My hand shot out to wipe one lone tear that escaped her glassy eyes. They looked far off and I needed her to come back to me. “Hey, you’ve never been a victim, Katalina.”
“I have.” She cleared her throat, blinked away her fog, and wiped at both her eyes before shutting them tight. She was probably trying to push away all the complications I was thinking about. “I have, Rome. And I won’t be again. I want to change what’s been done. I want to make waves in the bratva, do good instead of bad.”
We all wanted to make changes. But change took time and lives. I wasn’t about to lose her because of it. “None of us do good,” I pushed back at her. She knew that. She knew what this life was.
“I’m going to change that.”
I swear the woman made me want to punch and break things every minute of every day. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. “Have it your way, Katalina. And remember you chose this.”
Her glistening eyes held mine. She fisted her tiny hands and then crossed her thin arms over her chest. The woman was tiny all around and yet she was about to take on the bratva. She wanted to be something that was impossible. She couldn’t change tradition and she couldn’t change greed. The bratva had them both and they enjoyed them too. I knew her end goal, knew that sex trafficking was on her radar and that she wanted to put an end to it while leading a disorganized group of idiots. That’s all the bratva was. That’s all the mafia was too. We only ran because the leadership was able to execute.
She didn’t understand that a woman wouldn’t be able to accomplish what she planned, that those men wouldn’t give her the respect she deserved.
Which meant our family was about to go to war for her.
I was about to rip apart the people that would come for her.
We would all be fighting the war on sex trafficking and it was about to be the biggest one we’d ever fought before.
“I’ll remember. And remember you’re agreeing.”
I grunted as I pressed the button to speak through the soundproof partition a little harder than necessary. “Take us to the club now.”
I lifted my finger from it and she tried for a lighter topic. “How is this new club venture going? You never mentioned it.”
“I just bought in and took the offer to own majority stock in it after Mario.” It’d been a week ago that the Stonewoods offered it to me.
“Why take that on? You don’t need it.”
“It’s good for the family.”
“Is it? They don’t need it either.”
My bars were just small businesses that we could run dirty money through if need be. Yet this club was exclusive. It would be one of many and it was going to bank millions for access. “It’s an elite access club. People will pay millions over time just to be a part of it. Both men and women will indulge there and they’ll share secrets, business deals, and more there. It’s an investment that will solidify a lot.”
She narrowed her eyes and I saw the questions flying through her head. They were legitimate ones. “Is it a venture I should be involved in?”
“The bratva or you?”
“I don’t operate without the bratva anymore.” Her response was quick enough to show me that Ivan had already ingrained some sense of belonging in her.
I wanted to snatch her back, wanted to cage her in with just us but knew I had to let her fly. Either way, she was bound to do so. I’d either lose her or get to witness her in her glory. I wanted the latter, even if it meant accepting the pain along with it.
“We’ll see.” I didn’t say more or less. She’d be given the option soon enough but she had to see the club for herself. The bratva would decide with her if they wanted to turn over a new leaf. This meeting would be the sure sign of it.
We pulled up to the Stonewood Skyscraper. They’d built the club underneath the highest building in the city. It was dark, wound underground like a coiled snake, and took navigating to enter. Our black SUVs and limos filed into the Stonewood Enterprises parking structure one by one, but we drove past the expensive cars already parked there. At the end was a steel, matte black garage door with two armed guards manning the security system. They scanned our licenses and the parking tags that were hanging from our drivers’ vehicles.
The system had multiple security checks. I lowered my window when one of the guards tapped it and gave him my finger to run.
“She with you, boss?” he asked.
“Yes. Scan her in. She’ll have access whenever needed.”
Katalina hesitated only for a second before offering her fingerprint. The guard’s pad read and logged her print quickly.
“All set.” He tapped the hood of the limo and we drove through.
“A little much?” She scratched the side of her face in question.
“Not when you’ve got international politicians and leaders sharing secrets here.”
She didn’t say anything more. We knew where we were going. We knew the men we were about to meet with ruled a lot more than a mafia in Chicago or a big business. They made calls to presidents; they pulled the triggers on lives metaphorically and literally.
I got out just as we parked and my shoes clipped across the marble flooring. The parking structure inside the garage doors was extravagant like the rest of the club. Right now, it was empty, but it would soon be filled with luxury cars and money. The Stonewoods spared no expense with the design and even now when they asked how any design should be handled, I chose top tier.
