by Brook Wilder
“Think you’re the one asleep,” I comment as I hold out my hand to haul him back up.
“I almost had you.” He swipes his hand down his face to wipe off the blood. “You look a bit out of it today. Something on your mind?”
“What isn’t on my mind?”
We walk to the edge of the mat to let two more men take our place. They’re a few years younger than me, with only their first tattoos designating them as men of the Ivanov Mafia. Every man here has to pass a final test to be able to work for us. They must spar me. They don’t have to win, because none of them ever do, but they have to show they can take me on. Lukas is the only man who’s ever come close to winning. I’m the most disciplined man after Mikhail himself. I have to be. Being the eldest in the family means I have an enormous weight on my shoulders, always. I can’t falter. I can’t show weakness.
I certainly can’t let anyone know what’s going on inside my head. I take a bottle of water from Lukas and drink half it, hoping he’ll drop it. I should know him well enough by now.
“So? You going to spill or what? Something going on with the old man? Or your brothers?”
My lip lifts in disgust. “Don’t mention them. Not here. This is sacred ground.”
He laughs quietly. “They are a piece of work.”
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
My younger brothers by a year are twins, and they’ve been a pain in my ass since the day they were born. Aleksandr and Andrei are all for the betterment of the family as long as it lines their pockets too. They create turmoil wherever they go, causing problems when there aren’t any, and making my life a living hell whenever they’re around. Thankfully, most days, I can avoid them. They aren’t exactly the fighting type. They can punch someone out cold, it’s true, but they won’t stand two seconds against a well-trained fighter in an actual fight. In my mind, they’re useless and simply waiting for our father to die so they can fight me for control of the family.
They’ll lose, but they’re too stupid to realize it yet. They think they can buy the loyalty of all those who fight with me. Eventually, they’ll learn the hard way that they’re wrong.
None of this is to say, of course, that I love the old man. In all honesty, I hate him probably more than his enemies do. He’s a two-faced, bitter man who does whatever is necessary to keep his title of Mafia king. There’s no room for mistakes where I’m involved. I’m his damn legacy, his perfect son. Instead of a loving household, I have a father who sees me as a tool, a mother who acts exactly as she’s told, and brothers who would gladly see me dead. We aren’t a family. There’s no such thing as family.
“If it’s not your brothers, then what?” Lukas pushes. “You can’t tell me nothing’s bugging you.”
I finish off the water and chuck the bottle in the trash can nearby. “Bad dream.”
“Bad dream? You? What could the great Danya Ivanov possibly dream about that would throw you off your game?”
I give him a pointed stare and his smile falters. He glances away and I nod. “That would do it.”
“It’s been five years.”
“And?”
He shrugs. “You’re right. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
Lukas is about the only real friend I have in this life. He’s more than just loyal to me. He’s been with me through the good, the bad, and the shitty. He was there the day I nearly went against my whole family and got my ass in deep shit. He talked me out of running off or doing something worse, like trying to take down my father. I would’ve lost, and probably gotten myself killed. I was impulsive back then, but I changed. I had to. I’ve beaten men within an inch of their lives. I’ve killed others.
But the worst thing I ever did was to someone who trusted me with her heart. And I stomped on it, crushed it into pieces all for the sake of my father’s wishes. Gritting my jaw, I stalk through the training facility toward the main office. Lukas follows without me asking and closes the door behind him. Once we’re alone, I let out a curse and punch the closest wall, putting a hole in the sheetrock.
Lukas whistles. “Damn. I thought you had moved on.”
I shake out my hand, not caring that my knuckles are bloodied. “I tried. Nothing works. And before you say it, no, I’m not going out for a night on the town again. The last two women you hooked me up with were crazy.”
“Sometimes you don’t know until you get them alone.” He cringes as he says it. “Have you seen her at all since that night?”
I can lie and say no, but that isn’t true. A few times after having vivid dreams of Stella Russo, I’ve found myself driving around the city looking for her. There are plenty of whispers about where she likes to hang out. Bars, nightclubs, Columbia campus. More than once I’ve watched her leave a bar with a guy on her arm. It kills me every time, but she has her life, and I have mine. I never let her see me. She has certainly become even more attractive over the years. Her green eyes have changed too, and not for the better. They’re so cold now. Stella is not the same girl I fell in love with. Several times I almost stepped out of the shadows to talk to her, but what would I say? “Hey, sorry I threw you out of my house after we had sex. I know I said I loved you, but none of that matters because of our damn families?” There was so much more to that night, but it’s far too late to tell her the whole truth now.
What good would that do either of us except bring up old wounds?
Not like I want to be with anyone now anyway. The families have been on edge for the last few months. If I get attached to anyone, she’ll become a possible target for my enemies. Besides, after all I’ve done for the sake of Mikhail, I don’t deserve to have Stella back. I don’t deserve to have anyone. I just need to accept I’m going to be alone.
