Dark Mafia Prince: A Dangerous Royals romance (14 page)

I push my face into her hair and breathe in the scent. I let myself be half-insane.

Mine.

Dr. Currie’s coordinating with Viktor. They’ve got Tito and Yuri hitting a medical school. Currie knows about an insecure entrance. Bodies donated to science.

He leads the others into the house. He wants us in the kitchen. I’m having trouble walking. Fucking ankle.

Currie slaps the kitchen table. “Up here, Aleksio.”

“Mira needs you more. Take her pulse and shit. She’s been drugged up and traumatized.” I clench my fists, resisting the impulse to fly at Viktor.

Currie sits her down on a kitchen chair and checks her pupils with a small light. Now that the adrenalin is ratcheted down, Mira’s being silly, saying that stupid Russian action-star thing at one point.

Viktor leans in the doorway. His face looks like shit. Eye swelling up. Lip a fat, bloody mess. He’s fucked up and sparkling and defiant, military haircut sleek and smooth. “What about Kiro?”

“Watch me burn the world for him.”

“We lost time.” His gaze goes to Mira.

I stalk over to him and throw him against the wall.

Viktor’s nostrils flare. “You will kill me,
brat
?”

Mira whimpers.

“Take it the fuck outside,” Currie barks.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight. I hate that I’m distressing her. I have to stop, I have to…

Viktor grabs my wrists. “I am frightened for him.”

Kiro. He’s talking about Kiro.

“Do I need to give Mira the gun again?” Currie says.

“I don’t remember him,” Viktor says softly. “You knew him. You got to hold him.”

Fuck. I let Viktor down. “We’ll get him.”

We watch Currie listen to her heart. We talk in low tones about how to present the finger to her father. What would make the most impact? In a napkin, in a box. We know now if we smear it up with blood and give him the ring separately, he won’t look at the finger. He’ll tell us what we want to know if there’s more to tell.

It’s then that the call comes in from the chop shop. Our guys holding Nikolla. I answer. “Talk.”

“The fucker’s in the wind.”

“What? He’s gone?”

“Old man got out. He turned Driscoll, we think.”

My heart pounds. “Driscoll?” Driscoll’s one of my guys, who I sent to help Viktor’s Russians. I’ve always had his utter loyalty.

Viktor’s face goes white. He’s heard enough to get the picture.

My man drones on. “That’s what we think. Dima’s dead. We think the old man turned Driscoll, and then Driscoll shot him and got out.”

Dima. Viktor’s youngest guy. A great guy. Viktor slams a fist through the wall.

I close my eyes. “I will destroy that fucker.”

Viktor lost a guy. Because of one of mine.

“I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Viktor stares bleakly at the crater he made.

“What?” It’s Mira’s voice. “What? What’s going on?”

She’s sitting up, looking worried again. Currie’s glowering. “Take it outside.”

I suck in a deep breath. “Your dad got away.”

Mira’s eyes widen.

I feel sick. Kiro is out there, undefended. The old man was our only way to find him.

She squints at the clock, trying to focus. “Um…he’ll be at his restaurant in two hours. You can find him there.”

I straighten. “You really think he’ll show up there after he got taken? After all that’s happened?”

“Eggs…zactly.” She folds her arms on the table and lays down her head. “He has to,” she says dreamily. “He has to show he’s in control. Nobody’s bitch. He will definitely, absolutely, positively be there.”

“What restaurant?” Yuri asks.

“Agronika,” I say. “On Fourteenth. Old-school Albanian joint. Kind of his office meeting room.” The heart of enemy territory.

Tito grunts. “Going in there is suicide.”

Even with Mira as a hostage, it’s risky. “He’d never expect it.”

“Hmmm,” Viktor says.

I decide to walk Mira to her room. Currie doesn’t like it. “I need to look at that ankle,” he says. “You’re going to have permanent damage. You’re looking at a life of hell with that.”

“After we find Kiro.”

He nods. I know the nod. Placating. He doesn’t think Kiro is alive, but I know he is. I feel Kiro alive out there—I always have.

I get her to her room and into bed. She smiles, then she seems to remember something and frowns. “I have to get away from you,” she says.

“I know, baby.” I tuck the covers around her.

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“Close your eyes and count to twenty. Then you’ll wake up fresh with energy to get away from me.”

“Can I just close my eyes?” she asks. “And not count?”