I went to open Katalina’s car door for her, but two men speaking Russian were already there ushering her out. She glanced my way and mouthed goodbye.
I wouldn’t say it back, wouldn’t even acknowledge it. That woman wasn’t going anywhere away from me ever again.
We moved separately for now. Ivan studied me before he made his way to her side. Two hosts were at the front plated doors near a fountain. They rushed to open the doors for us and we walked through. Inside, diamonds and stones glittered from the ceiling but the lighting was dim, even dark in some places to allow for privacy. The marbled flooring met with dark carpeting near VIP areas, and the velvet seating had gold silk threading throughout.
I watched Katie take it all in. She scanned it like a hawk noticing every detail. When her gaze landed on the first tantra sex chair, they flew to mine.
I hadn’t divulged to her the type of club it was. Sex sold but I wanted a different take, a place where it was consensual, exclusive, and open to whatever the customer wanted. Every member would sign legally binding documents to participate, to bring guests, to be recorded, and more. And exclusivity sold. With our names, we already had a waiting list.
The chains, the whips, the poles, the hoops hanging from the sparkling ceiling didn’t deter anyone except those who may not have wanted to enter in the first place.
Katie curled her lip and walked over to me, stopping her men from following with a hand in the air. “Sex club and I wasn’t invited?”
“You’re invited if you want access.” I turned around the room to see most everyone who was of importance being served and mingling.
She hummed low and cut off what she was about to say when one of our servers approached me with a drink on a tray.
“Your usual, Rome?” The server purred it out like a feline ready to rub her body through my legs. Instead of watching the tall brunette in a leotard that shined like the ceiling, I watched Katie’s reaction.
Her whole body tensed like she wanted a fight. “You enjoy the help while working here, Rome? Maybe I was too quick to assume you were as clean as me back in that limo.”
“If you want to test out the furniture for that smart mouth of yours tonight, we definitely can. I seem to recall you being the one telling me to check my jealousy over you and other men.”
“I’m never going to flaunt them in front of you.”
“Your partnership will be enough.”
She growled in frustration before turning away from me and staring at the entrance where the Stonewoods had just arrived. Jax and Jett walked hand in hand with the women they had decided to take leaps of faith with. Together, they appeared to own the bar, the room, the world. Every family and bratva member silenced as they strolled in.
None of them hurried; each took their time and each of their women walked with just as much ease and composure, like they owned every bit as much of the empire as their husbands.
They were right to think so.
The women had their men’s hearts from the beginning and most likely called most of the shots.
Jett moved his wife, Vick, forward first to sit at the side of the long table we had set up. She waved him off to run over to Katie and hug her though. Some of the distant families whispered, especially when the other Stonewoods made their way to her. Katie had belonged before she knew she did, and somehow she was a thread that was weaving us all together.
She’d befriended Brey and Vick long before we all had. Her bond with the Stonewoods and her friends was more solid than any she had with bratva members, maybe even some of the Armanelli Family too.
Ivan ambled up to me as everyone took in the scene. “She’s something else, no?”
“She’s everything else.”
“I never imagined the depth to the girl or the sheer intelligence. Her mother was smart but that one… she has the potential.”
“She’s not a tool, Ivan.”
“She’s a ruler and that makes her a tool for the bratva, just like you’re a tool for the Armanellis. We’ve all got a place.”
“Or maybe we decide to leave the place behind and make our own somewhere else.”
“At this point, someone would find and kill her. You and I both know that. You can’t live your life in hiding with her. You weren’t built for that. Neither of you were. Look at her.”
She radiated power. Her earrings, strands of gold hanging from her lobes, swung back and forth as she shook her head, laughing at something Jax said. Her black dress fit her like a glove, wrapping up her curves in one delicious package. More than a few of the men stared and surely wondered what it would be like to bend her ass over one of the chairs. I had. It made me want to usher her out of the club immediately.
“I hope you’ve both figured out your issues,” said Ivan. “We’re about to create more.”
“I’ll advise you not to create any that you want me to fix. I’m not a good fixer. I erase and seek vengeance, but that never really fixes a damn thing.”
I left him to greet the Stonewoods. I shook each of their hands with Jax’s being last. He grunted and nodded at me while Brey held her hand out for me to shake too.
I lifted a brow. “Really?”
“Oh whatever.” She waved off the whole charade and moved in for a hug. “I was trying to be formal for the whole situation.”
