I pour three fingers of vodka from the bottle my father brought from the old country before he moved us to Miami. The liquid burns, but it's familiar. Comforting in its harshness. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I watch the city wake up. Construction crews head to sites I own. Businessmen in suits walk intobuildings where my money talks louder than their morals. Street vendors set up on corners where my protection keeps them safe.
This is my kingdom. But kingdoms are lonely places when you're the only one who understands the cost of the crown.
A knock breaks the silence. I don't look up from the clear liquid swirling in my glass.
“Da.”
Sergey steps in without ceremony, a man shaped by war and concrete, still wearing yesterday's scowl like it's stitched to his skin. He's built like a fighter, with broad shoulders that fill doorways and hands that have broken more bones than I care to count. His dark brown hair is cropped short with threads of silver at the temples that make him look distinguished despite the scar that runs from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone. A reminder of a knife fight in Moscow that nearly cost him his eye.
His dark green eyes, always shadowed by something unreadable, flick over the desk, then to me. There's intelligence there, sharp and calculating, but also something restless. Something hungry. Sergey was my father’s second-in-command ever since he recruited him from a local gang in the streets of St. Petersburg and has been my second-in-command for ten years now. He's saved my life more times than I can count, but lately, there's been tension between us that feels like a wire stretched too tight.
“Bianca called again. Says it's urgent. Something about the Seaside Tower project,” he says, his voice thick with a Russian accent.
Of course, she did. I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale slowly. The morning headache that's been building behind my eyes intensifies. Bianca Isabella Rossi. The name alone carriesthe scent of roses and trouble. Even hearing it makes my chest tighten with memories I've tried to bury.
We met six years ago at a design gala in Milan. I was there to buy silence from a corrupt zoning official who was asking too many questions about my hotel acquisitions. She was there to charm billionaires into hiring her to design their penthouses. The moment she walked into the ballroom, every conversation stopped. She has a way of walking into a room and owning it without a word. Honey-blonde waves that catch the light like spun gold, espresso eyes that never miss anything, and a body sculpted like a Roman goddess brought to life. Her confidence is like a blade dressed in silk.
She approached me first, which should have been my warning. Beautiful women don't approach men like me unless they want something. But her opening line wasn't about my reputation or my money. She looked at the Rolex on my wrist and said,“That's a beautiful watch, but the suit doesn't match your eyes.”
Most people are terrified of criticizing anything about me. She critiqued my fashion sense as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
We were fire and gasoline from that first conversation. Always had been. When we were good, it was volcanic. Hotel rooms were destroyed. Champagne bottles shattered against walls. Bodies pressed together with a desperation that felt like drowning and breathing at the same time. When we weren't good, which was most of the time, we made war look polite. Screaming matches that ended with her throwing priceless objects at my head. Weeks of silence that stretched until one of us broke. Usually, me.
But Bianca knows her craft. Her design work turns cold steel and glass into something you want to touch. Warm spaces that feel like home instead of showcases. She's in charge of the interiors for the luxury condo project I'm building on the edge of Brickell Key. Forty stories of glass and marble will house the kind of wealth that prefers to remain invisible.
“Tell her I'll meet her at Le Jardin tonight at seven,” I say, already knowing this is a mistake.
Sergey raises an eyebrow, the scar above his left eye pulling tight. “You sure that's smart?”
I look up now, eyes narrowing. There's something in his tone that doesn't sit right. Too casual. Too interested. “Why?”
He shrugs, but his massive shoulders tense. “We've got enough going on without adding her drama. And you've been distracted lately.”
The word hangs in the air between us like smoke. I lean back in my chair, studying him. Sergey's face is a map of violence and survival. Broken nose that healed crooked. Scars on his knuckles from fights that ended with the other man not getting up. Perpetual five o'clock shadow that makes him look dangerous even when he's relaxed.
Right now, he's not relaxed.
“Distracted?” I question.
“Ever since Elena.”
There it is. The elephant in the room is dressed in journalist's clothes and wearing determination like it is armor.
I don't respond immediately. Instead, I finish my vodka and set the glass down with more force than necessary. The crystal makes a sharp sound against the wood. Sergey doesn't flinch, but his green eyes narrow slightly. He's watching me like he's trying to see through me, to find the weakness he's convinced exists.
“Set the meeting,” I say finally. “I'll handle Bianca.”
“And Elena?”
“Elena is none of your concern.”
His jaw tightens. “Everything that affects you affects the Bratva. That makes it my concern.”
“Since when do you question my judgment?”
“Since you started making decisions with parts of your anatomy that don't house your brain.”
In the old days, I would have put him on the ground for that insult. My father certainly would have. But Sergey isn't just my second-in-command. He's the closest thing I have to family, and family gets one warning before they cross a line they can't uncross.
