Page 45 of Sin & Sapphire

Why would Nikolai try to expand his territory into traditionally Italian-held neighborhoods? Since his man kidnapped Ginevra almost five years ago, we’d held an uneasy truce, and he’d looked the other way when we were fighting Costas in the street after they’d kidnapped Sofia.

“Angelo Costa’s an enforcer—all muscle, no brains,” I mused. “He doesn’t have any experience running an operation the size Gio left here in Yorkfield.”

“More than that, he’s not a Costa by blood,” my father said. “He needs Ana to hold the territory.”

“If he doesn’t find a way to publicly fix this mess he’s made with Gio’s bitch of a daughter, what’s left of the Costa empire will desert him,” another one of the capos piped in.

“Leaving the network the Costas left behind ripe for taking over,” my father finished.

I staredat my phone while holed up in the same room I’d had since I was a child. As my parents’ first-born son, I’d gotten a bedroom and a connected sitting room, unlike my sisters. And now, at thirty-one, I still lived there.

Not quite the American dream.

Like any good Italian American mafia heir, I’d move out when I married, and not a moment before. I allowed myself to imagine myself with Ana, her sparkling eyes and wit at my side as I strengthened the Russo hold on Yorkfield and merged our empires.

And then I crushed that dream and put it away. Ana wasn’t for the likes of me.

My parents would use my marriage to make an alliance with a family that would solidify our empire. The Russians were a likely bet, or the Greeks. The Ivorians and Nigerians were fighting over the right to import drugs through West Africa, but if they ever settled their differences, or one of them chased the other out of town, they’d be formidable allies as well. Or even an Italian family. Anyone but the Costas.

I was a fucking idiot.

Me

We need to meet.

Dmitri Levedev

Da. We have a problem.

Three hours later, the bratva’s second-in-command, a brutal enforcer with ice-blue eyes and scars that spoke of years in Russian prisons, slid onto a barstool beside me.

“You choose this place to fuck with me?” he shouted over the sounds of hipsters playing Skee ball and video games.

I grinned as he clapped me on the back. “It’s been too long.”

He looked around, his lips curling into a sneer. “Not long enough.”

I signaled the bartender, who slid two vodkas in front of us. Neat, but ice cold.

“Za druzhbu,” Dmitri said, clinking his glass against mine then downing it in one shot.

“To friendship,” I answered, drinking mine more slowly.

Dmitri peered into the bottom of his glass, then snapped his fingers. “Bring me the bottle.” He frowned while he examined it. “This is the good stuff.”

“Ready?”

The bartender tossed me a set of keys, and I led Dmitri through the back of the bar to an office where we could speak.

Dmitri carried the bottle and poured each of us another shot. “What can I do for you, Russo?”

I cocked my head and waited. Dmitri would eventually tell me. He grinned, revealing straight white teeth.

“You said you had a problem.”

“Ana fucking Costa.”

My eyes shot to his before I could stop myself. Not for the first time, I wished I had my sisters’ composure under fire. Pull a man’s fingernails out and get him to talk? I was your man. Hide my feelings behind a mask of indifference? Impossible.

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