“Formalities became a waste of time after we slept together, no?” I said.
“Don’t make me angry before the meeting, Rome,” Jax warned.
“Or me.” Katie folded her arms over her chest and stood beside him. She was making a statement to them and to me, that she wanted me, that she felt the jealousy, that she was bold enough to admit it.
I respected her fire and how she wielded it.
“Shall we?” Bastian clapped his hands and motioned to everyone to take a seat around the massive mahogany table. A few of the other men murmured about Katie, Vick, and Brey attending. We heard the whispers but let them go. The Armanellis weren’t the ones bringing women to the table. The Stonewoods and bratva were.
“It’s been brought to our attention that we’re all in the same place due to the unfortunate circumstances of my father passing,” Bastian started as he took a stand at the head of the table.
I stood next to him while Cade and Dante sat on either side of us. We had the head of the LA Italian Family beside Dante. He was only a few years older than us. The head of the New York Family sat next to Cade, older than old, with his brother beside him. Much of the bratva were a similar age, seated on the other side of the table with Ivan at the foot, Katie right beside him.
The Stonewoods filled out the middle of the table but it didn’t dim their power at all. They lounged in their chairs, bigger than most of the men here and definitely in better shape. I’d almost come to blows with Jax in the past and had wondered whether I’d have won that fight. He’d have put up a good one, that’s for sure.
The bratva only had three other heads at the meeting. Each of them were old enough to be our father; each of them looked completely out of place and unhappy to be in our presence.
“Since we’re all here,” continued Bastian, “it’s best we meet and discuss what’s come to pass in light of my father’s passing and how we should handle it.”
A mid-tier member of the LA Italian family mumbled, “Not sure we can call it passing.”
Bastian let the comment roll off his shoulders but I was already on edge, too charged to let things go. “You got something to say, Giovanni?”
“You may be an Armanelli, Rome, but I’m a Valentino. We own the West Coast, and I just think we should all be a part of life and death decisions.”
“It wasn’t a decision as he’d broken a code of conduct.” I cracked my knuckles. “He knew that, even admitted it when we brought him to the chair.”
“You’re just in love with the bitch he wronged,” he sneered at Bastian.
At this point, the leaders knew who that bitch was.
Every eye looked her way. She waited and let their stares sink in. Katalina was made for a throne even if she hadn’t known it before. She rested an elbow on the table and put her chin into her palm as if completely bored by the man’s statement. “Am I that bitch, Gio?”
He grunted and mumbled in Italian.
“Don’t tempt me to put you in the chair too. I got no problem killing you when you talk to her that way.” I warned.
Bastian cracked his neck and let out a breath.
“Chill,” I whispered to him, because I knew he felt pressure, could read my cousin like I could have a twin brother. Bastian had never wanted to be the head of the Armanelli family but he was and he was good at it. He didn’t want to argue with anyone though. It irritated him. His time was more valuable than that, and so was the rest of the family’s.
“I’m not here to throw barbs and none of you are either,” said Bastian. “We have a group of men—”
“And women,” Katalina said to no one in particular.
“And women now,” Bastian included her as whispers sounded again throughout the bratva and Italian families. Jax and Jett both sat back in their seats smirking as if they were above us all.
In a way, they were. Their hands were cleaner than clean and yet they profited greatly from our families. We profited from them having our backs too but our fathers and the fathers before them had climbed a dirtier ladder, one we couldn’t scrub quite as clean as the Stonewoods’ ladder would always be.
Bastian continued, “None of us here need to rehash the past, Giovanni. We’ve all discussed it at great lengths. Katalina is here to discuss the future with us.”
“What about them?” Egor, the older man next to Ivan and head of the bratva on the West Coast asked pointing to Brey and Vick.
Vick, always the optimist, smiled widely at him. “We just came along for the fun of this meeting.”
Jett chastised her with a look.
“What?” she asked. “It’d do everyone some good to lighten up. The classical music for one is pretty ominous.” She turned toward me. “Probably should have had them put on some hip hop.”
The music that hummed low in the background would ramp up at night once we opened. Now, though, it played the popular favorites of Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven.
I lifted my drink to my lips to keep from chuckling at her boldness.
“This is not time for women, huh?” The old man glared at her. “Talk of music and frivolous things we don’t bother with.”
Vick sat back completely undeterred and lifted a brow while raising her hand to her husband’s shoulder, signaling for him to let her handle it. The mood in the room had shifted.
