Page 46 of Married to the Don (Kornilov Bratva Duet 1)

If my men knew how head over ass I’ve fallen for a woman I’m supposed to murder, they’d overthrow me in a second. Hell, I’d overthrow me if I was them.

Are you really going to let a little pussy risk your rank?I can hear my dad’s voice bark in my ear.

When we pull up to the agreed meeting spot, I realize I never responded to Petr. We drove the last few minutes in silence, and now there are more important matters at hand.

Mario and Rio Mazzeo have control of a small section of the city. Business between our families has always been tense, but respectful, and now some of my men have threatened that fragile coexistence. I’ve all but wiped out any real competition we had in the city, and now, rather than enjoying being on top, my soldiers are out starting fights with men from lesser families. Idiots.

“Leave your weapon,” I tell Petr, motioning to the gun in his holster.

He frowns at me, but I nod to let him know I’m serious. “Mario will see it as a sign of trust between us. He’s old school.”

Petr does as I say, but asks what we’ll do if they pull a gun on us.

I lean down and lift my pant leg, revealing a gun and a knife strapped to my calf. “I’m not going in unarmed.”

Mario and Rio are like twins separated by twenty years. They have the same narrow shoulders, round middles, and thick heads of dark hair, though Mario’s is graying around the temples and his face is considerably more creased.

They stand shoulder to shoulder against a brick wall between two buildings in the industrial district. Their car is parked at the end of the alley, blocking entrance on one side. The windows are too tinted to see if they’ve brought anyone else with them.

“Viktor,” Mario says, nodding and holding out a hand.

I stop moving towards him and hold out an arm to stop Petr as well. I don’t want to get too close and be penned in should they decide taking me and my second-in-command out would be good retribution.

I don’t suspect the Mazzeos would be so foolish. They know that even without a leader, my Bratva could bring them to their knees. Plus, we’ve built a tenuous peace over the years, and no one has benefitted from that arrangement more than they have.

“Mario,” I say, nodding to him and then his son. “Rio. Good to see you.”

“Even under these circumstances,” Mario says, running his tongue over his top teeth.

“Even under these circumstances,” I echo. “I was sorry to hear about the fighting between our men.”

“Were you?” Rio barks, leaning forward.

His father silences him with a glare, and Rio leans back against the wall, though his eyes are narrowed at me. Petr lays a hand on his hip out of instinct before remembering his gun is in the car and dropping it to his side.

“I was,” I say coldly. “My attention has been split several ways these last few weeks, and I admit that some of my men took their new freedom to extremes. I hope no one was hurt.”

“Hospitalized, but not dead,” Mario says with a shrug. “Still, I thought it would be nice for us to get together. It has been a long time.”

The last time I met with the Mazzeos, Fedor was at my side.

Mario has never liked Fedor, and he has never sought to make that fact a secret. He believes in respect and order and law—even if he prefers to be the one making the law—and Fedor cares for none of those things.

“I agree. It’s good we see one another face-to-face every now and again.”

Rio stands next to his father, looking like he’d rather be pummeling my face than looking at it.

Mario clasps his hands in front of his round stomach and sighs. “The story I’m being told is that your men walked into my territory and started a fight. They wanted to cause a war.”

“Now, Mario,” I say with a shrug. “A fight and a war are very different things. I don’t think my men wanted—”

“They wanted to hurt my men and give us reason to fight,” he says, cutting me off.

I press my lips together into a flat line, annoyed at his interruption, and wait for him to finish.

“If that’s not the start of a war, then I don’t know what is.”

“Me declaring war is the start of a war,” I say sharply. “Those men acted foolishly and without permission. They do not represent the wishes of me or my Bratva.”

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