Men aren’t built like women. Or at least, not like Katalina.
We could never read emotions as well, navigate a room as well, or know someone else’s next move like her. She didn’t play chess. She dominated it. It was like sitting across from your opponent and realizing they had all queens lined up instead of pawns.
The fight wasn’t fair.
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.
“Not like that, you dumbass.” Bastian glared my way. “I love that she’s a part of this unit. I love that she is who she is. With you. I don’t want things to change just because we know her bloodline.”
Would it change now? It would have to. Katalina had morphed into a fireball, ready to tear apart the city to find the answers she wanted.
“I trusted you all for so long.” Her voice was just above a whisper, and we all leaned in to hear exactly what she had to say. “I gave up my confidence in my ability to earn a seat at the table over and over again for this family. I’ve lain on my back and taken men for you. I’ve sold my soul.” Her voice cracked, but she cleared her throat and carried on. “I won’t do it anymore.”
“We never wanted that for you,” Bastian started.
“Let me go. Let them have me,” she said again.
“For what?” Bastian whispered. “They have no organization. They’re ruthless and lack morals. They don’t want you for anything but to use as a weapon against us. They’ll end up killing you.”
“Some would say the same about your father,” she shot back. “And now you.”
“But you know deep down that’s not true. I’m not my father. Woman, if I’d known you felt this way for so long, I’d have changed something. You never said—”
“It’s not my responsibility to educate you on who’s deserving, Bastian. You and your father and the whole family should have seen that. Now, I want the opportunity to figure this out on my own, to find my own answers, to see what could belong to me, to us.”
I stepped toward her, reaching for her hand. She yanked it away as if I’d burn her. “Katalina. Cleo, this isn’t a fight you need to have. Don’t do this alone.”
“I have to.” She licked her lips and scanned all of me, like she was taking me in for the last time, like she was memorizing me. “Call him, Bastian.”
She disappeared down my hallway, and we all stared after her. From the sound of drawers being opened and bottles clinking around, she was changing and packing.
Would she forgive me if I dragged her back to the panic room and locked the door?
I considered if it was worth it, if I’d rather have a shell of her than nothing at all, because walking into the enemy’s arms . . . that was just asking to disappear forever.
She breezed back in with a duffel bag over her bare shoulder. Her signature cut-off shirt was back on, and her ripped jeans hung low at her hips. It was like the traffic and wind outside stopped. We all stood there, four men about to get on their knees and beg her. We would have made a perfect picture, all the men in love with Katalina. None of us moved an inch either, like we didn’t want her to jump away from us.
My cousin, the man who was supposed to protect every single person in this family, did the one thing that could make my heart stop. He slid his hand into his suit pocket and pulled out his phone.
My blood turned cold, but I swore I could hear it pumping furiously through my veins. It felt like a sea had rushed into my heart and messed up all the chambers. Every part of my body was breaking, malfunctioning, failing. I couldn’t take in air. I could barely stand.
“Katalina will be in front of Rome’s apartment. She’d like you to come get her.” He hung up without listening to Dimitri’s response.
She backed away toward the door. “You follow me, you don’t let them have me, you ruin this for me, and I’ll tear this family apart by tearing myself apart first.”
She spun around, grabbed her knife off the counter, and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
We all stood there, stock still, so silent we could hear the traffic out in the night. We all knew the truth.
She’d turned the tables, and her words rang true.
If Katalina ripped herself apart, if she came back harmed, we’d blame one another.
I’d kill for her, die for her. I only wanted to live for her. The men in that room were the same. We waited with baited breath to see if Katalina would succeed in running into the lion’s den and then coming home to us all without our help.
I fell to my knees and let the damn tears roll down my face. Dante and Bastian laid a hand on each of my shoulders.
I knew that it might be the last time I ever saw her breathing, alive and well. And even if I did, I knew she’d never come back the same.
The monster in me stirred. The beast had fallen in love with her, had made a comfortable place to hole up in while she silenced all the noise that used to aggravate him. Without her, my mind and body screamed. The demons ricocheted around in me, trying to find a way out. The monster wanted answers and names and heads rolling. Anyone who knew, anyone who even looked sideways at how we’d come to know her, had a price to pay.
And payment was overdue.
