Page 80 of Paved in Hate

“Probably not.” She smiles and holds out her hand. “I’m Katya.”

“Nice to meet the woman who made Vitaly fall to his knees.” He gives me a smirk and kisses the back of my wife’s hand.

“Fucking Italians,” I mutter loud enough for him to hear.

He laughs and smacks my shoulder. “I hear we’re as stubborn as the Russians.”

“And overly dramatic,” I say.

Dominic shrugs with a good-natured smile on his face. “It’s in our blood.”

“That and a shit-ton of red wine,” I say with a laugh.

He gives me a disbelieving look. “Don’t even fucking start with that shit. I could cut you and you’d probably bleed vodka.”

“Okay, that was a good one,” I admit, laughing.

Matvey leans against the counter, watching our interaction. I can tell he’s antsy to get started, so when we walk over to the table, Emily, Jolene, and Simona leave, knowing it’s best if they don’t know certain things. My stubborn wife looks up at me and grins, taking the seat next to me.

“Interesting,” Dominic says, sitting down across from us.

“It’s called compromise, Dominic,” I tell him. “If you were married, you’d know a thing or two about it.”

He laughs and takes the drink Roman hands him. “I don’t plan on marrying, so I guess I’ll never need to learn about it.”

“You’re going to be taking over the family business, right? Doesn’t that mean you need to marry and produce heirs?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “I’m not sure when that will happen. My father had me when he was older. I’m the baby of the family, if you can believe it, but something tells me he won’t be retiring anytime soon.”

“What are you, early thirties?” Roman asks.

“Fuck you,” Dominic says with a laugh. “I’m twenty-five.”

“You’re younger than me?” Lev asks, laughing at the look Dominic is giving him.

“I don’t look that fucking old.” He scrubs a hand over his light beard. “The facial hair ages me and so does this fucking job.”

I laugh. “Yeah, that’s what it is.” He knows I’m teasing him, so he laughs. He’s a handsome fucker, and he knows it.

He takes another drink and looks at us, “Okay, stop making fun of me and tell me what the fuck is going on.”

We take turns filling him in on everything that’s happened, and by the time we’re finished, he’s on his second drink and letting out a deep sigh.

“How are you planning on explaining the deaths? If you blame it on my men, then it just makes you look weak, like we’re still a problem you can’t control.”

“Yeah, we’ve already thought about that,” Roman says. “The last thing we want is Konstantin sending some of his men after your family.”

“We hid the bodies,” Lev says, “but there’s no way in hell Konstantin doesn’t know about five missing men by now.”

“We could tell him it was a local gang that we sometimes have issues with,” I suggest. “Make it seem like it was a drug runner encroaching on our territory, that they’ll often test the waters a couple of times a year to see if it’s worth the risk for them.”

“That might work.” Dominic takes another drink, leaning back in his chair. “You’ll have to retaliate, though.”

“I say fuck ‘em,” Matvey says from the other end of the table. “We tell him we don’t know what the fuck happened. Let him send his men on a wild-goose chase. Why the hell should we care? We’re going to kill them long before they figure out we had a hand in this.”

We’re all quiet for a few seconds before Katya gives a soft laugh. “He’s not wrong. My brothers will be pissed, but there’s not much they can do about it, especially if you tell them you’re trying to figure it out. It might help if you suggest that it could be an enemy of theirs that did it, someone who has nothing to do with your Bratva. My brothers have a lot of enemies, and attacks like this might be rare, but they do happen.”

I lean down and whisper against her ear. “I’m glad you’re here, baby. You look sexy as fuck when you talk business.”

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