Page 8 of Ruthless Vow

“We’ve been over this. It was heat of the moment,” Damian snarls back. “You would have done the same if he hurt your woman.”

I flick a glance at my brother’s face but don’t bother to reply. My woman? I don’t have a woman.

I fuck women. I escort women to events when business interests benefit if I am seen with a date. I care about none of them. I can’t imagine caring about a woman other than my mother, who is dead. My sister, who is the precious baby of our family and who, at our father’s insistence has been trained to fight and shoot and take care of herself. And Alina, simply because she is Damian’s woman and, as such, deserves my care and respect and protection.

Don’t get me wrong. I treat women with respect. The wives and girlfriends of my employees. Their daughters and mothers. The women who work for me.

I only fuck women who give explicit and very clear consent.

But I don’t give a shit about any of them.

So, no, I do not understand why he had to kill Bianchi instead of just maiming him. But clearly, he feels he was justified.

Damian and I circle each other, breathing hard, looking for a weak point to take advantage of. I feint with a jab. Damian’s guard goes up. I step in with a right hook, going for the side of my brother’s head.

His left arm snaps up, partially blocking the blow. He steps back, trying to create a buffer zone. I follow, closing on him, smelling blood in the water.

He jabs to hold me off and follows with a straight right.

The straight slams into my chest.

Hurts like hell. But it’s only pain. Pain is finite.

I come at him with a series of jabs while he weaves and bobs, looking for his opportunity.

We’re both breathing heavy, sweat flying with every punch.

Again, we circle each other.

“With Nicole gone, who’s going to help organize Sabina’s engagement party?” Damian asks.

“What?” His question catches me off guard, but his right hook doesn’t. I block and circle.

“Nicole,” he says. “She organized your life. Your calendar. Business shit. Charity events. Parties. Everything. So who’s going to help organize Sabina’s party?”

“Sabina can do it herself,” I say, testing his defenses with a series of jabs. “Alina can help her.”

“Who’s going to make sure no one important is left off the guest list? I don’t think Sabina knows enough about who needs to be invited. She’s never shown an interest in that. And Alina definitely doesn’t know. She needs time to learn who’s who.”

He seems genuinely concerned. Concerned enough to drop his guard. I don’t take advantage of the opportunity because I see his point. An oversight that causes insult to another family or an ally would be disastrous this early in my tenure as boss.

“Fuck me,” I mutter as Damian heads to the side of the ring, grabs a towel for himself and throws one to me. The problem isn’t just the engagement party. Damian’s right. Nicole organized my life. And now Nicole is gone, hiding somewhere out there.

I’m exceptional at puzzles and games, including hide and seek. She won’t be missing for long. But that doesn’t solve the issue of who will take over her position. Fully training a new assistant will take months.

At that moment, Luca crosses the gym, catching my eye. He offers a nod and I wait until he reaches the side of the ring and grins up at me.

“Found out her father’s name,” he says. “Bruno Moretti.”

“Moretti,” I say, recognition making things a hell of a lot clearer.

“I thought her last name is Milano,” Damian says.

“That was her mother’s last name,” Luca says. He turns to me. “You think her father was one of the old Moretti clan?”

The old Moretti clan. A family that had held power almost half a century ago. But they’d been arrogant, undisciplined. They’d grown too fast, overreached, stepped on toes as they climbed too high. They’d fallen just as quickly. In the span of a single month, there had been a war fought in the shadows, one that had ended the hold the Morettis had on any power here in Vegas. They’d been left broken and bloody, licking their wounds.

And now it seems one of the children’s children is out looking for revenge on the family that took them down.Myfamily.

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