Stonewoods weren’t talked down to, and Vick was just as much a Stonewood as Jett and Jax. “Maybe you’re unaware, because we haven’t met, or maybe my husband didn’t make it clear to everyone here, but I’ll do the work right now so there aren’t any misconceptions. I walked in here with the knowledge that this was family business. Family is created equal at Stonewood Enterprises. You want to be a part of our success, it would be smart to take that into consideration.”
Katalina smiled at her friend and then glanced at the other bratva heads. “Let’s be clear, we’re not here to be on display for all you men. If we sit at this table, we’re going to eat at it. We make the decisions too. Am I right, Bastian?”
He nodded.
“You agree, Jett and Jax?” Her grey eyes cut to them.
They nodded.
“How about all of you?” Katalina lifted at Gio. The Valentino family fell in line because no one wanted to contend with Bastian and the Stonewoods.
“It’s for the best that we’re all sitting here now. Us together means we have control that can’t be penetrated.” Bastian explained.
“Our crews need to fall in line first.” Ivan spoke up next to Katalina, tapping his calloused hand on the table. “I want to believe our leadership will sway them, but we know that’s not the case. My blood only gets her so far. We’re telling them to listen to a woman…”
Katalina didn’t rear back. She knew it wasn’t tradition. She knew she’d have to protect herself. Still, his words slammed into me hard. I spoke from behind Bastian. “We need eyes on her twenty four seven.”
Ivan waved me off. “We have that, of course.”
“Better than just a man or two. You need real security. It won’t just be your own who want her dead.”
“But will they risk it when they know it will bring the wrath of the Stonewoods and the Armanellis?” Ivan countered.
“If they can get away with it, why not?” I shrugged. “Put a bullet in her head and drive away with no trace. Make sure she always has enough eyes on her to protect her.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to do my job,” Ivan grumbled like his pride was at stake.
“Your son was doing your job for a long time and he learned from you. It took Katalina one night to get out from under his men, no?” I’d destroy his pride if I had to. Cade had updated us on security footage and word spread of her taking a guard’s life.
Katalina cleared her throat. “The bigger question is how we solidify my role.”
“You take your place next to Bastian,” Ivan said, like they’d already agreed on that, like he’d already decided and her question was outrageous.
“What does that mean exactly?” She squinted at him, her silver eyes suddenly hard and fierce. “Our bratva shouldn’t be overshadowed by the power of the Armanellis. We have specific requests, necessary ones that I think need to be acknowledged before we all agree to a consolidated power.”
Ivan hmphed like she’d blindsided him. “I suppose you want lawyers and signed in ink contracts too,” he said like she was crazy.
She nodded without glancing away from him. The struggle for power was happening between them already. Her life would always be in jeopardy now and she would have to obtain power over and over again to keep herself alive.
Still, the woman didn’t think about it that way. Instead, she wanted her cake and to eat it too. I respected her for coming this far and pushing her agenda immediately. She wanted sex trafficking off the table. I knew that was going to be her first ask.
Yet I wasn’t sure everyone would agree to it. The Armanellis had never pushed all of the families to wipe their profits clean of it, and the bratva probably hadn’t even considered it.
“Katalina, I can only agree to so much without the other families.” Bastian was already leaning back on his heels as if ready to walk away from the deal.
“Do what you want,” she replied. “Without us, you make an enemy of us.”
“Don’t threaten the family that fed you for years.” His tone was harsh but I would have said the same thing. She belonged on this side of the table and we all knew it.
“The bratva gave me a seat at the table, Bastian. I didn’t have one before.”
Cade cracked his knuckles but kept his mouth shut. Dante winced at her accusation. I stepped forward before Bastian put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. We all hurt when she hurt. She was one of us even though she acted like she wasn’t.
We’d put her in the box that tradition had made over time. Learning was the first step and change was the second.
“We need more time, woman,” I said. “You never gave us a chance.”
“How many chances are women supposed to give?” Brey, quiet as ever throughout the whole meeting spoke up then. “How long have you truly known her, seen her, included her within your family, Rome? Bastian?”
Bastian rubbed his forehead and answered before I could. “We’ve all made mistakes. You do that when you’re growing up.”
“Seems some had to grow up quite a lot faster based on the actions of your family.” Brey’s emerald stare weighed us all down, along with her words.
