Since my father was still traveling back from Miami after a meeting with an ally there, it was up to me to act in his place here at the Ivanov residence. Standing out back, past the patio space, I waited with Nik and Damon as the soldiers transported a spy they’d captured earlier this evening.
Overseeing this wasn’t necessary, but I wanted to see the face of the man Hugo, one of the crew leaders, had caught trying to kill one of our guards. The warehouse the guard had been stationed at wasn’t one of our main drug distribution and packing centers, but they all mattered. Regardless of where a hit came, every attack on the Ivanov Syndicate was punishable to the highest degree.
When Hugo walked the young man toward the doors that would lead to the dungeons in the basement, where we tortured our enemies to stay ahead of the other crime families in New York, I saw nothing that would make me guess who he was working for.
“He say anything?” I asked Hugo when he returned to the outdoor area. We were near the recreational space to smell the chlorine from the pool water, but off to the side like this, it was just darkness over the pavement. Several cars idled on the drive under the security lights, but Hugo slowed to speak with us before taking off.
“No,” Hugo replied, using a handkerchief to wipe blood from his chin. He cleared his throat, seeming to need another moment to catch his breath after handling the captured man. “He didn’t say a single thing.” Older than my father, he looked tired. But I knew he was prepared for more violence. Seeing him in this light, huffing for air, reminded me of how critical it was to balance every crew with seasoned veteran soldiers or leaders and the younger recruits who could take on more of the grunt work.
Damon cracked his knuckles and rocked on his heels. “I’ll see what I can get out of him.”
Nik and I shared a glance, not saying anything. Damon was the “Demon” and always eager to inflict pain on our enemies. But from the brief look I’d had of the captured man before he was taken downstairs, he was already sporting too much of a bloody pulp instead of a face to last very long, anyway.
Anyone who messed with the Ivanovs lived only long enough to impart their secrets.
“I don’t understand why anyone would target that warehouse,” Hugo added as he shoved his bloody cloth into his pocket and straightened his jacket. “My bloc doesn’t see much activity like that.”
Perhaps that’s why Father has you stationed there in your old age. A semi-retirement for your decades of loyalty.
“Nothing’s been happening in those warehouses for years, and now, all of a sudden, there’s a hit on one of the dealers there?” He furrowed his brow as he shook his head. “Makes no sense.”
“None of these recent incidents make sense,” I complained.
Petty theft. Instigated street fights. Hits on lower-level dealers and bosses. It all added to a string of trouble, like my father had spoken to us about last week in the kitchen that one morning. And all of it threw me off to the point I suspected this could be the calm before the storm. But like Hugo said, none of it made sense. Nothing directed us to assume there was a goal our enemies had in mind. Nothing of value had been compromised. No new deals were made against us so that we’d need to plan to protect different assets.
It all seemed like minor headaches popping up with too much frequency, as if someone wanted to keep us on our toes.
But who?
“Maybe it’s all a diversion,” Nik guessed, looking at me, then Damon.
“Diversion from what, though?” I shook my head and wished I had a cigarette. When our grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, our grandmother urged us all to quit. It hadn’t been easy, and I still had my weak moments, but for her, we tried.
Nik shrugged. “Time will tell.”
“I agree,” Hugo said. “Just like those orders from Anastasia to set up a meeting with the Barzini family.” He rolled his eyes. “One of you is really going to settle down?” He laughed once. “Wait ’til you’re older like me to find a wife.”
“No,” I growled. I couldn’t speak for my brothers, but I had no interest in her scheming. “I’m not even thinking about settling down.”
Hugo grunted another laugh. “It sounds to me that Anastasia’s starting to prepare a selection process for one of you to be arranged in a marriage.”
“Not me,” Nik, Damon, and I said in unison.
Chuckling some more, Hugo headed toward his car. “If you need anything else, you know where to find me.”
We thanked him for capturing the man. After he left with the soldiers assigned to him and his bloc, my brothers and I entered the house.
“Diversion from what?” I asked again as we stalled in the large entertainment room in the back.
Nik shrugged. “I don’t know. And I don’t know why the Romanos or Kozlovs would bother trying to take out a dealer in that neighborhood.”
Damon arched one brow as he looked between us. “Are you certain that our trouble is coming from those two families?”
Nik shook his head while I shrugged.
“They seem most likely,” I replied. “Things have been tenser than usual between Father and Anton Kozlov.”
“And the Romanos are looking to recoup money from fighting with the Cartels this spring,” Nik said.