“Yes,” I whisper, wanting nothing more than to get under the covers with her.

She closes her eyes. “It’s nicer,” she says. “To not count.”

“I agree.” I tuck the blanket all around her arms. She’s dozing off.

When I limp back out, Viktor’s making coffee. “I spoke with my network. We picked up one of Lazarus’s guys. Lazarus has been running down information on Kiro, scouring for leads on him, but you know what he hasn’t been doing?”

“What?” I ask.

“He has not been searching for the old man.” Viktor looks at me significantly.

I frown. “Find the king, rescue the king. That should be his priority.”

“Unless Lazarus is making a move on the king,” Viktor says. “Nikolla is old. In boxing, you deliver the body blows before you try for the knockout. You soften your foe. Perhaps we softened the old man up for Lazarus to knock out.”

I nod. Viktor would have seen this kind of thing a lot—the Russian gangs are famously cutthroat. Leaders don’t tend to last. “Whatever Lazarus has planned, Kiro’s in danger. We’re hard to kill, but not Kiro. Lazarus will want that prophecy off the table.”

“Why?” Yuri asks. “Why concern himself over superstition? Lazarus, he is not one of the old ones from the mountains, is he? Tito said he grew up here, no older than forty. Maybe he does not believe—”

“It doesn’t matter if he believes,” I say. “He knows other people do. The Dragusha brothers rising together is as embedded into the community as a fable.”

“Like the tortoise and the hare or some shit,” Tito says. “Trust me. The clans are all about the fucking stories. The sleeping Dragusha king. The three brothers prevailing. I knew about that shit when I was ten.”

“Psychological edge,” I say.

Yuri nods. He gets that. Crime is more about psychological edge than any other business.

The three brothers together will rule
. Fucking Miss Ipa with her weathered brown skin and nails like red arrows.
Apart they are weak, together they are strong. They will take everything.

The bitch has been dead for years now, but the damage was done with that prophecy of hers. It could be why Aldo Nikolla split apart my family in the first place. He wanted it to be him, and not me and my brothers.

“The brothers together,” Viktor grumbles. “We brothers might be together today if not for her.”

“If Lazarus could kill a Dragusha brother and take out the old man in the same week, that would give him much credibility. He will more easily unite the clan.”

I look at the clock. Ninety minutes before the old man arrives at the restaurant. “They’ll never expect me to show up there,” I say.

Tito groans. “To strike twice at the heart of his territory—”

I hold up my hand to silence him. I don’t want him to say not to go. I don’t want him to say it’s too dangerous. “We have his daughter as insurance,” I say.

“But if Lazarus’s there, us having Mira won’t matter. Lazarus doesn’t give a shit about Mira. He’ll just kill you instead. Killing you is even better than killing Kiro.”

Too true.

“If we courier the finger…”

“I need to be there. I need to press him. I know his weaknesses. I know his people.”

“I’ll back you,” Viktor says.

I give him a look. If the worst happens, he needs to stay alive to find Kiro. “I’m the one who was studying him all these years.”

“How will we know if Lazarus’s people are in there?” Viktor asks. “We don’t know Lazarus’s people anymore.”

Viktor has a point. Konstantin and I focused on Aldo, not Lazarus.

Viktor continues, “We need to know who’s with him. I will not let you walk into a nest of Lazarus’s guys. I’ll put you in the trunk if I have to.”

“No, you’re right,” I say. “We need to know what people are Lazarus’s. We need insight that’s more recent than those old photos.”

Viktor tips his head, waits for me to say it.

“Right. Mira.” I turn and limp toward her room.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Currie’s up and blocking my way. “She needs to sleep.”

I take his shirt in my fist. “And now I’m going to wake her up.”

He sees I’m serious. He growls and moves aside.

I head down the hall, hand on the wall. I open the door and go into the darkened bedroom. She’s lying there pretty much how I left her, perfectly tucked in. I sit next to her on the bed and rest my hand on her shoulder. “Mira,” I whisper. Nothing. I shake her. “Mira.”

“Huh,” she says.

“Wake up.” I shake her again.

She resists, but I shake her and call her name a few more times, and that does it. She rubs her eyes and regards me woozily. Her sleepy eyes widen in horror the moment she remembers. “My finger!”

“Shhh. Nothing happened—you’re okay.” I tighten my grasp on her arm.

She begins to shake. She’s all fucked up and crying now. Fucking drugged out of her mind.

