The next day…
Sloane
I expected another quiet day locked in the penthouse.
More surveillance. Another carefully plated breakfast and another tall security guard watching every move I made while Nikolai did whatever Bratva kings did when they weren’t calling you baby girl and taking you apart piece by piece with their bare hands.
I didn’t expect him to toss a navy coat across the bed and say, “Put this on. We’re going out.”
I sat up slowly, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “Where?”
He gave me a look.
“The Iron Wolf.”
I blinked. “As in your bar? Your Bratva base? Your testosterone-fueled criminal clubhouse?”
He smiled faintly. “You’ll be fine.”
Before I could argue, he was already out the door.
It took me twenty minutes to shower and throw on something understated: dark gray dress, high neckline, hem just above the knee, a pair of cute black combat boots. We left together in the elevator and went thirty-two floors down to a private garage. His car was sleek, matte black, like a shadow. He opened the door for me. Didn’t say a word.
The drive was calm. Boston slid past the windows in a blur of late morning sunlight and wet pavement. No music. Just the low hum of the engine and the steady rhythm of my heartbeat in my ears.
When we pulled up to the Iron Wolf, he got the door for me like a perfect gentleman. The outside was unmarked, just a black door, a brass handle, and a flickering light overhead. Inside, it smelled like old whiskey. The lights were dim, barely illuminating the exposed brick walls and the long, polished bar that gleamed like it had seen blood and bourbon in equal measure. There were booths along the far wall, all empty and a private back section behind frosted glass.
Nikolai’s hand was warm on the small of my back as he guided me forward to that back room. He didn’t shove, just used calm, steady pressure. At a table in the center of the room, there were four men waiting, all of them unmistakably Morozovs. They fell quiet when we approached.
The first man stood, tall, lean, and annoyingly handsome in a casual sort of way. He looked like the kind of guy who could talk you into selling your grandmother’s engagement ring and then turn around and thank him for the favor.
He smiled like he knew me.
“Welcome to the Iron Wolf,” he said smoothly. “I’m Aleksei.”
He extended his hand, and I took it, because what else was I supposed to do? His grip was warm, confident.
“Your reputation precedes you,” he added in a teasing tone.
Before I could respond, the man beside him spoke. This one didn’t stand. He was tall, yes, but quieter in his posture. Messy dark hair, thin glasses perched on his nose, a tablet in one hand. He glanced up once, offered the faintest nod.
“I’m Ivan,” he said. “I liked your odds manipulation strategy. Inefficient in execution, but solid in concept.”
My jaw ticked. “Thanks?”
“You used a three-year-old leak in a betting API to spike risk perception in real time.” He shrugged. “Smart.”
Aleksei leaned over. “Don’t mind him. He forgets normal people aren’t fluent in code.”
“Or compliments,” Ivan muttered.
The third man stood now. He was taller than the rest, broad shoulders, cropped salt-and-pepper hair, green eyes that pinned me in place like I was some threat he’d already clocked six ways to kill.
“Sergei.”
That was all he said, but it was enough. He didn’t smile, didn’t offer a hand. He just looked at me for a long second, then gave a curt nod and sat back down, arms folded across his chest.
The final man was already watching me. He stayed seated. Fingers laced in front of him on the table. He unfolded his hands, leaned forward just enough to command the moment, and offered me a nod that felt more like a final verdict than a heartfelt greeting.
“Maxim Morozov,” he said.
No theatrics. No warmth. Just a name weighted with something that felt an awful lot like legacy.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, Sloane,” Maxim observed.
I sat up a little straighter. “Wish I could say the same.”
His mouth curved. Not in a smile really. Something infinitely more dangerous than that.
“I like sharp girls,” he said. “But sharp things still get put out of reach when they cut too deep.”
A warning. Delivered calmly. Almost kindly even.
I swallowed back the instinct to smart off again. This wasn’t a man you poked. This was the man the others deferred to, even Nikolai, who sat beside me like none of this was unexpected.
Maxim’s eyes raked over me, not in a way that felt lecherous, no. In a way that felt like he was figuring me out. Like he’d already decided who I was and how I fit into this whole charade, and he was just waiting to see if I’d prove him wrong.
He gestured to the drink in front of me.
“Welcome to the table.”
I nodded, fingers curling around the chilled glass of vodka that had somehow appeared beside me. The moment settled. He leaned back, and just like that, the room exhaled again.
Glasses clinked. A few words in Russian slipped between the brothers, too fast for me to catch, but the tone shifted. More focused and way more serious.
As I sat back, the door swung open, and my father walked in.
He stepped into the back room of the Iron Wolf like he owned it, which, of course, he didn’t. Not here. Not in this room. Here, it was the Morozov name that mattered. The brothers’ presence was so thick in the air it might as well have been painted onto the walls.
Still, my father held himself like a man who’d forgotten he’d lost control a long time ago. His suit was perfect. Dark gray, crisp white shirt, the mayoral pin on his lapel like a silent challenge to everyone else in the room. But there was a certain tension in his shoulders. He nodded once toward Nikolai and the rest of the brothers.
