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I wanted all of this. I wanted it with a selfishness that could drag them deeper into the dark shit. But I didn’t care. I turned away from the sight of them having fun plucking apples, the conviction of this new desire burning inside me like a furnace with chucked up wood.
I wanted a family; the kind with the living forever and the growing old together shit. It didn’t matter how sappy it sounded; I wanted it. And I wanted it with Gianna, Daylan, and Ryan. I would protect them with my life, and I didn’t care if I got shot a thousand times doing so.
I decided. After the war with the Outfit, I would make things right.
***
The sun had gone down when Nikolai and Vincent stepped out of the house with a bottle of Kors and glasses. The ladies, whispering, giggling, and chatting under hushed tones, laid one basket after the other on the big sheets spread across the grass.
Orange caught my eyes, and my lips twitched when her eyes met mine. She blushed, tearing her gaze away from mine to listen to something Lillianna was saying about fabrics and cushions. I was glad, she appeared to be catching up fast with the rest of the girls. A strong friendship looked like it was underway.
They set the glasses down, and Nikolai teased Mariana after snatching an apple from her fruit basket. The kids ran around, swinging balloon-shaped swords in the air and playing Knights and Dragons—or so I heard Giselle mention.
The picnic had been Lillianna’s idea, and even after the rest of us didn’t subscribe to it, Sergey had let her have her way. We might not have subscribed to the picnic idea at first, but as the minutes passed by and the cool evening breeze grew cooler, it didn’t seem so terrible anymore. As a matter of fact, I was enjoying it. And the rest of my brothers looked like they did, too.
I picked up a glass, poured myself a decent amount of Vodka, and fell into a conversation with my brothers about...
“No.” Vincent shook his head. “There’s no way you’re doing the hero shit. We are working together on this one. We always do. If one goes down, we all go down.”
“It was just a suggestion. Besides, I got shot, remember?”
“Yeah, because you did the hero shit,” Nikolai arched a brow, a glint of amusement crossing his eyes. “You stepped in to take the bullet.”
“Because I had to,” I snapped.
Vincent waved our attention over with a stupid burp. “I’m fucking serious, Max. The Outfit is ours to deal with, not just yours. Doesn’t even matter if you try to do things your way. Sergey would never support it. And if he doesn’t support it, you know what that means?”
Nikolai peeled open a banana and nodded slowly. “Plans in the fucking mud.”
I threw my head back, taking a swig. That closed the topic. They were right; Sergey would never support me going after Paul DeLuca alone. It didn’t matter how bad the rage blinded me, I had to wait until a proper plan was formed.
From noon to dusk, and then pitch-darkness when no stars lit up the sky, lights came up on the walkways, and fireflies danced in the darker distance. Once every ten minutes, I’d catch her staring hot against the side of my face, and when I turned, she’d look away.
The kids were asleep on the sheets, and the ladies bickered about a trending celebrity when Sergey walked in, dark as night, with a phone pressed to his ear. The conversations fell to a hush, and we looked up expectantly when he dropped the phone and opened his mouth to speak.
“Sorry, I’m late. But I bring great news. I have Raphael, Viktor, and Lucien flying in tonight to help with the war. This war with the Outfit will be the last one, I fucking swear it.”
I grinned.
Finally, a plan.
Chapter 21 - Gianna
Maxim’s cousins didn’t arrive until seven a.m. the next morning. I had tried to keep awake, to see them march into the house with polished Italian leather shoes, black suits, and black suitcases, like a bunch of dangerous men had done in a movie I watched years ago—the title is forgotten. But Max had coaxed me to sleep, claiming that I needed the rest and that he would wake me when they arrived.
News flash: he didn’t.
Heavy murmurs, short barks of laughter, and the smell of very strong coffee stirred me from sleep. I rubbed my eyes and arms; a trail of goosebumps covered my skin. Only a flicker of sunlight gleamed through the drawn curtains. I sighed. If I didn’t know Maxim better, I’d think he was Dracula, who hated sunlight.
I got out of bed, sighing at the orange sundress I still had on, and went into the bathroom for a quick shower. The water was warm on my skin, and no matter how hard I tried to focus on getting clean, my mind wandered back to the seriousness on Sergey’s face when he announced the near arrival of his cousins.
If it hadn’t dawned on me already, it did now: this war was real. The exact type that promised a bloodbath before the curtains were drawn. I shut my eyes and forced my mind to focus on the stream of water cascading down my back.
I released a breath with a shudder. I was scared for one major reason: the promises of whose blood it would be was uncertain.
As I skimmed through the clothes hanging in the closet, apprehension wrapped itself around me like black silk. I worried for Maxim and the rest of his family involved in the bloody war. Sergey had gone ahead and called external backup—the cavalry. If that didn’t scream, “We are ready to die fighting if we have to,” I didn’t know what else did.
I grabbed one of Max’s oversized shirts, paired it with ripped shorts, and took my time down the stairs toward the direction of the voices. With each step I took, the weight in my chest sunk deeper and deeper, like an anchor going down in the ocean, and their voices became clearer.
