Page 116 of Bratva Bride

Vin sat in my chair and kicked his feet up on my desk. “Whatcha got in mind?”

“First, kicking your ass for sitting in my fucking chair,” I growled, scowling at my younger brother.

He rolled his eyes and got up. “You’re like a big overgrown baby. Tell me the plan so I can get it started.”

I slipped my new shirt on, buttoning it up. “Get a couple of the men together. We’ll go into his territory tonight and hit them back. Do some research first. Find out what businesses they own and which one makes the most money. I want to know the comings and goings of their people and who sits where in the hierarchy,” I strapped a holster to my chest and placed my guns in the pouches. “Now that Franco has taken over, we need to find out who his most trusted men are.”

“Gotcha. You gonna try and turn them? Like Nero did to Diego?”

I growled at the mention of that fucker’s name. When I watched the video of Illayana’s attack and saw Diego there, fighting her, trying to be one of the men to rape her, I felt like I could burst, there was so much rage inside me. It should have occurred to me that Nero had converted Diego to his side, but it didn’t. I just assumed the little bitch took my money and fled the country, not that he went running to my enemy and gave him every fucking dime.

“We can try, but if it doesn’t work, we always have the option of killing them.”

“True, true. Well, leave it all with me and I’ll handle it.” Vin gave me a thoughtful look, like there was something he wanted to ask but he didn’t want to question me.

I sighed. “What is it?”

“Illayana is due here within the next few hours, right? Do you think it’s a good idea to leave her here alone on her first night in New York? If you want, I can handle this so you can stay with her.”

“What makes you think I’m going to leave her here?”

Vin’s eyes widened in shock, his brows shooting up. “You’re-you’re gonna bring her along? Are you serious?”

I laughed at the look on his face. “Of course I am. She’s going to be pissed when I tell her what I need to tell her. I’m going to need something to divert her anger, too. Killing our enemies and burning a few of their buildings seems like the perfect outlet to me.”

I grabbed my phone and sent a few texts off in rapid fire. A few minutes later, my office door opened and Christian, Luca and Lorenzo hobbled in.

They were all still beaten and bruised and maybe I should have felt bad about it, but I didn’t. They now understood the consequences of disobeying me. And I highly doubted they would do it again. They stopped in front of my desk and bowed slightly.

“Boss,” Luca said, wincing slightly at the pain shooting through his dislocated shoulder.

“Illayana is due here in a matter of hours. I trust that once you’re all back to normal you’ll be more thorough when guarding her?”

They all nodded without hesitation.

“Good, now go recover.”

Vin chuckled as he watched them limp their way out. “You really fucked them up.”

“They deserved it,” I grunted, sitting down behind my desk.

Vin hummed and I raised my brows at him.

“You don’t think so?”

“Arturo, come on; you know your wife. She’s a hardass and does whatever she wants. In what world do you think those three could have stopped her from doing something she wanted to do? I mean, can you even do that?”

He had a point. But it didn’t matter. I needed someone to punish and those three were still partially responsible. If I could, I would have punished her other bodyguard, Adrian too. But he was a Bratva man.

I just shook my head and waved my brother away. “Get out of here, I got shit to do.”

He smirked, opening my office door. “Didn’t think so.”

I threw my stapler at him and he slammed the door shut before it could hit him.

Illayana De Luca

We arrived a few hours ahead of schedule, so we ended up taking a cab to Arturo’s house. I thought about messaging him and letting him know we had arrived early but part of me wanted to surprise him. I told my three replacement guards not to call ahead and inform him we were here. They definitely weren’t as fun or as engaging as Christian, Luca and Lorenzo. They were boring. Barely spoke a word, just stood around with grumpy ass looks on their faces, like they wanted to be anywhere else except here with me.

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