“Thanks for letting me come.”
Maxim gave a grunt of acknowledgment from the far side of the table. Sergei didn’t even lift his eyes from his drink. Ivan glanced up from his tablet, his pale blue eyes assessing. Aleksei just smirked. Nikolai rose slightly when he entered.
No one introduced him. They didn’t need to. He was the other king in Boston.
Dad’s eyes skimmed around the table—Nikolai, Aleksei, Ivan, Sergei, and then Maxim—before landing on me. His brow furrowed as his mouth constricted into a thin line. He walked to the empty seat across from Nikolai and sat down like the weight of the entire goddamn city had followed him in.
“I assume you know why I’m here,” my father said.
Nikolai leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. “Let me guess. Stillwell?”
Dad nodded once. “Word is he’s going public with everything he knows, sooner than we expected.”
I straightened in my seat, the weight of the moment pressing down. “Which is what, exactly?”
“That you manipulated the odds on a high-profile underground fight,” he said flatly.
I looked at Nikolai, then at Maxim, then back at my father. “So?”
“So,” Dad snapped, “he’s threatening to drag your name through the mud. Mine. Nikolai’s. All of us.”
Nikolai’s jaw ticked. “I knew he was going to be a problem from the moment you called me.”
Dad didn’t flinch. “Listen, I would step down if it would help smooth things over, but then Stillwell wins the office. If I stay in, he threatens the family. And if he goes public with this, the cops come for her.”
He turned toward me then, his stare hard, jaw clenched tight. “If you hadn’t done this—”
“I know,” I cut in, my voice sharper than I meant it to be. “I know I caused this.”
I met his gaze and held it.
“But if you say one more word about how this is all my fault,” I seethed, “I will lose my shit.”
The room went still.
Not just quiet—still.
That did not stop me.
“One more thing. If you step down, that’d be a little bitch move. You’re the fucking mayor. Act like it.”
A beat of stunned silence passed as everyone absorbed the fact that I’d just raised my voice to the mayor of Boston in a room full of Morozovs.
Dad sighed, like I’d personally disappointed the entire city. He rubbed a hand down his face and muttered, “How are you going to deal with that?”
Nikolai didn’t miss a beat. He lifted his glass, took a slow sip of vodka, and said with the sort of calmness that made my eyes drop to his belt, “Very thoroughly.”
He caught the direction of my gaze, and he smirked.
That was it.
I stood.
“I’m right here,” I snapped, voice rising now. “You two want to trade jabs like I’m not in the fucking room, go ahead. But I’m the one they’re coming after. Not you. Not your press team. Me.”
His brows pulled together. “Sloane—”
I turned to my father fully then, fury fueling every word.
“No. You don’t get to play protective dad now. You gave me to him.” I flicked my hand toward Nikolai. “Like I was chattel, a chess piece you could trade to stabilize your campaign. A thing no longer worth keeping around. What did you get for me, Dad? How much was I worth?”
“You needed someone to keep you in line,” he snapped back.
I laughed. It was short, bitter, cutting.
“And that someone just happened to be Nikolai Morozov? You didn’t think I might have an opinion about being handed off to the Bratva like a spoiled liability you didn’t know what else to do with?”
“You needed structure. Safety.”
“I needed a father.” I slammed my hands down on the table, chest heaving.
No one interrupted. Not even Nikolai. This wasn’t about politics anymore. This was about me. This was the one moment I’d get to stand up, say my piece and everyone in the room was going to hear it.
“I was never going to be quiet,” I continued, voice shaking with rage. “You raised me to be loud. To fight. To outsmart everyone at the table. Then the second I became inconvenient, you signed me over to someone who could control me.”
I glanced at Nikolai then.
“Maybe he can control me. Maybe he will. Just don’t act like you didn’t light the match that started the fire.”
My father didn’t say anything. He just stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. Maybe he was, because I wasn’t fucking twelve anymore, running wild with too much ambition and not enough fear or supervision. Or love.
I was a grown woman and I was done being managed.
I sank back into the chair and crossed my legs slowly, smoothing my dress down, pretending my hands weren’t shaking.
“So.” I looked around the table. “Now that we’re all done with the dramatics, what’s the plan?”
Maxim watched me, his face unreadable.
Dad leaned back. “So, what do you suggest we do, Sloane? Threaten Stillwell? Send a message? Maybe have a chat with the wrong end of a gun?”
“Are you being sarcastic?” I asked, raising a brow in annoyance.
He sighed. “We don’t play politics like that, not publicly. If we retaliate with violence, it’s going to be a bloodbath. I’m trying to keep the feds out of this.”
“Then don’t kill him,” I said. “Outmaneuver him.”
