Victoria’s eyes follow me as I enter the boardroom, walk around the table, and take my seat. She’s wearing her customary pantsuit, today’s color choice: black. Appropriate. She has a cup of steaming black coffee in front of her alongside her tablet.
Andrej sits across the table from her, chair pushed back, one leg crossed over the other. He smells of perfume and last night’s liquor. The smudges under his eyes are like fading shadows compared to the bruise-colored pouches that circle our sister’s eyes. Everything is just a job to Andrej; he doesn’t take his work home with him.
“The printzessa keep you awake last night, brother?” He swallows a mouthful of creamy coffee and smiles.
I fill my cup with freshly brewed coffee and add a spoonful of brown sugar. No cream. Andrej is closer to the truth than he realizes, but for the first time, a hangover is squeezing my brain in a vice-like grip, and I need the caffeine to hit my veins. Quickly.
Victoria begins. “You know it makes my life easier when you keep me in the loop. I had to deal with our parents last night, and where were my brothers?”
It’s a rhetorical question. She could probably hazard a fair guess as to what we were both doing and would rather be spared the sordid details.
Andrej chuckles. “And this is exactly the reason why some things are best left unsaid. If anyone can cope under pressure, it’s you, sis.”
“I think what Andrej is trying to say is thank you, Victoria.” I’m in no mood for my brother’s childish humor this morning.
He did what I asked him to do. He planted the seed for Xander Amory when he had the head of one of his men delivered to him in a velvet-lined casket with an apple in his mouth like a stuffed pig. He opened the floodgates, showed the Sicilian a way in, and waited for him to bite.
Which he inevitably did. In typical Amory style, the severed hand delivered to my home belonged to the future son-in-law of the Chicago police commissioner. The same police commissioner who raided my warehouses a couple of nights ago on a tip-off from the Sicilian mob. The same police commissioner who is determined to clamp down on organized crime in his city commencing with the Ivanov family.
“We had no choice.” I down the liquid in my cup and refill it. The buzz is nowhere near strong enough yet.
“Bull-fucking-shit, Leo.” Victoria’s eyes harden. “You had plenty of choices, but you can’t see beyond this ridiculous vendetta against Amory. You don’t even care that an innocent man was murdered last night.”
She’s angry, I get it. When our parents call in Victoria, we all know that shit is going down. But this is what she’s paid to do: keep us looking visibly legal, keep us on the right side of the police commissioner, and clear up the mess. My sister is the only person in the world I can trust with this, but Andrej is right, no one can resolve issues on the spot the way Victoria can, which is why I kept her in the dark.
“Firstly, the guy wasn’t innocent.”
“True.” Andrej inclines his head. “No one ever is.”
Victoria inhales deeply and flashes him a warning look to keep quiet if he knows what’s good for him. “Go on, Leo.”
“He wasn’t receiving handouts from the Italians for no reason.”
Her expression remains neutral. “And secondly?”
“Secondly…” Fuck, I’ve lost my train of thought, and I can’t tell if it’s the hangover or the mental image of Gianna watching me lick out her pussy on the floor of my study last night.
“Please don’t try telling me that you do care.” Victoria is still waiting for me to give her something she can work with, and until she gets it, she’ll be in full-on Rottweiler mode.
I rest my elbows on the table and lean forward. “Xander Amory knows that I’m holding Gianna, but what has he done about it?” I don’t wait for my siblings to respond. “He’s biding his time. All Andrej did was give him a little push in the right direction.”
“Which direction is that?” Victoria asks.
“Straight into a blackout tunnel. Now all we have to do is block both ends and trap him inside.”
“Wonderful imagery there, brother,” Andrej says. “Anyone would think you’ve been reading the classics in your spare time.”
“Andrej!” Victoria snaps. “If you’ve got nothing constructive to say then keep your fucking mouth shut.”
“Whoa, sis.” He raises his hands in mock surrender. “If I’d known you were going to be this antsy, I’d have brought the swear jar. I could be on my way to Vegas now with a pocket full of cash.” At Victoria’s pursed lips, he draws an imaginary zip across his mouth.
“Leo, please continue.”
“Xander will try to pin the murder on us. It plays straight into his hands if the commissioner takes us down. The war will be over, and he’ll declare himself the victor.”
“Okay.” Victoria stares at a spot behind my left shoulder while she processes the information so far. “That would never work. He’s not exactly Mr. Innocent; he wouldn’t risk bringing the spotlight down on his own head at the same time.”
She’s intelligent, my sister. She graduated from Harvard with the highest honors in her year, but it’s her natural intuition that sets her apart from her peers. This is why I could never run the family business without her.
“The victim wasn’t his intended target.” That gets her full attention.
“Who was?”
“A mole.”
“A mole?” She shakes her head. “Come on, Leo, you’ve got to give me more than this.”
“I will when I’ve figured it out.”
Victoria addresses Andrej. “Did you know about this?”
Andrej makes an exaggerated display of unzipping his mouth. “I don’t know who it is either, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Victoria’s shoulders slump. “What the fuck, Leo. Why didn’t you mention this sooner? What are you going to do about it?”
