Page 120 of The Contract

I exhale. Finally.

The door clicks shut behind her. I nod to Roman, like I hadn’t just missed an hour’s worth of conversation.

“Proceed.”

Roman launches back into whatever the hell he was saying while I try to catch up. My seat at the head of the table feels heavier than usual, flanked by two factions that would happily slit each other’s throats if it meant tipping the scales in their favor.

Yet here they are. Predators in Brioni suits, sipping aged scotch with all the civility of toddlers at high tea.

I take a slow sip, hyperaware that one wrong word—one wrong glance—and this polite gathering becomes a fucking bloodbath.

I should be zoning in on the tension, watching for the first fracture. Playing the warlord. Instead, I’m sitting here, distracted as hell, trying to yank my head out of my ass and back into the game.

I turn my full attention to Roman Vasiliev—Bratva’s mouthpiece for the day.

Expensive taste in cars. Dirt-cheap taste in women. Ruthless and sadistic with a mind built for expansion and a calculator where his conscience should be.

Every move calculated. Every cut precision-crafted to claim loyalty, seize territory, and bleed everyone else dry, boots firmly pressed on their throats.

Which suits me just fine. None of us are here to gab about fucking reality TV or braid friendship bracelets.

And to my right—Emilio Vargas, Valverde cartel’s golden boy.

He’s perfected the diligent soldier act. But beneath the careful facade? Methodical. Patient. A viper, coiled and still, ready to strike without so much as a warning hiss.

Quiet confidence gleams behind dark, razor-sharp eyes. A Swiss watch for every day of the week and the kind of practiced smile that appears just as he’s sliding a knife between your ribs.

The years he’s spent biding his time. Waiting. Watching. Hand steady on the blade until the precise moment arrives to gut the current faction and claim the bloodied throne.

He also happens to be Enzo’s favorite poker buddy—mostly because he loses often and pays in Krugerrands.

They trade torture techniques like fucking baseball cards and workshop inventive methods of agony in their sick little torturer support group.

These men are cold. Merciless. Cutthroat.

And oddly predictable—not just in the way their strikes guarantee devastation, but in ways I can twist like a blade to my advantage.

And then there’s me. Straitjacketing my homicidal urges, playing therapist to psychopaths.

What they don’t know is that I didn’t invite them here for scotch, small talk, and a little light wargaming.

The photo I traded for a black necklace—and what little remained of my soul—makes one thing crystal fucking clear:

Their men were at the station the day my father disappeared.

And I’m here to make sure they pay dearly for every goddamn second.

Which is why patience, for me, isn’t a virtue. It’s a strategy. A blade tucked reluctantly behind my back—waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

CHAPTER 40

Riley

“Let her in,” he repeats, voice sliding deeper into asshole territory, authority bleeding through.

That grizzly boom of command makes Godzilla-the-bouncer visibly shrink.

And who’s Prince Charming, pray tell?

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