Bastian’s hand slammed onto the table, his palm smacking the wood hard, the sound cutting the tension in the room. His glare turned hard on Katie. “What’s your angle? We all bend your way so that we can have an alliance rather than a war? We’ll kill you, Katalina.”
The bratva tsked and muttered obscenities. Ivan balked at the threat. “I won’t deny that. We’d die in the end, sure. Yet, your families . . .” He waved at both us and the Stonewoods in disgust. “You would fracture. We’d pick off a few. Maybe one good one. One that would wound you enough for the others to turn to vultures and jump in.”
Bastian’s eyes narrowed at Ivan.
Mine were on the woman I knew better than anyone else in this room. “You’re sitting on that side, Katalina. You willing to go to war for them? Take lives for them?”
“It’s bigger than that, Rome. My allegiance to my bloodline affords me the power to change what needs to be changed.”
I hummed at her response. “Tell me then. You willing to take my life?”
“What?” she whispered as I left Bastian’s side and stalked toward her.
“If we can’t have you, prove it. Prove your loyalty.”
The other Bratva Pakhans nodded in agreement. “Good idea,” one said, completely on board with my taunting.
She stood up to face me right as I reached her chair, like suddenly she didn’t trust that she could have her back to me. I searched her eyes and found a new kind of fear there.
“I’m not taking your life,” she said. “I’m not spilling blood.”
I pulled my Glock from the back of my pants’ waistband. She gripped the table and leaned back on it as I held the weapon out.
When she didn’t initially reach for it, I pressed it up against her chest. Her breaths were coming quickly and her heart was going a million beats a minute.
Good.
I took her wrist and set my gun in her hand; I said the words I knew she would finally understand. “Just like Jimmy, huh? Show me what you’re made of.”
She squinted. Her hand still shook, but slowly and surely Katalina’s thin fingers curled around the gun one by one. “You forget that I’ve killed for much less than this.”
Her finger hovered over the trigger but she glanced around the table first. She wanted someone to object, to call my bluff.
“Me and you, Cleo,” I whispered. “Pull the trigger and show them what you’re made of.”
I didn’t know if her trust in me was that great, didn’t know if our connection was that strong after everything that had just happened.
She lifted the gun another centimeter and pointed it right at my head. She rolled her lips between her teeth and said, “I loved you more than I would have ever loved Jimmy. He got in my way though. He didn’t do as he was told. It’s best this way, right?”
I lifted a shoulder just as she pulled the trigger.
The sound of the click punctured the room like a needle does a water balloon. The explosion of gasps throughout meant they had believed our show.
Dante, Cade, Bastian, and I were the only ones who knew different. Katie had caught on. Ivan whooped with laughter in the same way Mario had with Jimmy all those years ago. The other men, leaders of the biggest mafia families, joined the shocked laughter.
“She’s one of us now, no?” Ivan nudged Egor next to him and he lifted his glass to her.
She shoved the gun into my chest. “Playing games will end up getting your head blown off one day, Rome.”
Bastian looked between the two of us, then he and Ivan locked eyes.
“Draw up whatever papers you want,” Bastian said. “Let’s let the lawyers iron out the details of this partnership between us all. We’ll see what we can agree upon.”
“Katie should be seen with you in public,” Ivan announced as others started to stand, ready for the meeting to be over. They were all sitting ducks, leaders that were vulnerable without their security. It made them antsy; it made them pussies.
“We’ll sit at the table together, Ivan,” Bastian replied. He glanced between Katie and me before he continued. “She won’t be fucking me though.”
“Why not?” Egor said. “Good for show to those under us.”
“They can learn what a leader is,” Katalina shot back at him. “It’s not a dick or a pussy. It’s a person.”
Jett was the first of the Stonewoods to stand. “It seems Katie knows her way around all of you. I’m not questioning leadership, especially when I know them. I’m happy to do business where needed with her crew, but only her crew and only under her circumstances.”
“Interesting.” Ivan quirked his head. It was an angle he hadn’t considered. “You trust her more than you trust what I’ve done in the bratva.”
“Katie’s been my wife’s friend for a very long time, Ivan. I trust their judgement on what will make my business prosper. Above all else.” He turned to his wife. “Anything else you’d like to add?”
“Yup. Katie, call me. Girl’s night soon.” She winked and threaded her hand through Brey’s before they all turned to leave.
The meeting was over. The negotiations and the turmoil that would come with it had just begun.
