Page 3 of Forced Mafia Bride
Eyeing her, I brought the cigar to my lips again, but she pried it from between my fingers with a wry grin. “I’ve told you, Niko, smoking is bad for you.”
She put it between her lips and sucked hard with a wider grin and a challenging brow raised. That pulled a small smile to my lips. It always did.
“Hypocrite.”
She let out a deep, sonorous chuckle, exposing straight white teeth, and exhaled, lifting her bare caramel-glowing ass from my leg as the smoke curled around us, a sweet, acrid mist creating a mild fog while she wore her denim jumpsuit and pointy heels.
She snatched her purse, nodding at the other man in the room before cat-walking past him.
“Anatoly,” she greeted.
“Samara.”
When the door quietly clicked shut behind him, he gave me an unimpressed once-over before dragging a newspaper from the desk to flip through. The pages rustled when he clicked his tongue.
“Respectfully, Niko, I have something to say.”
I blew out a long sigh, tugged the zip on my dress pants, and readjusted the belt buckle. I already sensed what he was going to say. It was the same thing my brother had been saying, the same nagging whispers amongst a few Bratva members.
I gripped the edges of the desk, pulled myself closer to the hardwood, and gave him a look thatsaidI didn’t give a shit about his advice. “Don’t bother. I didn’t ask for it.”
“Still.” Anatoly was going to say it anyway. He’d gone past the boundaries of being just one of my most loyal men to my second-in-command and had landed to the point of being a full part of the Yezhov family.
He returned the newspaper to the desk and folded his buffy arms over his black shirt. “You should think about settling down. That is getting old.”
That,in context, referred to Samara’s frequent visits—late nights at work, early hours at the house, and whenever I felt bored or happy. Samara was on speed dial. Frankly, she was the only whore I could stomach. And another one whose name I’d forgotten. But lately, I’d been getting bored, not only of them but also of the chase. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d looked at a woman and felt the insane urge to have as many of them lying naked on my bed.
Egor liked to joke that old age was catching up with me, and I was going to end up celibate if I continued that way. I scoffed at it; if Grandpa was almost seventy when he married his young wife, Ania, forty was not a death sentence.
When I gave him a hard glare, with my chin tipped up and a brow arched on my forehead, he knew I’d dropped the conversation.
“That’s not a plan, settling down with one woman anytime soon. Samara and…. What’s the other one with the blue eyes and ginger hair?”
“Katya,” he offered with a knowing smirk. I always forgot her name.
“Yes, her. They’re good enough for the time being. Tell me, what’s the news?”
He wasn’t convinced, but he scratched the scruff on his jaw and gave me a curt nod. “Right, the crazy news. It’s the Irish. Sean Gallagher passed away last night. Turned out he’dbeen battling health issues for a while now, but they kept it to a minimum.”
Was I sad to hear about the Irishman’s death?
Most definitely not.
It made sense that they tried to hide the news from prying the ears of power-hungry moguls like me. A sick ruler meant a weak kingdom. And a weak kingdom was vulnerable and susceptible to attack. If either of Sean’s enemies heard about his condition, he would have died weeks ago. One of them would have killed him. But somehow, the way Anatoly moved his mouth in funny motions told me he hadn’t delivered the main news.
“So, Sean’s dead.”
His head went up and down, and a dangerous glimmer sparked in his eyes. “And his younger brother, Ronan, is going to be the one running the show now.”
I hated two things—well, I hated a lot of things but had managed to fix them in two major categories: mediocrity and the Irish.
I viewed the ordinary human species with contempt, believing that those who clung to fantasies, hoped for a greater and more peaceful cause, and sought justice in a world they thought was more than just black and white were nothing but mediocre. In my opinion, they were weak, naïve, and foolish, blinded by their idealism and refusal to accept the harsh realities of life. Their hopes and dreams seemed quaint, almost laughable, as they struggled to make a difference in a world that was molded to be cruel and unforgiving.
I’d seen too much, experienced too much, to be in that class of the simpletons.
The second object of my contempt was everything related to the Irish, and unfortunately, Ronan Gallagher fell into that category.
He and his brother were the stark opposites, sharing only the blood that linked them. Sean was smart and acted with caution, while Ronan proved time and time again that he didn’t give a fuck. He acted on impulse and considered the consequences afterward. I’d taken months to study his patterns of operations after one of his many attempts to bring Egor off.