Her tone has lost some of its abrasiveness. She is the only person I have ever told about what I witnessed in our father’s study when I was five years old.
“I’ll sort it.”
Andrej is about to mention Gianna’s failed escape attempt, but I shoot him down with a barely perceptible shake of my head. The second coffee is starting to hit the spot, and this game of chess with my rivals is what I do best.
“Fine.” Victoria’s tone makes it blatantly obvious that everything is far from fine, but she knows when to stop pushing. Another quality that makes her the best. “So, how did the police commissioner’s future son-in-law got caught in the crossfire?”
“Let’s just say that it was a case of wrong place, wrong time. It was too late for Xander to pull out, so he went with Plan B.”
Victoria steeples her fingers on the table. “So, now what?”
I refill my cup a third time, taking my time. I need Victoria on board with what I’m about to suggest. It doesn’t matter what Andrej thinks; we’ve both learned to work around him over the years.
“Xander has never gotten the police commissioner on his side. They tolerate each other while the Amory Corp funds the commissioner’s vacation homes. Xander is too volatile for the relationship to go any further.”
“Our mother however…”
I smile. “Our mother is close to the commissioner’s wife. They’ve come to respect one another through their philanthropic involvement. He won’t want to hit us if he can find a way around it because his wife will make his life a living hell.”
“So, what do you propose?”
“We’re going to build and fund a women’s refuge in the city.”
Silence. Victoria hasn’t immediately quashed the idea which is a good start.
“Have you discussed this with Gianna Sedric?” she asks eventually.
“Not yet. She was working in a women’s refuge in Montenegro before her family requested her presence back in Chicago.”
Victoria unlocks her tablet, and I give her time to do whatever research can’t wait until the meeting is over. “So, you want our mother to sell the idea to the commissioner’s wife.”
“With your assistance and expertise.”
“Don’t flatter me, Leo. It doesn’t suit you.” Victoria looks up from her tablet. “And you think this will sway the commissioner’s attention in our favor.”
“I know it will.”
“That’s it?” Andrej’s voice slices through the air in the boardroom. “That’s your master plan? Throw a fucking refuge into the mix and convince the cops to look the other way?”
I bristle at his choice of words. I haven’t seen Gianna at work, but I’ve seen how she is with Marvel and Lucky, and it doesn’t take rocket science to figure out that helping people and animals less fortunate than herself is her passion. I want this to work for her sake as well as to get Xander Amory off my case.
“Andrej.” Victoria doesn’t care for his tone either.
“What?” He uncrosses his legs and swings his seat around to face the table. “You’re not buying into this shit! You know he’s doing this for the little printzessa, right?”
“So, what if he is?”
Andrej narrows his eyes. “You don’t think it is out of character for our big brother to suddenly announce that he has a caring side? What next, huh? He’ll take a sabbatical and go set up a gorilla sanctuary in Rwanda?”
“I revert back to my initial observation, Andrej.” Victoria stares him out. “If you have nothing constructive to say, then please zip it.”
“Fuck this.” Andrej stands up, scraping his chair backwards across the polished wooden floor, and goes to the door. “I’ll be sure to come and visit you when this all comes crashing down on your heads.”
He leaves the room, slamming the door behind him, and we wait for the dust motes to settle silently before we resume the conversation.
“Talk to me, Leo. What does this have to do with Gianna Sedric?”
“She has hands-on experience of working in a refuge. I want to involve her from the planning stage right through to completion.”
“And then what?”
I know Victoria needs to see the finish line before she can start the race, but I haven’t thought beyond seeing Gianna’s face light up when I tell her what I’ve planned.
“I want her to run it.”
“Okay.” She stares at the window without seeing what’s on the other side. “You know that her family will never agree to this.”
“Gianna isn’t her family.”
Victoria shakes her head like this is going to be more painful for her than it is for me. “I can see that you want to believe this, Leo, but you know that isn’t how it works. She’ll do whatever her family orders her to do.” Pause. “What do you think would’ve happened if I’d refused to marry Aleksei? You think our father would’ve helped me set up my own law practice and given me his best wishes?”
“Gianna is different. She wants to make a difference. She cares, Victoria.”
“I care. You care. We all care, Leo. We just care about different things.”
“She hasn’t been involved in the Sedric family business. She’ll stand up to her father for this opportunity.”
“Like she stood up to him when he arranged her marriage to Seamus Mulligan?”
This stabs me straight through the chest, but I’m not giving up that easily. “She didn’t have me to fight in her corner then.”
Victoria closes her eyes briefly while she chooses her next words carefully. “You can’t fight in her corner from where you’re sitting. Do you think she’ll forgive you for your part in this war against Xander Amory?”
“She knows what I am, same as she knows what kind of man her sister married.”
She smiles, and when she speaks, her voice is gentle. “What’s this really about, Leo?”
“I need to end this war. I can’t keep doing this forever.”
“And what about Gianna?”
