Page 138 of Dance of Deception

My fingers flex again.

I feel it creeping up my spine: a vicious urge to erase every single one of them before they even have a chance to think about touching her.

Lyra stirs beside me, her lips parting with a soft sigh. I force myself to relax.

I shouldn’t feel this violent need to protect her. It’s not in my nature. I take what I want, butI don’t keep.

And yet…

I reach out, fingers skimming the curve of her hip, tracing the bruises I left. The proof that she belongs to me.

She shifts again, pressing closer, her breath ghosting against my chest. A low growl rumbles in my throat.

Mine.

I watch her for a long time, the battle waging inside me. Do I let this happen? Or do I root it out before it can grow into something I don’t understand?

If I let this feeling in and accept it, I know exactly what that means.

It means Lyra isn’t just a possession anymore, she’s a weakness.

And I don’t have weaknesses.

At least, I didn’t—until now.

Santino takesthe chair across from my desk without hesitation or deference. Just smooth, unhurried confidence, like he’s been sitting in that exact spot for decades.

Which, to be fair, he has.

He crosses one leg over the other, adjusts the cuffs of his three-button suit jacket, and gives me his usual calm, collected look.

He could be holding a smoking machine gun with a pile of bodies behind him, a brick of cocaine peeking out his pocket and the commissioner of the New York City police department right there with handcuffs already out, and he’d look just as unruffled.

Santino’s been with my family longer than I’ve been alive, an old-schoolconsiglierefrom a different era when deals were sealed with a handshake or a bullet, and loyalty meant you went into thegroundbefore you talked.

That might make him a relic, but it doesn’t mean he’s out of touch. He’s survived this long because he’s smarter than any men who underestimated him.

He’s also, despite his calm demeanor and stylish suits, the toughest motherfucker in any room he enters. Even now, in his seventies.

The scars on his knuckles tell that story pretty clearly.

When I was a kid, I used to stare at his hands in fascination—at the crooked knuckle that had healed wrong after he broke it on a man’s face. I remember asking him once if it still hurt. He just laughed and said,Carmy, pain is just proof you’re still in the fight.

I allow myself a moment to admire the seriouslyswanksuit he’s wearing. Santino always dresses like he just walked off stage at the Sands in 1962. He’s Frank Sinatra reincarnated, with a butterfly knife hidden in his jacket and gun up his sleeve. I’ve always suspected that’s half the reason my father has always listened to him.

The other half is that Santino understands this game better than anyone, and his loyalty to this family is absolute.

“What’ve you got for me today, Santino?”

He smooths a hand down his lapel, his cufflinks glinting in the dim light. “Word is there’s Russian movement in our territory. Not an attack yet. But testing. Feeling it out.”

I frown. “Not the Nikolayev Bratva?—”

He snorts, shaking his head. “Kir wouldn’t be so obvious. No, these incursions are from the Ivanov family. However, Peter Ivanov's cousin, Matvey Kazurov, is?—”

“One of Kir’s topavtoritets,” I finish for him, my gaze darkening. “So, either Kir’s getting a touch careless, or he just doesn’t give afuck about subtlety anymore.” I drum my fingers on the edge of the desk. “Thoughts on how we respond?”

Santino tilts his head. “I was thinking, since you may or may not have influential Russian friends in certain…unmentionedcircles…” He clears his throat delicately. “Perhaps you might have a conversation with them."

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