Page 41 of Between Us

“I'm not all sweet,” she countered, dragging her nails through the short hairs at his nape.

“Hmm.” He increased the pressure on her clit, and she rewarded him with a quiet moan. After she came and he was about to follow right behind her, he grabbed her face and breathed against her cheek, “I own it all—your sweetness and your fire. Don't ever forget it.”

16

The incessant buzzing of his phone was what dragged him from the sweet embrace of a deep sleep—the likes of which he hadn’t enjoyed in far too long. Untangling himself from Alessandra's body, Roman shifted onto his back and ran a palm over his face. With a sigh, he chased away the mist covering his eyes and reached on the nightstand for the obnoxious thing. Beside him, Alessandra let out a disgruntled sound, pushing her pillow over her head.

He stood on unsteady feet and walked out of the bedroom as he answered Vitaly's call with a sense of trepidation. It was a little over seven in the morning. His father never called this early unless there was an emergency.

“I need you at the house,” Vitaly said as soon as theline connected.

“Give me twenty minutes.”

He had barely made it into the hallway when the call disconnected without warning. More alert now, Roman turned around, quietly re-entered the bedroom and headed straight for the walk-in closet. He took a few minutes in the bathroom to brush his teeth and run a wet hand through his hair before quickly putting on a pair of dark jeans and a white T-shirt.

Alessandra was sleeping peacefully on her side of the bed when he flew down the stairs and out the front door. He got into his car and drove off with a screech of tires.

So early in the morning, the drive to his childhood home lasted under fifteen minutes. Letting himself inside, he found his father in his office. Oleg was also there, already dressed in a suit and looking as fresh as a daisy.

Vitaly raised an eyebrow at his son's choice of attire. Roman ignored the pointed look as he took a seat in the empty armchair across the desk. “What's the emergency?”

“Davit reached out to me this morning. He heard about our stolen cargo and wanted to assure me he had no hand in it.”

“And you believe him?”

“I don't, but that doesn't mean we can't profit from his feigned innocence.”

Although he often disagreed with his father's methods, Roman had to give it to him: the man knew how to work any situation in his favor. “What did you have in mind?”

Vitaly tapped the desk with the end of a pen, his facea blank mask. “I will cut a deal with him. From our earlier conversation over the phone, he seemed open to the idea.”

“Do I need to remind you that he already crossed us once? What makes you think he won't do it again? Besides, it’s not only the cargo. I bet money his men also broke into Misha’s bar.”

“I'm not an idiot, son. I don't trust him to hold his end of the deal. What I need is time to figure out a way to put them out of business. If the Armenians see us as friends, they will focus their aggression elsewhere.”

“But he has to know by now about our arrangement with the Italians.”

A look passed between Vitaly and his right-hand man. “He does. Part of the deal is that we don't intervene when they attack Rossetti and his men.”

Roman stared at his father incredulously. “You want to cross both the Armenians and the Italians?

“I want Davit to get what he deserves for betraying me in the first place, and the Italians... well, they will always be the enemy.”

“This is insane. There's no way this plan of yours won't backfire one way or another.”

At this, Vitaly smiled, although it was cold and calculated. “Have a little faith, son. When have I ever been wrong?”

Roman knew his father was going to do whatever the hell he pleased, whether he agreed with it or not. As for himself, Roman didn't care for the Italians either, but he did care about his wife, who was an innocent in all of this. “Alessandra will be kept out of it. She has nothing to do with her father's business.”

Vitaly stared at him, all traces of amusement gonefrom his face. A lesser man would have trembled under the scrutiny of that hard gaze. Roman kept the eye contact, letting his father know he was owning everything he'd said.

“Now, I understand your fascination with the girl—she truly is beautiful for carrying such nasty genes. But do not be mistaken; the Bratva comes before your marriage.”

Roman knew he couldn't dispute that statement without sounding like a traitor to their brotherhood. Still, he insisted, “Shewillbe kept safe. I did what you wanted and married her to accommodate your scheming. You owe me this much.”

Oleg clicked his tongue, waving a dismissive hand in the air. “Don't let her become a liability, Roman. No woman is worth the success of the organization.”

Roman didn't grace that with an answer. Keeping his father's gaze, he pushed for what he wanted nonverbally.

---