“You’re okay. I’m here.” Which is the laughable phrase of the century when you think about it. I nudge her. “Move over.” She doesn’t comply, so I really shove her, and finally there’s room. I get in and wrap my arm around her. “Shh.”

She begins to sob. Fuck. I just hold her tight, wishing I could swallow up all that sadness for her. Eventually she quiets down.

“I need to ask you some questions. About Lazarus.”

“Huh?”

“Who does he like? Who does he trust these days?”

“I dongeddit.”

“Who is a friend to Lazarus?” I have an idea, but I need it from her. “Who does he like best? Of all the Black Lion clan guys. Who did he show up to dinner with on Friday?”

“His brother,” she says. “Ioannis.”

We know that, of course. Lazarus loves his brother. “Who else?”

“Ferit. Best buds.” The way she says it, it sounds like
best buzz.

“Okay,” I say. “That’s good.”

She seems to drift off a bit. “Hey.” I shake her. “You were telling me about Lazarus’s buddies.”

“Right,” she whispers.

“Who does he ride with places? Besides Ioannis? Who did he hang around with at the ribbon-cutting ceremony?”

“Engjell. Like the four musketeers.”

“Good,” I say. “That’s good. Who else? Who owes him?”

“Why?”

“The bastard wants to know, baby.”

She laughs softly and suddenly gives me a stream of names. It’s like she’s hypnotized or something and the names are just falling out of her. Her names are helpful. I grab my phone from my pocket and text to Konstantin. He needs to know what’s happening. He’ll have photos of the guys. I’m thinking Viktor can send a team of advance people in to the restaurant as off-the-street diners. They’ll be on the lookout. A layer of protection for when I go in, and they can warn me if Lazarus has filled the place with his people.

I could see Bloody Lazarus going after me and letting Aldo get caught in the crossfire. That would be a brilliant plan. Two birds with one firefight.

“Aleksio?” She turns to me. I touch her nose with the phone. She tries to grab it, but her reflexes are fucked from the drugs.

“You should sleep,” I say.

“Aleksio,” she whispers. I know what’s going to come now—it’s in the air between us. It’s in her eyes. She splays her hand against my chest.

“No, baby.”

“I liked it like that.”

My blood races. “Mira—” I’ve never wanted a woman so much. But no. Not like this.

She reaches down between us; I grab her hand before she can make contact with my cock. “No, baby.”

“Please,” she begs. “Let’s do it that way again.”

“You’re going to sleep.” I pull her tight. “That’s an order.”

“Let’s be messed up,” she whispers into my ear.

Lust whooshes through me. It’s not like we don’t have the time. An hour or more before dear old Dad shows up at Agronika. But I won’t do it.

She turns back around in my arms, facing away. I move to keep my straining erection away from her perfect ass.

“What was the question? Did you have a question?”

“You already answered the question. We’re good.”

Her breath gets even, and I think she’s sleeping. But then she sighs peacefully. I stroke her hair, wondering what it’s like to feel that peace. All those years watching her from afar, wondering what it was like.

Konstantin made me into a killer, yeah, blowing guys’ heads off while they begged, while they cried, while they went about their days. He made me into a merciless weapon sharpened for battle with old man Nikolla, but he never succeeded in making me hate her.

Mira was the untouchable goddess. In a way, it seemed right that she was in the world. Like it’s right that there are stars or the sun or something. When you’re a killer, ugly and bloody and beaten to shit, you don’t hate the stars for shining. You’re glad there’s something good out there.

I pull her closer. “Help me remember what it was like to feel safe,” I whisper before I can think better of it. “Just an endless green lawn. Soldiers under command to die for you. What was it like?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “You were there. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember the fact of it, but I can’t remember that feeling. It got covered over.”

She doesn’t move. After a long silence, she says, “I don’t know.”

“You have to know. Try, baby.”

“It’s a hard question.”

“Try.”

“What?”

“What it was like to feel safe?” I ask, frustrated. I picture her at birthday parties, picnics on the grounds. The boating outings. Plush, wall-to-wall safety.

I know I can’t have that feeling, that goodness, but I had it once.

It took Konstantin quite a few years to figure out I looked at the photos she appeared in way more than the others. When he figured that out, he hit me so hard he nearly knocked my teeth out. That was back when he was bigger than me, of course. Back when he was in charge of things.