“Between both of those potential threats, there’s no time to be distracted by any diversions,” I said, frowning at how someone from within the family would be distracting us from focusing on safety.
“But I think it’s not surprising that someone could be trying to mess with us now,” Nik said. “We’ve been stable and increasing profit without anyone holding us in check for decades now.”
“Yes, because it took Father at least a decade to clean up the losses and messes Beatrice made by turning traitor.” I grimaced at the thought of our mother. We never called her by that title. Even Grandmother struggled to speak her name without an expression of distaste on her face.
“We’ve been envied for a long stretch,” Nik said as he joined me in heading toward the bar for a drink.
“We have,” Damon agreed. “And it surprises me that families haven’t been pursuing us for an arranged marriage because of that.”
“Everyone wants a piece of us,” I muttered before tossing a shot of vodka back. “All of them want our power and wealth. Without a woman to use us through, though, they haven’t been able to bring us down.”
“Do you think that’s what’s happening?” Nik asked. “Someone’s trying to take over?”
“When isn’t someone trying to do that?” I challenged wryly. We were at the top, the leaders of the criminal underworld in New York, and plenty of our enemies wanted what we had. What we’d spent generations to build. Our empire hadn’t grown overnight. And it wouldn’t be threatened without justice served, either. Facing Damon, who didn’t take a drink like me and Nik, I shook my head. “And Father wouldn’t be entertaining any offers for marriage arrangements because he doesn’t give a shit.”
“He will,” Nik said. “He knows we’ll need an heir.”
“Someday,” I argued. “But I mean it. I’m in no rush to find a wife. Father won’t rush either because he knows more than us how dangerous a woman can be.”
Our grandmother was an exception, but that wouldn’t sway me out of this stubbornness to remain a bachelor. With a woman, we’d always have to worry whether she’d sell family secrets, have affairs, or look out for herself to get more and more power from other families.
“And Father’s fine.” Nik smirked. “He’s not that old yet. With his health, he could fuck a couple more mistresses and add to the heir line besides us.”
He won’t. “He’s not willing to let another woman in his life after Beatrice nearly got us all killed from her affair with the wrong people.” I took another shot, needing to loosen up from all this stress. Damon would go downstairs and handle torturing that stupid fucker, but I was tense, nonetheless. All this talk about marriage bothered me. “Fuck, I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to have a woman in my life forever.” I preferred flings, quick fucks with random women and absolutely no strings attached.
Just sex. No emotions. Because that was how Beatrice nearly ended the family. She had emotions. She fell in love—just not with Father. Those feelings were all the motivation she’d needed to manipulate us all, but since then I’d learned the lesson that women could only serve one purpose in this world, in our family.
To be bred.
To give us an heir so we could rule forever.
“Besides, the second any of us has to deal with keeping a wife, they’re more collateral to worry about. We don’t need to split up our protection detail like that.”
I laughed once. “Protection detail? What, like our wives would be allowed to have a life and live? To go anywhere?”
As far as I was concerned, whatever women we were forced to knock up could just stay behind this house’s locked doors.
Nik and Damon didn’t argue with me on that point, but I knew they had to be thinking the same thing.
“Fuck it.” I set my glass on the bar and shoved my hands in my pockets. “I’m not changing my mind about it anytime soon, no matter what Grandmother thinks.” Looking at both of my brothers, I tipped my chin up. “Where’s Saul?”
“I think he’s dealing with a rat in Brooklyn,” Nik said. “Something about embezzlement at one of the whorehouses.”
“Ah.” I rubbed my chin, knowing Damon would be busy tonight in the dungeon beating some answers out of that man Hugo brought in. “Want to go to the Geminis’ event with me? I’m going to head out now.”
Nik made a face, indifferent. “What event?”
“Some kind of party.” I didn’t want to go out and celebrate, not at all in a festive mood at the moment, but I realized the invitation to the Gemini Family’s party could be a way to hear rumors. With this suspense of anticipating more attacks on us, it seemed imperative to keep eyes and ears open everywhere.
“Nah. I’m going to stay in,” Nik said.
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” As I left with a couple of men flanking me, I wondered if I could find a nameless woman to distract myself with for the night. It’d been a while, and although diversions and distractions were the last things I needed, a quick one-night stand wouldn’t linger as distraction for long.
With a smile lifting my lips, I looked forward to letting off some steam if I could.
No wives for me yet.
Not if I can help it.
