#1 Chapter 19
Alessandro
From the first time I met Katya, I could tell one thing. She was not somebody you walked over.
By the time she’d tried taking my second property, I’d seen that she did not just look hard as rocks, she was as hard as rocks. Maybe even harder.
I’d known her a while now, and I wouldn’t have been able to name one thing that could be her weakness.
One thing that anybody could use to get to her.
She had none, no weaknesses. Except for her father.
Unconditionally, Yuri Petrenko was the most important person to her. The only person that could tame the wild tiger that was my wife.
I knew I could never force her to do anything. If she made up her mind, nothing would change it. No one could change her mind.
No one but her father. He was that influential.
If I had proposed joining hands against the Trievs, Katya might have agreed, she was a leader, and she would always choose what was best for her family, but if I had proposed a marriage to make everything easier, she would have disagreed with the same breath.
Maybe she would have handled any issues that arose, maybe she would have found a different, less efficient way, but she would never have agreed to marry me.
Regardless of whether she was attracted to me or not.
The only reason she had.
Her father.
Her father who was now in the hospital, was in a private hospital room resting after undergoing a surgery.
He was a tall, strong, reasonable man, somebody who was not as ruthless as many powerful mafia dons.Text content © NôvelDrama.Org.
Even when the Trievs had caused him trouble, he hadn’t used that as a reason to go after them. Instead, he’d dealt with every problem sensibly.
“I think Katya is going to burn down the city if you don’t do something,” Arianna came to sit beside me in the corridor, outside Yuri’s room. “She’s been muttering since about fire and damnation. I’m sure the nurses don’t understand a word of Russian, but even they’re terrified.”
“Good, at least we’re both on the same page on that.”
Ari gave me a look. “I should have gone to Frankie instead. Goodness knows he’s better at talking sense into you.”
My eyes were locked on the door, my mind thinking about Yuri, the bullet wounds that had peppered his body before surgery.
Bloody, weak, still reassuring Katya even though he’d been bleeding out.
“Even if he could, who’ll talk sense into Katya? The one person that could is unconscious.”
She was quiet for a while, then she sighed and stood up. “This was really obvious, but I just didn’t want it to be on the record that I didn’t try. Plus, I really liked Yuri. They should pay for what they’ve done.”
She looked at her phone.
“But you should go back in, I’ll go get the food.”
When I returned, Katya was sitting by the bed, holding Yuri’s hand. That was the position I had left her in.
Going to stand by her, I put a hand on her shoulder. “Arianna said you were summoning demons in Russian.”
She was quiet, unmoving.
“I want to flay that bastard. Hear him scream. I want his head on a spike like we’re in the Middle Ages.”
Yuri’s chest rose and fell very slowly.
“You’re a part of our family now,” Dom said leaning on the wall close to the window, looking outside. “Yuri is a part of our family.”
“This is grounds for war,” Frankie continued the point Dom had been trying to make. “We wouldn’t be the ones that started it, they threw the first blow.”
I understood everything they were saying.
I gave Katya’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
“We won’t take this sitting down. None of their establishments will be safe, not from me,” I said as a promise.
“I want to kill him myself.” Katya turned and looked up at me. “I’m the one that gets to dismember Maxim Triev.”
I nodded my agreement.
“I’ll hand him over on a golden platter.”
Her lips twitched slightly before she turned back to her father.
The war I had been careful to avoid was here. Every fucking thing with a Triev’s sticker on it was going to burn down.
I did not start this shit, but I had every intention of finishing it.