Chapter 7

Alessandro

By the following day, I was resigned. My ship was truly gone now, but my temper had lessened and calmed enough, so I didn't want to shoot everybody.

That didn’t mean I wasn't still going to flay that fucker when I caught him. It just meant that everybody else could breathe easier now.

The phone on my desk rang just as Frankie's signature firm knocks thudded against my door. It must have been my secretary, because Frankie had the power to be a ghost even though he was the biggest of us all. It was talent, something I sometimes envied.

Dom came five minutes after, rubbing at a lipstick stain on the corner of his mouth.

“Are we going to do something about Triev?” he asked, going straight for the fridge.

“Triev?” Frankie looked at me. “Get me a can too, Dom. What is this about the Triev?”

“Our darling Maxim sunk ADA,” I answered and stood up from behind my desk to sit with them on one of the couches.

Frankie watched me like I was joking until I settled on the velvet couch opposite him.

“Are you joking?”

Dom came, cradling three cans of beer in one arm and three glasses in the other arm. “Yeah, Frankie, because Alex knows how to tell a good joke.” He set down the cans and glasses and plopped beside me, putting his feet on the coffee table. “Everybody knows I'm the funny one in the family.”

Frankie swept Dom's leg off the table with a hand and glared at him. “That’s over thirty million dollars of our assets.”

I shook my head. “Forty million, to be exact.”

“Lost because of what? Retaliation?” He gave Dom a pointed look.

When people started things with us for no reason, it was usually because of Dom. He was the wild card that created many of our famous feuds. He looked at us both with a sheepish smile and shrugged.

“Don't look at me. I haven't run into any of them…yet.” He added the last part after a thought. “You both will be able to tell when I finally do.”

“So, what then? Who just starts shit of this magnitude?” Frankie asked with that firm calmness in his voice.

“Apparently, the Trievs do,” I said, reached for the beer, and opened it. It was halfway to my mouth when Domi cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the glasses he'd brought.

“Is there a reason we haven't shown them why that is a bad idea yet?”

Rolling my eyes, I put the beer down and gestured. He could pour it if he wanted it so much.

“There is,” I continued. “I haven’t decided what to do.”

Dom opened the beers and poured them into glasses. He was humming to himself in the short silence. “I don't see what's there to decide on, Ales. We have guns, they have blood, we can just bleed them dry.” He sank back and raised his glass. “Cheers, fratelli miei.”

“Something must be seriously wrong,” Frankie said, leaning forward to take his glass, “because I actually agree, it’s not a bad idea.”

“You cannot be serious.” Frankie was the least hot-tempered in the family, our mother included. When we wanted blood and saw only red, he was the one that you could count on to be more…rational.

He shrugged. “I am. They've cost us forty million and bonus points with some new city officials. A gunfight is very much due.”

That wasn't wholly unreasonable.

“But,” Frankie wasn't done. “You are right, just going in over this might be overkill. This isn't the dark ages, and we still aren't clear on who their allies are. So maybe something small. Lighting up a few of their properties.”

Dom cheered. “Blow it up!”

A more plausible, less drastic idea. “Bombs?”

“You know I have my supply. Any range, any type.” Dom smiled wolfishly.

“Now you have a list of options,” Frankie said, “pick.” Bloodbath, arson, bombing, a whole list indeed.

The bloodbath was out of it. Frankie was right about the allies and all the things that could follow.

We were very cultured men, after all.

The phone rang again.

I ignored it. My secretary knew to bring anything urgent to my door.

“How about we all pay the Trievs a visit?” Dom suggested, watching us through his empty beer glass. “The Raven Boys, going to see the wolves.”

“Raven boys?” Frankie asked with a raised brow.

It was a scrappy nickname Dom had been singing for a few years now.

“Yeah, because we have ink-black hair like ravens do.” Frankie gave me a look, and I shrugged. Far be it from me to point out any more of Dom’s scrappy ideas.

I was about to say something when the door interrupted us.

Millie came in, trying not to look in Dom’s direction. “Sir, a call came in from Mr. Ananas. He says there’s a problem at 13 Octove Avenue.”

“A problem?”

“The bank, the construction, the union, and the site’s new owner.”

All of us looked up at her. Millie swallowed and took a step back.

“New owner?” I asked because the shit show didn’t seem to know how to end.

Millie nodded. “Yes sir. He says you need to come because things are getting out of control.” And she hurried away.

We stood and started for the door in perfect silence, my mind running with thoughts.

Something about this was too familiar.

“I’ll grab more beer,” Dom said behind us.

It was almost a war zone when we got to the site, to the small tent that had been set up for administration while the construction was ongoing.

Imagine my lack of surprise when I recognized the woman in the middle of everything, with her hair up and the most disinterested expression you’d ever see.

I scoffed under my breath.

Katya

The Sorvino brothers walked in like harbingers in a tragic folktale. Tall, imposing, with perfectly chiseled faces, and an aura that screamed they were not people you wanted to fuck with.

Yet here I was again. Honestly, at this point, it was as if the universe had something against me as it kept throwing me into messy situations with Alessandro. My eyebrows shot up slightly before I recovered myself.

