Page 81 of Claimed By Desire

“Let’s talk,” he says, crossing his arms. “My people will start showing up in twenty minutes. I assume you’ll want to be gone before they arrive.”

“You tried to kill Lev.”

“His sister left me at the altar.” His eyebrows raise. “She married you instead.”

“I got her pregnant. It’s nothing personal.”

“Have you ever been ditched on your wedding day, Alexander? Trust me, it feels very personal.”

“You don’t actually care about Natalya.”

“No, I don’t,” he agrees.

“So why push this war?”

His face shows a very slight smile. “That’s my father’s doing. If it had been up to me, I would’ve pursued other options.”

“Such as?”

“Business arrangements. Like that big job you have going with your Canadian friends.”

I’m not remotely surprised. This has been about our business from the start. That’s why the Marinos were amenable to a marriage alliance in the first place—they know that once the Canadian pipeline is up and running smoothly, we’ll have enough product to flood the whole east coast. Sooner or later, we’ll drown them out.

Adriano’s smart. But his father’s old school. To a mafioso like that, respect is everything.

I suspect Adriano’s more concerned with money and power.

“What if you and I came to an agreement? What if we found a way to pull out of this mess?”

“Like I said, I’m open to it.”

“A piece of the Canadian job. Product at cut rates.”

“We were getting a better deal when I was going to marry your wife.”

“I don’t think I can get you anything else at this point. You did nearly kill Lev.”

He gestures like that’s a fair point. “What do you get in all this?”

“I get an end to the war and I get to keep my wife and our child without worrying some Italian cocksucker is going to try to murder us.”

“Seems like a decent reason to me.”

“But that won’t be enough. My boss will want something. Your arrangement to Natalya fell apart, but that doesn’t mean a marriage is off the table.”

“You want me to marry a different Russian girl?” He says it like that’s the most distasteful thing in the world.

“I want you to make a good business decision. Who knows what the world will look like in the future? If you’re in the family now, you might see a bigger piece of the profits later.”

He drums his fingers on the bar. “I’m not interested in going through with another one of those shams.”

“Then we’re going to have a problem. I need something to bring back to my bosses. I can’t just give you some of the Canada job with nothing to show for it.”

He tilts his head. “The problem is, your wife was acceptable because she’s Federov’s daughter. That makes her close to Valentin Zeitsev himself. But without her—“ He shrugs as if there’s nothing he can do.

“You have women on your side, and Natalya has a brother.” I shouldn’t have said that, but it just rolls off my tongue, because it’s the obvious solution. Natalya’s married now, but Lev isn’t. He could take an Italian bride and we could start all over again.

Except there’s no way Lev will go for that.

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