I’m better off that way.
“Don’t tell anyone,” I warn Lukas. “It’s been a few months, but I have seen her. She seems fine.”
“Fine? Or happy?”
“What’s the difference?”
He sighs. “Man, fine doesn’t mean shit. I know what happened back then, but you’re older now. You have more influence on the family. Maybe you can try to get her back.”
“If she wasn’t good enough for my father back then, she won’t be now. The Russo family is on its way out. Mikhail will see her as a weakness. He’ll never go for it.” I walk around the office and plop down behind the desk.
“You saying that because you think it’s true or because you don’t think you can win her back?”
“I’m the eldest son of the Ivanov family. I do what I’m told, or there will be consequences,” I recite for him. “She’s better off with someone else.”
“You really think Joseph is going to find someone better for her than you?”
I grip the arms of the chair hard enough for the old wood to creak. There are plenty of men in our world who would treat Stella like she was property. I see it every damn day. “Doesn’t matter,” I force myself to say. “It’s the hands we’ve both been dealt. There’s nothing we can do but stay alive.”
If any other man heard me talking like this, he’d report it to Mikhail. Lukas, however, simply looks as depressed as I feel. I’ve been numb the past couple of years. I’ve gone through the motions without bothering to slow down and think about what I’m doing or who I am killing. This is my life. I’m a trained killer of the Ivanov family and nothing more.
“What are they doing here?” Lukas asks, hurrying to the window overlooking the sparring floor.
An annoying pain starts at my forehead from thinking about Stella. “Who?”
“Your brothers.”
“What?” I’m at his side in a second, glaring out the window with him at the twins as they stride across the sparring floor. “Probably just using the range. That’s all they ever do.” Even as I say it, there are two more men behind them, both Mikhail’s personal guards. As my brothers hang out around the mats, the two men make for the office. I step out with Lukas behind me. “Something wrong?”
“New orders from Mikhail,” the broad-shouldered man to the right with salt-and-pepper hair says. Brandon has been with my father for as long as I can remember. He’s one of the few men still around who gives me pause.
“Have anything to do with why they’re here?” I ask, nodding to the twins.
Brandon crosses his heavily muscled arms, his brow furrowing. “Unfortunately. Mikhail wants you to put together a team to assassinate a new target.” The other guard hands me an envelope. “Get the men ready, and that includes your brothers.”
“Wait, he wants them to go too?” I don’t open the envelope, not yet. I want to know what Mikhail is up to. Why does the man have to continually make my life difficult?
“That’s what he said. You’re to see them prepared with your team.”
Lukas mumbles a curse as I open the envelope and pull out a photograph of a very well-known man who, until this moment, had been an ally. “Him?”
“That’s the order. Your father’s been planning it for a while now.”
I tilt the photograph so Lukas can see just how bad this day is about to get. “De Luca? He wants us to take out the head of the De Luca family? Francesco and Mikhail have been close. Why are we going after him?”
“Power. Why else?” Brandon answers simply. “You know how the game goes. Mikhail smells blood in the water. He’s going to make his move before he loses his chance.”
“And if we can take control of them, then we’ll be able to push out any other competing family,” I finish for Brandon. I should’ve seen this coming. For the last year, Mikhail has been striving to gain more power to add to his empire. “I can’t believe he’s going through with this plan.”
Brandon doesn’t seem to have an opinion, but glances over his shoulder at the twins. “Just make sure your team is ready.”
“How long do we have?”
“That’s up to your father. He’ll be stopping by at three. I suggest you get to work, Danya.”
Brandon and the other guard exit the facility, leaving me to flip through the rest of the pages in the envelope. I tuck the photograph at the back of the stack and ruffle through blueprints of the De Luca stronghold in East Harlem. It’s a stone-and-brick mansion surrounded by a twelve-foot wrought iron gate guarded by twenty men at least. Getting in won’t be easy.
Getting out after we assassinate De Luca will be even worse. The Italians will not bow to Russians, not without a damn bloody fight. If the man ever left that mansion, we’d have a better chance of attacking him. Over the years, he’s grown paranoid and never steps foot out of that house.
“I want you to get started on a strategy for getting in and out,” I tell Lukas, handing him the blueprints. “You know the drill.”
“Three backup plans in case shit goes sideways.” His eye twitches, and he adds quietly, “Make that four.”
I follow his gaze to see the twins headed my way. “Good call.”
Aleksandr and Andrei are nearly identical. Andrei wears his sandy hair longer, mostly to drive Mikhail mad. Aleksandr has a bit of scruff on his face today. Both wear the same cocky grins I’m constantly fighting the urge to punch off their faces. I’ll never admit aloud they’re good shots, but in hand-to-hand, they’re overconfident in their abilities.
