Page 74 of In Her Blood
“You know Russian?” Otto asked before Evelina could find the words.
The brothers stepped closer, Romeo tucking his own gun out of sight, and Dante shifted his stare to Otto. “I run a multinational criminal organization,” he replied. “Of course I speak Russian.”
Evelina’s eyes blew wide.Multi-fucking-national?It was no wonder they’d had such a good lockdown on her aunt’s information. It may have been a small miracle she’d ever landed on their radar. “I … have so many questions.” She finally allowed herself to look past the three of them, just for a moment, and nearly blanched at the lineup of four more armed men standing a ways back. “Those guys are with you, right?”
“They are,” Dante said. He motioned to his brothers in turn. “This is Romeo and Michele, who prefers Mikey. We do have another cousin, on our father’s side, but he stayed home to keep the rest of our families safe while we traveled. I don’t generally approve of all three of us traveling simultaneously—too much of a securityrisk.”
Evelina nodded. She could feel the emotion she had been trying to fight off beginning to tighten in her chest. “That’s … totally sensible.”This is wild.Were they just standing there, in the driveway in front of her burned-out childhood home, having a casual introduction like nothing about this conversation was completely world-changing? Right after a brigadier had tried to strangle her to death, which itself had been shortly after Pyotr’s long-time bodyguard had revealed himself to be a rat?
Worse than a rat. A goddamn Morozov.
Romeo clapped a hand over Dante’s shoulder. “This is a lousy place to get to know family, brother.”
Focus. Don’t fall apart.She could do that later. Surely, there would be a ‘later’ when she was afforded some degree of privacy.
Evelina swallowed hard and said, “I’m sorry. It’s— I’m really grateful for the chance to meet you, and the help just now, I’m just kind of overwhelmed. Three different people have already tried to kill me today and apparently I’ve got a bunch of guys on staff I have to ship overseas because they should never have allowedanyof what just happened and—”
“Lina,” Otto interrupted, sliding his hand up her back to curve around her shoulders and turning her partially toward him. “Breathe. You can get through this.”
Shit.She’d slipped into a half-manic state without even realizing. The words had just tumbled out and she was short of breath again.
“I think you misunderstand,” Dante said. “We didn’t fly out just for a personal introduction. Mikey is very good at acquiringinformation, and what he found gave us reason to believe that you may have landed yourself in an unstable situation.”
Evelina straightened again, trying to hear his words without overthinking them.
Dante held out one arm in a gesture that indicated his brothers, and somehow also the men standing several paces behind them all. “We’re here to help.” His lips tipped up in an ominous whisper of a smile. “This is something we are quite skilled at.”
Romeo snorted. “Understatement of the fucking decade.” His smirk was wider and wholly unapologetic.
She drew a steadying breath, her mind following the sensation of Otto’s hand sliding back down her spine until it was settled again over the small of her back, and allowed herself to speak. “It was never my intention to drag you into this mess. This is a Nikolaev problem.”
Dante inclined his head. “And there was a time I fantasized about burning Mikhail’s flesh from his bones, one limb at a time.” He paused only for a moment. “I don’t suppose you’re aware of our past visit to Chicago, when De Salvo representatives reached out to the Nikolaevs in an attempt to negotiate an alliance?”
Evelina stared, feeling almost numb to shock. Someone had mentioned they’d heard the name De Salvo before, hadn’t they? She never had managed to learn more about that.
“It was years ago,” Dante confirmed. “My reign was newer. And certainly the Nikolaevs weren’t the only ones to respond to our ambassadors with suspicion or even violence. The Chicago mission was, however, the only time not all of ourmen came home breathing. Of the three I sent, only the cousin I mentioned, Cristiano, returned—though it was months before he finished healing.”
Evelina found herself shaking her head. “I definitely have no idea about anything like that. ButOtetsdidn’t really share his work with me.”
Romeo and Mikey exchanged short glances.
“Given our relation,” Dante said, “I came to that conclusion myself. As I suspect, now, that Mikhail’s entrapment of my men was meant as more than a mere rejection of our offer.”
She opened her mouth, but couldn’t form the words.
Nonno had lived and mingled with their family for years into her early adolescence. While it was clear that Mamma had learned, long ago, not to talk about her lost sister or whatever family was associated, Nonno would still know of it. Including the ‘dangerous mafia man’ he’d married his eldest daughter off to. It wasn’t impossible that he’d shared that information with his seemingly powerful son-in-law.
The truth had been kept from her for twenty-six years, a truth she would never have learned if she hadn’t taken it upon herself to clean out her mother’s old and forgotten possessions. Yet Nonno had shared this secret with her father … as a weapon.
She knew it in her heart. She understood that was what Dante was suggesting now, too.
Fresh anger flashed through her.This is bullshit.At every damn turn there was something, someone, to throw in her face how unvalued she was. Not even just her as a person, but her entire existence, her history and lineage. She wasn’t even ‘halfuseful’ or ‘half worthwhile’ for being half a fucking Nikolaev. She was just a tool. To be used, discarded, and considered expendable from the start. Because she was also, through no fault of her own, half Italian.
“I run a multinational criminal organization.”
No. She wasn’t merely half Italian. She was half goddamn De Salvo.
Evelina clenched her fists at her sides and looked between her towering cousins before locking her stare with Dante’s. “I don’t actually need to clean house. I need to fucking rebuild it from the ground up. Is that something you could help me with?”