I bought this site at an auction.

There were documents to show everything. The bank had been auctioning some properties, and I’d made an offer that was accepted. I didn’t care what was going to happen here. This site wasn’t going anywhere.

“The Petrenko Princess,” Dominic called with a smile. The other two were always in suits, but he was never without his jeans. Pants and jacket. “Did our Alex invite you?” he nudged Alessandro, who didn’t even bother looking away from me.

Shaking my head and uncrossing my legs, I leaned forward on the table. “No, actually. I came because the previous

occupants of my new property were being unnecessarily difficult.”

“That’s a coincidence,” Alesandro’s smooth voice. “Because it almost sounds like the reason we’re here. Except in our case, the person being…difficult…is somebody claiming to be the owner of my property.” I smiled.

“Well, just take a look at the papers your brother is reading. I think you’ll find, Mr. Sorvino, that whoever is causing you trouble is doing it on your former property.” I relaxed into my seat. “You handed this site over to the Mercedes Bank to auction off exactly a month ago from today, in fact, and I made an offer during that auction. An offer that was accepted, documented, and resulted in the complete transfer of ownership.”

Francesco sighed and scratched his chin. “She’s right, Ales, everything is documented right here. Very properly prepared, in fact.”

“Thank you. I had a very traumatizing experience with my last property,” I said with my most honeyed smile and voice, “so I was fully prepared to handle it. Here, and outside.” I emphasized.

The bank had been careful not to disclose the identity of the previous owner of the lot. I had every other legal detail except anything that could have told me to watch out for the one man that had been hunting me for days now.

“That doesn’t matter, Frankie, because she wasn’t supposed to acquire this lot. There was already an intended buyer.” I tilted my head a bit. “Really? For an auction?”

“If I may—” One of the bankers tried to speak but was interrupted by Dominic. “You may not, Michael, shush.”

“I know, Ales, but these are genuine documents. They can’t be turned.”

I was enjoying this, this absolute win. Maybe the universe was not as bitchy as I thought, and this was her compensating me.

Alex gave his brother a look before facing me across the table again. “I’ve done it before, Frankie, I can do it again. In fact, why don’t you all go back now, I’m sure Miss Petrenko and I can handle things from here.”

The bankers, workers, and union representatives gave each other uncertain glances before shuffling outside the tent. Francesco followed with a nod to me and another for Dominic to follow.

The jeans-loving brother tossed me an unopened can of beer. It was slightly cold. “Enjoy. Alex has no sense for humor.” Then he winked and went away.

Leaving just me and Alex in the tent.

“I had somebody making an offer in that auction.”

“I do recall someone making shitty offers.”

Alex propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “This is the second time, Katya, you cannot expect me to treat it as a coincidence.”

I raised a brow at his stern face. “You have to be joking.” He wasn’t joking.

I chuckled and opened the beer. “Dominic was right, you do have no sense of humor.”

Alex cracked a smile and pushed himself up, walking around the table toward me. I watched him over the rim of the can.

It was actually a good beer. I’d remember to look at the label.

After Alex was gone.

He perched on the table right beside me, that husky scent of his invading my space, and took the beer from my lips to empty the can. Then he placed it gently on the table and spoke in a very calm, suspiciously gentle voice.

“I have warned you, Katya, haven’t I?”

“You’ll need to be more specific.”

I hated what that smile did to my stomach. My mind.

“I told you I wasn’t somebody you should mess with. Around me, there is only danger. Always constant.”

“So, this is how you stole my building from me last time?” I asked, pushing back my chair so I could face him properly. “Still using cheap threats.”

Alessandro didn’t smirk. He just considered me in silence, giving me time to notice his long, dark lashes, and the fullness of his brows. Then he licked his lips, and my eyes followed the slow movement of his tongue.

His eyes were on mine when I looked up, searing and steady, forcing sensations in my stomach.

Then, he reached with his feet under my chair and pulled me towards him, until I was right at the table, between his legs.

He leaned forward, holding himself up with one hand on the back of the chair and the other on the armrest, right up against my arm. He was so close, and I liked it.

Loved it.

I might have leaned forward to kiss him if he was not threatening me to take away my property.

The desire to do it was almost blinding…until he spoke.

“I have done it before, and I will again, Katya. You are a tiny kitten trying to play with a tiger. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

The smile on my lips died. This was a joke, that he genuinely thought I was just a little girl stumbling around in the dark.

I stood up, not caring that he was basically leaning over me. He eased back because there was almost no space between us, my chair being shuffled back by my legs.

My hands rested on the table on either side of his hips, and I leaned forward, only a breath away from him. His warm breath was right on my lips.

“First thing Alessandro,” I said, enunciating each word, so he got everything, “I am not a tiny kitten. I am Katya Petrenko, heir to the Petrenko family. And even though you managed to get one over me that one time, I swear there will not be a second time, not unless I allow it. I know how to play dirty too.”

His blue eyes became even darker and staring into them felt like swimming in the sea.

“Secondly, I know exactly what I’m doing, and on my say so,

I will have it if I want it. Know this.”