Nikolai raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“Start where he’s weakest,” I said, standing up and pacing now. “He’s got donors involved with illegal underground fighting and gambling? We flip one. He’s got press? We bury him in bad coverage. Leak something he’s tied to, maybe one of Dalton’s shady offshore accounts. You,” I pointed at my father. “Hit the political side. Rally your base. Secure your media people. Build your defense.”
Then I turned to Nikolai.
“And you check your connections. You know who to lean on. You know where the bodies are buried, metaphorically or otherwise.”
He smiled. I wasn’t done.
“If you really want to hurt him, don’t threaten him. Undermine him. Make him look weak. Make his people stop trusting him. Make them wonder if he’s got the stomach for a fight at all, or the balls to be the mayor of Boston.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Aleksei let out a low whistle. “Well, damn. You are a Morozov after all.”
I glanced at my father. He was watching me like he didn’t know whether to be proud of me or horrified. Maybe both.
Good.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Maxim leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching me like I’d just said something in a language he didn’t realize I spoke. Ivan was tapping the rim of his glass thoughtfully, his brows drawn down, analyzing my words like he was decoding them. Aleksei just looked smug, like he knew I had it in me and was pleased to be proven right.
And Nikolai?
He wasn’t smiling anymore, but he didn’t look away either. He was watching me with that same quiet heat I’d seen behind his eyes before, but this time, it wasn’t about control.
It was filled with pride.
Finally, Maxim broke the silence.
“If we’re going to hit Stillwell politically, we’ll need dirt. Verified. Traceable, but not to us. Aleksei?”
Aleksei lifted a shoulder. “I know a few art collectors with connections to some of his major donors. I can start poking around. Social reputations are fragile. A whisper about money laundering or bad taste in mistresses and we’ll watch the funding dry up.”
Maxim nodded once. “Do it.”
“Ivan?” Nikolai said.
Ivan’s fingers danced over the screen of his tablet.
“I’ll trace the funds tied to Stillwell’s campaign. If there’s offshore movement—or any undisclosed donors—we can leak it. Quietly. We’ll feed it through a few channels. Keep it from coming back to us.”
Maxim turned to my father now.
“Charlie, you’re the public piece of this. You’ll need to rally your party. Push back, but not defensively. Control the narrative. You’re not the father of a criminal. You’re a leader with the strength to handle pressure and a little bit of bad press from the opposition.”
My father gave a slow nod. “I’ll reach out to a few friendly voices in the press. We plant a story about my unwavering leadership. I’ll show up to a few photo ops with old community partners. Put a little shine back on the record.”
“You’re good at shine,” I muttered under my breath.
He gave me side-eye. I grinned.
“Sergei?” Maxim asked finally, turning to the brother who’d barely spoken.
Sergei glanced toward me, then back at Maxim.
“I’ll monitor movement. Stillwell has allies in Boston PD. If they’re thinking about pressing charges or opening a file on her, I’ll know before the ink hits paper.”
“If they come,” I said quietly, “we’ll handle it.”
Nikolai turned to me. His voice was deep and decisive. “I’ll handle it.”
“I want a seat at this table,” I said, straightening my spine. “Not because I’m your problem. Because I’m part of the solution. You want to win this? Then don’t keep me on the sidelines.”
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed in my direction.
“And if it gets dangerous?” he asked.
I smiled.
“It already is,” I countered.
Maxim leaned forward, drumming his fingers on the table.
“That’s the play, then,” he said. “We undermine Stillwell quietly. No blood. No headlines. We move like professionals.”
Charlie nodded, but the thin line of his mouth hadn’t eased. “Just make sure she’s kept out of it going forward.”
I lifted my chin. “Kept out?”
“She’s in it now, whether we like it or not,” Nikolai said before I could speak. His voice was low, treacherous in its calm. “This isn’t about saving face anymore. It’s about protecting what’s mine.”
Charlie turned his head slowly. “You’re saying she’s yours now?”
Nikolai didn’t blink. “She was mine from the first moment I laid eyes on her.”
My breath caught.
No one challenged him.
Not Maxim, who simply took a sip of his drink. Not Sergei, who stared at the table like he’d already done the math. Not Ivan, who smirked faintly at the corner of his screen. Not Aleksei, who raised a glass and murmured, “To family.”
My father looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. He leaned back, exhaled, and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Just keep her from blowing up my career,” he muttered. “And try not to let her burn the city down either.”
“No promises,” I said, reaching for my vodka.
They all looked at me.
I just smiled.
Maxim stood, and the others followed. The meeting was over.
I lingered for just a second longer, letting them file out one by one until it was just me and Nikolai. He was watching me with that unreadable gaze, and for once, I didn’t try to decipher it.
“I’m proud of you, Sloane.”
His praise felt good, better than good, and I took a deep breath, just standing there. Silent. Thoughtful.
Maybe for the first time, I didn’t feel like a pawn on someone else’s board. Maybe this time, I was something more. Maybe even a queen.
The look in his eyes said he knew it too.
He reached out, brushed his fingers lightly against my jaw, and said nothing. He didn’t have to.
Whatever came next, we were in it together.
