me with confidence. Her words are the only weapon she has, and they won’t get her far at all.
With the knife to her throat, Sloane grips the edge of her seat.
“There are rules,Koldunya.”I dig the knife deeper into her skin. “If you try to leave, you will be punished. If you refuse to care for yourself, you will be punished. If you defy me in any way, you will be punished.”
“Your rules don’t mean anything.”
“They do. And on the off chance you withstand my punishment and continue to defy me, I’ll pay your family a visit.”
Her breathing halts and she shuts her eyes. See, now, that’s the reaction I wanted. It’s as if she doesn’t care what happens to her, but if anything happens to her family it’s a different story.
“No,” she whispers.
I lean back in my chair and readjust myself. “You can leave.”
She opens her eyes and pushes her chair back quickly. I don’t bother looking up at her no matter how priceless her reaction may be.
Getting to know Sloane will be a lot more fun than I imagined.
* * *
Leaving Lev with Sloane, I only hope he can handle her. The ship is a couple miles off the shore of Long Island, making my trip to the city a hassle. On the way there, I went through everything my brother has on Sloane.
Kirill didn’t do his research correctly; most of the information he has on her is wrong. He wasn’t as connected with the Bratva as I thought. A part of me isn’t even surprised because he never thinks his plans through. If you hand him a gun, he’ll ask who he needs to shoot. He doesn’t care for reason or motive. He thought Sloane once lived in an orphanage, but she didn’t. Her father, Ludis Koziov, swept her away as soon as he found out she was in the NICU.
Ludis has tried to keep her hidden from the other families her entire life. He’s done a good job for the most part, but it seems Sloane doesn’t quite understand she was supposed tostayhidden. Seeing her running through the streets of the city was the last thing I expected. I thought I’d have to take out her brother to get to her.
Men want her dead, myself included, but that wouldn’t have stopped me from showing up to her house and taking her from there. How lucky I was to have her fall directly in my arms instead. This small, pitiful girl is the reason all our alliances are now void, and she should’ve listened to her father. Ludis’s actions alone should have gotten him killed years ago, but my father didn’t think it was necessary.
Ludis may be getting weaker as time goes by, but underneath all his hurt is a man like me. A man who wants nothing but revenge for his family.
Unfortunately, we’re avenging two different families, and he’s on the wrong side.
I never thought Ludis would be the man to break the alliance, but some people just have no mercy. Neither did Kirill. There wasn’t a drop of remorse in his heart the day he killed Sloane’s birth mother. It used to be difficult for me to understand how he could be so detached. My brother didn’t ever think about the consequences. He didn’t blend in well with our lifestyle after we were adopted and was the kind of man who handled everything with purpose. He wanted to keep us safe, but all that changed once he understood we had power through Pavel. He became reckless. He went behind our father’s back all the time, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
It took a while, but his mistakes caught up to him. Of course, I was thrown into the crossfire, always having to do his dirty work. That’s why the Romanos hate me. Because the older I got, the more I knew I was the one who had to take care of Kirill. He needed me by his side. He’d call me all the time and demand I help him. I couldn’t say no.
He was supposed to be my big brother, my protector, but everything changed after he realized he didn’t need to take care of me anymore.
Kirill wanted to marry Nina to form an alliance with the Cosa Nostra. He never told anyone what his plan was or even why he wanted to—he just went ahead with it. He had a strange obsession with Nina. I understand why she wanted nothing to do with him; Kirill wasn’t much of a person at that point. He depended on drugs that made his body age far beyond his years. He never would have been able to give her a future. If Giovanni didn’t kill him, the drugs would have done so soon enough.