Page 169 of Made for Sinners

Aleksander studied me for a long moment.

Then he smiled.

It wasn’t a friendly smile.

But it was a yes.

“Fine,” he said. “We’ll draft the terms. But if you back out?—”

“I won’t,” I said. “And if you touch my wife again, I’ll kill you.”

Aleksander leaned back in his chair, the smirk curling at his lips like he was enjoying a private joke. “You’re a clever man, Conti. But I wonder—do you ever ask your wife before you trade away her power?”

My jaw ticked.

He was trying to get a rise out of me. Trying to prove he still had teeth after I’d backed him into a corner.

I didn’t bite.

I turned to Nikolai instead. “Do you agree to the terms?”

Nikolai shrugged, casual. “Sure. Why not?” He didn’t even look at his brother. “It’s not like I’m the one in charge.”

He reached out to shake Aleksander’s hand.

It took me less than a second.

I pulled my gun from my jacket and fired.

One shot.

Clean.

Aleksander’s head snapped back, a spray of blood arcing across the table. His body slumped in the chair, lifeless, eyes still open in shock.

The room erupted.

Chairs scraped back. Shouts in Russian. Guns drawn. Chaos.

Rafe stood, calm and composed, already pulling his piece.

Nikolai didn’t flinch.

He just ran a hand down his face, smearing blood across his cheek, and sighed like I’d just ruined his evening.

“Bozhe moy,” he muttered. “You couldn’t have just walked away and saved us all the headache?”

I holstered my gun, slow and deliberate. “He thought he could get away with touching my wife.”

Nikolai’s jaw clenched.

I stepped closer, voice low. “When you finally manage to marry Valentina, you’ll understand.”

He sneered, muttering something sharp in Russian under his breath. Then he turned to his men, who were still shouting and pointing guns like they didn’t know what to do without orders.

“Zatknites’,” he snapped. “Put down your weapons.”

They obeyed.

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