“What about her?” I’m stalling. I know what she wants me to say, but I haven’t figured out what it is about Gianna Sedric that has me wanting to do everything in my power to make her happy.
“Where does she figure in ‘I can’t do this forever’?”
“Honest answer: I don’t know.” I wouldn’t even reveal this much if Andrej was still in the room, but Victoria has always been able to see right through me.
“Okay, here’s what I think. You have feelings for Gianna Sedric.” I go to protest, and she raises a finger to stop me. “Hear me out. I know you better than you know yourself, Leo, and since you met her, you’ve softened. Why do you think Andrej is so angry? It suits him being the youngest sibling. You shoulder all the responsibility while he spends his time messing around and reaping the financial rewards of being an Ivanov. The last thing he wants is for you to step down.”
I know she’s right but admitting that I have feelings for Gianna is like cutting open my own chest and inviting my enemies to come and take a piece of me.
“It was going to happen one day. You’re only human.”
I can’t help smiling. “I always believed I was part monster and part automaton.”
Her expression crumples. “It’s what this life does to us, Leo. Look, I think the refuge idea will work. I’ll speak to Mom when I leave here.”
“But…?”
“What makes you so sure that Gianna will want to get involved?”
“I’m offering her a lifeline. A way out of her arranged marriage, and an opportunity to be happy.”
“Are you happy?”
The question catches me by surprise. “I will be.”
She casts her eyes to the ceiling and mutters, “Thank you, Lord. You’ll be happy when she’s happy, right?”
I don’t answer.
“Stop being such a cold-hearted moron, Leonid. Admit it. You’re in love with her.”
“I got her a puppy.”
“Of course you did.” Victoria releases a heavy sigh. “And I bet you’ve never experienced a feeling like it when you saw her reaction.”
I smile and I know how goofy I’d look right now if I could see my reflection in a mirror.
“You spoke about trapping Xander Amory in a tunnel earlier. I get it now. The refuge will block him in at one end when the commissioner’s wife tells him what upstanding citizens we are. But if you were to marry his sister-in-law, there’d be no way out for him.”
Andrej joked about me marrying her at our last meeting, but Victoria is serious.
“When I get married, I don’t want it to be a strategic move to take down my enemy.”
“It won’t be. You’re looking at this totally the wrong way.”
“But you just said—”
“Jeez, Leonid. You’ve got it bad. Did you not hear me when I said that you have feelings for this woman? You’re in love, my silly little brother. You might end a war, but you’ll get to spend the rest of your life with someone you care about. If she’ll have you.”
If she’ll have me?
That’s the million-dollar question.
Gianna is playing with the dogs in the garden when I get back to the house.
I stand on the decking and watch her for a while. When she’s with the dogs, she loses the strained air of a prisoner who doesn’t know when she’ll be released, and instead, becomes the Gianna Sedric she would be if her life choices were hers to make.
She wears no makeup. Her hair has been fashioned into a messy bun on top of her head without the use of clips or bobby pins, stray curls framing her flushed cheeks and broad smile. She’s wearing denim cut-offs, a plain black T-shirt, and her feet are bare. She’s comfortable in her own skin without the pressures of the family she was born into, and I try to convince myself that this was my gift to her. By holding her hostage, I unwittingly gave her the freedom to exist outside of family constraints.
But marriage is a whole different ball game.
She wants me. Her desire and passion for me is as violent and powerful as mine is for her. I’m no expert on love, but now that Victoria has spoken the words out loud and opened my eyes to my feelings, I know that a world without Gianna Sedric in it will be a world without sunshine.
Sweat beads on my forehead and trickles down my spine as I crick my neck from side to side. I feel like my world is teetering on the edge of a precipice. If I’m not totally deluded, and Gianna agrees to be my wife, my life will land on an even plain, one that I’ll have to learn to navigate with her by my side, but it will have a bright dawn on the horizon, and a glorious sunset to match. But if she refuses…
I might as well walk naked into Amory territory with a target on my exposed back and ask him to shoot me with my own weapon.
And I haven’t even considered what my parents will say about it.
At least I have Victoria on my side. Her love for Aleksei may not set off fireworks whenever she looks at him, but there is no jealousy or bitterness in her heart; she still wishes happiness on her siblings.
“Leo?” Gianna smiles at me as the dogs come bounding my way, and heat spreads through my chest. “You’re back.” She studies my face closely, her eyes filled with concern.
“I-I have something to discuss.”
She chews her bottom lip. “Is it my family?”
Her eyes drift to the back of the house as if her sister might suddenly appear in the doorway, arms open wide to welcome her back into the fold. Is this the best parting gift I could give her: a reunion with her family?
Suddenly, I feel way off track here.
Maybe this, us, our nights of unrivaled passion, has just been a learning curve to her.
Her parting gift to me: Thanks for the ride, Leo, it was fun while it lasted.
I almost turn around and head back inside the house to call Victoria and call off the refuge plan. Almost. But then Gianna is standing in front of me on tiptoes, and smiling at me with those turquoise eyes, and my lips meet hers.