“Brother,” Aleksandr calls loudly as he reaches me. “You hear the good news?”
“Not sure what’s so good about it,” I say, handing the envelope to Lukas, then nod for him to get going on his new orders. “If you’re going to be a part of this mission, you’re going to do as I say. Got it?”
Andrei salutes me while Aleksandr’s grin turns into a sneer. “You keep trying to sound like Dad, but you’ll never be him.”
“Never said I wanted to be,” I reply to Aleksandr. “You going to stand here and chat, or are you going to get your asses on that mat? Dad wants you to tag along, fine, but I need to know how badly you’re going to fuck up my mission.”
The twins glare in unison, but I merely arch my brow and wait. Together they might intimidate others, but not me. I wait for them to make the next move. Andrei nudges his brother, and they stomp toward the mat in the center of the room.
“Listen up,” I yell, and the men hurry to gather around. “We have a new mission, and it’s going to take all hands on deck. If we are to succeed, you all better know what the fuck you’re doing. If you don’t, if you think you might mess up, get the hell out of here right now.”
Not a single man moves. I watch as, one by one, they square their shoulders and stand with their hands clasped behind their backs, waiting for orders. All except the twins. Aleksandr rolls his eyes, but Andrei’s gaze turns calculating. He takes in the men as if measuring them up. I don’t like it, but taking out the head of the De Luca family takes precedence over my mistrust of my brothers. Neither is dumb enough to mess up the mission and get himself killed.
That does not mean they won’t find a way to go against my plan and come up with their own to kill Francesco themselves and take the credit. And if they divert from the plan, men will wind up dead.
“Stealth is going to be the name of this mission,” I go on. “Get in, get out. Kill quietly. Do not be seen. That is what we will be training for from now until we’re told to move out. Aleksandr, Andrei, I’m pairing you with James and Hogan. Learn from them.”
“We know how to fight,” Andrei argued.
“Good, prove it. The rest of you, pair off. Failure is not an option. If you fall behind, you will stay behind, and you will die. The De Lucas take no prisoners. Ever.”
I leave the men to it and join Lukas on the far side of the room. He’s already running through several scenarios when I get there. Usually, I don’t have to watch the men as they train. My facility runs like a well-oiled machine thanks to the methods I’ve honed over the years. There’s no tension because the men trust me, and they trust each other. There’s a flow to how we all work together.
After an hour of struggling to get through any plan that doesn’t wind up with most of us getting killed, I glance up when Hogan lets out a bellow of rage.
“What the hell are they doing?” Lukas snaps.
“Being dicks like always.”
I cross my arms and watch with a clenched jaw as Aleksandr and Andrei tag-team to take out Hogan. Together they’re strong, but they won’t always be together. James is getting back up when both men kick him full in the face. He flies off the mat and into the crowd that has gathered. Hogan takes the chance to wipe out Andrei’s legs when Aleksandr pulls a knife from his lower back. He swipes at Hogan and blood spurts from the slash running down his arm. Two more men charge in to break up the fight, but Aleksandr has two knives now too. More blood stains the mat in seconds. I charge in and shove Hogan and the others away from the twins.
“What the hell is your problem?” I yell.
“We’re training,” Andrei says, waving one of his knives around. “It’s what you wanted us to do, isn’t it, brother?”
“I want you to fight hand-to-hand. No knives. No guns. And alone,” I say, emphasizing the last bit. “Break up right now, or I’m sending you back to Dad.”
“Good luck with that. He’ll just send us right back,” Aleksandr informs me.
“You think so?”
“You can drop the tough big brother act,” Andrei says as he flips one of his knives over continuously. “You don’t scare us.”
My lips twitch, but I refrain from smirking. “Is that right?”
“Yeah, it is. Everyone here might think you’re invincible, but I mean, really? We just bested some of your so-called great fighters.” Aleksandr walks around the edge of the mat. “Who else do you want us to take down to prove we’re just as good as you? In fact, I think we’re better than you.”
“We should be running this mission, not you. It’s our turn, Danya.”
I glance from Andrei to Aleksandr then nod slowly. “Fine. You want to lead the mission, it’s all yours if you can beat me. Shit, I’ll even let you fight me together
with your little knives if it makes you feel better.”
Their eyes darken at my words. I sense Lukas watching me closely, but I can handle the twins. If they want a fight, I’ll give them a fight. But that’s not just what this is. This is a challenge for power. Everyone might say I’m like Mikhail, but the twins are the ruthless ones. Their greed comes from that man. I might be an efficient fighter and killer when the need arises to protect the family, but these two would probably go after each other if they thought it’d get one of them ahead.
I shake out my hands as they nod, eager to kick my ass. Lukas catches my arm as I’m about to step onto the mat. “I got this,” I assure him.
“You want me to step in if it gets bad?”
“No. I want you and the others to stand there and watch these two be put in their place.”
