Page 10 of Iron Cross

That phantom feeling of her being my little sister seeped to the surface. I wondered if I’d be able to beat her husband for it. The answer, of course, was no. The man was a trainer of fighting champions and a champion himself. He’d turn me into mince meat, and I didn’t mind saying so.

“Do I need to kill him?” I asked, leaning forward. “Do I need to do to him what a good brother would do to any man who…”

She laughed, “You can try.”

Fair enough.

“Well aren’t you just a cute little couple,” I mumbled, envious of their love. Of their partnership. “The couple who murder together, stay together.”

She must have noticed, because she visibly softened. “Our spies in the Mafia say they’re looking for her. They think they have a lead.”

The glass in my hand shattered, the shards cutting into my skin. Blood, bright and thick slipped between my fingers, pooling at my palm before dripping on the table.

Shiny ignored my little spectacle and kept talking.

“I think she’s in danger, and we need to bring her and the kid in.” She poured herself another glass and downed it, wiping errant drops away with the back of her hand. “So, for once, I will do what you want me to.”

“Have you forgotten you’re my captain? That you’re under my command?” I lifted a single brow. It was an act that should have paralyzed her, but she didn’t even blink.

She wasn’t doing this for me. She was doing it for them. For Kira.

I respected that.

For the past three years I had been out of my mind, paying anyone who might have the slightest information on my wife. Then murdering them if they didn’t come through. The streets of New York City were running red with the blood of fake informants, and everyone knew Kira was gone. I was in such a haze that I didn’t fucking think. I wasn’t of sound mind to suspect or assume that others would try to find her, so they could bring me to my knees.

Morelli, my consiglieri, warned me. Then our spies confirmed it.

In my search for her, in my love, I painted a target on her back.

My insanity would be my downfall if I did not temper my desperation. If I did not stop myself from seeing the world in red.

So I did as Vlad Tepes would do.

I created an army that would rival the National fucking Guard. I doubled our revenue, tripled our ruthlessness. We madean alliance with the Bratva, sending away my stepmother in marriage. The only man insane enough to defy me was Eugenio fucking Durante.

The last of the plan would be to reach out to Cosima, my love’s former friend, and strike a peace so that my son did not grow up like us. So that my son did not have the sword of Damocles over his head the way I had. The way Cosima had.

The way Yuliya Vasilieva had.

My son would grow up in peace, and tranquility. He would create, and not destroy. He would see sunrises where all I saw were blackened nights, and we would beat our swords into ploughshares, until we could build something on this land of ours. We would bury the past, and grow from the fertile earth a new future.

I had promised that to myself. I had promised it to Shiny on her wedding day, when she told me I had a son.

“If you bring her in, she’ll just figure another way out,” Shiny said. “And if she runs away a second time…”

The danger would be infinitely more.

“How do you plan to convince her to stay?” Shiny was asking a valid question, but the first thing I imaged was that I would lock her up and throw away the fucking key. I’d hold the boy hostage, if I had to. If I had time, I could make her love me. I could make her —

“Christ, you have no idea how you’re going to do it, do you?” Shiny said, reaching forward to refill her glass. “I won’t help you if you hold her captive.”

She rubbed her forehead, as if trying to push off a tension headache.

“I would never imprison her!” I protested, not because I had a plan, but because I… could come up with one. Maybe.

I downed my drink in one gulp, feeling the familiar burn of it on my soul.

She let out a long breath, then chuckled. It was a sad, almost resigned sound. “I’ll tell you where she is, and we’ll come up with a plan that doesn’t involve black bagging her and throwing her in a cell.”

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