Page 32 of Between Us

Stepan put the phone away and looked up, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “So, howisthe wife?”

“Fuck you.”

His friend laughed quietly.

The voices in the room quieted down when Vitaly made an appearance with Oleg's omnipresent shadow following him into the office. Wearing a pinstripe suit paired with a burgundy shirt and a thick, gold chain around his neck, the man looked like a walking cliché. He sat behind the mahogany desk, making himself comfortable in the tan leather chair.

Roman briefly met his father’s steely eyes, and he didn’t like what he saw in them. Knowing Vitaly as well as he did, he realized he wouldn’t be able to leave the meeting without first talking to him in private.

That suspicion came true an hour later when the men in the room started to leave. Roman got up, determined to follow after them, when Vitaly’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Roman, a word.”

Letting out a quiet breath, he turned to his fatherand tried to keep a neutral expression. He had a full day ahead of him, and the thought of being in that office a minute longer than he had to, irritated him to no end. He kept his hands in his pockets and waited.

“That girl of yours,” Vitaly said, keeping his gaze on a stack of papers in front of him. “You need to handle her better.”

It had been a week and a half since that family dinner he’d attended with Alessandra. And even though he already knew this was coming, Roman decided to feign ignorance. “What do you mean?”

From across the desk, sharp blue eyes met his. “You know exactly what I mean. She is a spoiled brat who requires a firm hand to become the wife you need.”

“How do you know what I need?”

“Do not mock me, boy. It's bad enough that filthy Italian blood runs through her veins—the last thing she should have is anattitude.”

“You seem to forget that you were the one to insist I should marry her. I didn't choose her for a wife, and it’s not my problem that you find her lacking. As for myself, I see nothing wrong with her attitude, as you call it.”

A vein in Vitaly's temple bulged. “You will handle her, or I will.”

Roman gritted his teeth, fighting to keep calm. They’d had a different version of the same conversation that evening after dinner, but Vitaly just couldn’t seem to drop the subject. Parent or not, Roman didn’t take well to anyone’s threats. “You will stay out of my relationship with her. Since you forced her on me, I will handle her however I see fit.”

His father stared at him, seeming to weight something in his mind. When he spoke again, his voicehad quieted down somewhat. “I never thought you weak, son. Don't start being so now—over somegirl, no less.”

“Is that all you had to say to me?”

“Yes.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Leave now.”

Not lingering a second longer, Roman turned on his heels and exited the office. On his way to the car, his temples started to throb with the first pulsations of a pesky headache. Unlocking the doors, he climbed inside and shot out of the nightclub's parking lot like a bat out of hell.

Gripping the steering wheel into his clenched fists, he realized that he didn't want to analyze why it bothered him so much that Vitaly was being such a jerk to Alessandra. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, given how much bad blood there was between their families. But if his father thought that he could control every single aspect of his life, the man had another thing coming.

Alessandra was nowhis, and Roman was going to deal with her however he damn well pleased.

???

If Roman's morning had started off badly, his night was going even worse.

Staring inside the truck's empty trailer, he had a hard time grasping the reality unfolding in front of his eyes. Not a single bottle of the imported liquor or a gram of the cocaine bricks that had been stashed between alcohol crates was to be found in the vast expanse of the cargo space. The trailer was eerily dark and quiet.

Beside the front wheels of the truck, the driver and one of the security guards were lying in a pool of their own blood, shot dead with a well-placed bullet straight between the eyes. Now, on top of having to deal with the monetary loss, Roman also had to get rid of the bodies.

“We searched the scrapyard. There's no one here besides the other security guard. He says he was running late and arrived just a couple of minutes before we did.”

Roman turned to Andrei with a frown. “How fucking convenient. Where is he?”

Andrei jerked his head behind him, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. Roman shifted his eyes that way to see the man in question sitting on the hood of a rusty Chevy with a dazed expression on his stupid face. Pulling out his gun, he started in that direction.

“You have ten seconds to explain yourself,” he barked at the young man whose eyes bulged out almost comically at the sight of the gun being pointed at his head. Unfortunately, there was nothing remotely funny about the predicament Roman found himself in.

“I—, I didn't see anything. Swear to God. I was late for my shift because I had some problems at home with my kid. He’s sick, you see, and I had to wait for my wife to get back from the drug store before I left the house.”

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