“Maxim Lyanov.”
Despite my confusion, my cheeks tinged pink. “Maxim spoke about me to you?”
“He wasn’t really speaking at the time. He was groaning.”
“Groaning?” Savannah cleared her throat. “She’s barely sixteen, Cin.”
Cin snorted. “I don’t screw mobsters.”
The chatter screeched to a halt in the kitchen.
Utter silence.
Fitting, seeing as everyone in the room screwed mobsters on the regular…
Uncaring that she’d just offended the entire household, Cin continued, “He was talking about chopping someone’s hand off.”
Though I knew Savannah was bristling, she barked out a laugh and nudged me in the side. “Maxim and his penchant for butchery. I think we know what his love language is, Victoria.”
Nudging her back, I grumbled, “Shut up.”
“Whose hand is he chopping off this time?” Inessa queried, drifting over to us.
“I don’t understand why he can’t just break a wrist. Why chop it off?” Aela groused.
“It sends a message,” Camille reasoned as she lifted her mimosa and took a deep sip. “The Bratva way.”
“Nuh-uh. They’re ‘The Forgotten Boys’ now.”
Savannah’s correction had me frowning. “The Forgotten Boys?”
“Well, the…” She cleared her throat. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
“I think you’re incapable of that, Savannah,” Inessa teased.
“Probably.”
Camille reached over the counter and patted my arm. “There’s a new Russian faction in town.”
Panic stirred inside me. “Are we in danger?”
“Of course not. We’re Irish now,” Inessa declared, her words loaded with her satisfaction.
I had no idea where Eoghan came from—seriously, he was like a ghost sometimes—but he was there all of a sudden, his arm sliding around her waist, and he was growling something in her ear that made Inessa blush.
Eoghan apparently liked hearing that Inessa considered herself Irish now.
I’d have rolled my eyes if I weren’t used to their PDAs.
“You’re not in danger,” Eoghan confirmed a moment later. His gaze was measured as he zeroed in on me, gracing me with every inch of his focus. For someone who’d been starved of attention from a male authority figure, he never ceased to reassure me when he looked at me this way. “I told you, Victoria, I will always keep you safe.”
My throat bobbed. “If the Russians are—”
“Maxim is in charge of the new faction and the soldiers are separating from the Bratva. Nothing is really changing on this end. The men are no longer heeding Moscow’s call.”
His explanation was brisk and to the point and it both concerned me and put my mind at rest.
“Won’t that anger Moscow?”