Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Visions of Gio and… this heat I suddenly felt, which I wanted to feel more of.
9
GIO
Iscrubbed a hand over my face as I sat in my dimly lit office, the heavy wooden desk clean and organized because I hadn’t been home in far too long.
I came back to the West Coast just days after the incident with Tatiana Petrov. It had nothing to do with me “running” from a problem I’d created for myself, though I knew I should have fucking walked away and let her handle her own shit by herself.
Truth be told, I had a marriage to arrange for Claudia, one she wasn’t fucking going to take kindly to.
But hell, I couldn’t think about that now either—not with so much on my damn mind.
Tatiana shouldn’t have been at the fight to begin with, but fuck me, I’d seen her pressed against that wall being choked out, and something in me shifted and then snapped.
I’d left Desolation because I had business to handle here and an urgent phone call with Carmine, the Head of Italy.
And I needed to get far away from anything remotely related to Tatiana because I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her.
The faint scent of cigar smoke lingered in the air, and the flavor of whiskey coated my tongue.
I was staring out my office window when my cell rang, the burner phone reserved for only the most important calls.
Already knowing who it was, I ran my hand over my jaw, the scruff scraping along my palm. I answered and leaned back.
“Carmine,” I kept my voice even. Whenever Carmine Lucchesi called, it was never a good thing. He always wanted something, and that was usually to get someone else's hands dirty with blood. “It’s good to hear from you.” It wasn’t.
“Gio.” His voice was smooth, yet there was an underlying tension. “È così bello parlare di nuovo con te.” It’s so nice to speak with you again.
He was full of shit.
“What can I do for you?” I stood and poured myself another drink because I fucking knew I’d need it for this conversation.
“I have a matter of utmost importance that requires your immediate attention.”
I went back behind my desk and took a seat, a sense of foreboding settling over me. I took a long drink from my whiskey before I responded. “What do you need from me?”
I heard him inhale as if he too were smoking a cigar. “We have a problem in Desolation," Carmine began, then exhaled whatever smoke he’d just filled his lungs with. “A Russian mafia member, Maksim Volkov, has been causing us significant trouble.”
I sifted through my memory for an answer as to why that name sounded familiar. And then it clicked. He helped “clean up” messes with Arlo Malkovich, Ruin’s expert fixer. But Maksim wasn’t just some piss-on help boy. I knew he had a blood relation to a higher-up in the Bratva, which made taking him out even trickier.
“He's interfering with our operations and threatening our interests. He needs to be eliminated.”
I clenched my jaw. “Carmine, killing anyone in the Desolation Bratva will cause significant issues,” I told him, and he kept his fucking mouth shut. “You know my brother-in-law Nikolai and his brother Dmitry are heads of the Bratva there. Taking out Volkov could spark a war within my family, if it ever were revealed who took out one of their own.”
Carmine's tone hardened. “Believe me, I understand how delicate the situation is, Gio, but this is non-negotiable.”
I tossed back the rest of my whiskey and ran my hand back and forth over my head.
“Volkov needs to be eliminated.”
“What exactly has he done?” I asked because fuck if I wasn’t going to know exactly why someone close with the Bratva was getting slaughtered and my ass would be on the line for it.
Carmine's voice took on a steely edge. “Volkov has decided to work with some lowlifes because he's done being at the bottom of the hierarchy. He’s taken matters into his own hands to climb the ranks and has been encroaching on our territory.”
For fuck’s sake.
“He’s been siphoning off our profits from the drug and weapon trade shipments.”
Something in the way he said that made my neck tingle. Carmine was lying, but about which part, I didn’t know. And I didn’t know why he would.
“Because of his sloppiness and the giant set of balls he apparently has, he’s been linked to an orchestrated attack on one of our warehouses.”
Fuck. I knew exactly what attack Carmine meant because I had to deal with the fallout when I was in Desolation. I had to clean up three bodies that were tied to the Cosa Nostra, and we fucking lost a significant shipment to those bastards.
“And the men Volkov is dealing with also sent a clear message that they intend to expand their influence in Desolation at our expense. They are fucking out of control.”