1. Gia

"Elio. Stop. I'm fine."

I'm grateful that the phone, and about a million miles, separates me from my brother.

Otherwise, he would probably be able to tell that I am not, in fact, fine.

Or maybe he wouldn't. I haven't been fine in a long time, and Elio doesn't seem to have noticed much.

The bitterness in that realization makes me take another long sip of the vodka that I've been slowly working through for the better part of an hour.

"Gia," Elio grumbles, my twin's voice as familiar to me as my own. "The Russians are not our friends."

"They're not your friends," I say, emphasizing the word ‘your.' "But that doesn't mean they aren't mine."

They better be, after I rescued their boss' idiot daughter Stassi from the Irish in Belarus.

I drink more vodka to chase the memory.

Because with memories of Belarus, come memories of Sal.

And forgetting Sal is the whole point right now.

"The Russians have a long history with our family."

I sigh. "So do all of the crime families, Elio. That doesn't mean we can't make new alliances."

"That they will eventually betray."

"So?"

I kind of like the thrill of it all. The fact that there are alliances, favors, and obligations we all have to each other. Being part of a world that has no rules means we adhere to our own, despite what the normal boundaries of society seem to think.

It's called organized crime for a reason.

I've always loved the dance of it, even more than Elio has. That love made my mother and father absolutely crazy, but Elio isn't as locked into old prejudices as they are.

While he's out on paternity leave, I'm in charge of the Rossi family.

And I love him deeply, but I'm hopeful to make the move permanent.

Elio curses in Italian, and I smile. Usually, that means that he's annoyed with me, but he's not annoyed enough to back down.

That's perfect.

Out of the two of us, I know exactly how stubborn I need to be in order to get what I want.

"Fine. But I am sending you some backup."

"Did you finally decide who to promote to Nico's position?"

I'm genuinely curious about that. Nico betrayed Elio and me, allowing an Irish mob leader to capture Elio's wife Caterina. Well, ‘allowed' is a nice term.

I'm pretty sure he sold her for a healthy payout.

"Yes," Elio says without any follow-up.

"Okay. And…?"

"He will be at your hotel within the hour."

My eyes scrunch up. I'm in Prague, which I did not tell Elio. Elio thinks that I'm in Amsterdam, where our meeting with the Russians is going to take place in one week.

Amsterdam is like Vegas in Europe. It's a lovely place to have a sit-down with a rival gang and get some delicious pastries at the same time.

A win-win, as I always say.

Amsterdam is for business. Paris is to impress someone that you want to date. Prague, however, is a city I prefer. It's a little dark, a little gloomy, but people have a great sense of humor and love to get down over a beer.

And when they drink, they tell all their secrets.

"How do you know the hotel I'm staying at?"

"I don't," Elio says flatly. "But I trust that he will."

My brother is so annoying. "Elio, you know no one has ever been able to find me if I don't want to be found."

"I know."

"So, if this is some kind of test for you new guy, you can probably call it off."

"It isn't. He already passed."

"You're annoying."

"Ti amo, sister mine."

The line goes dead.

I flip the phone onto the couch and glare at it. "Insufferable asshole."

My brother is many things, sadly, but an asshole is not one of them. Oh, he tries. He glowers and preens and does his whole mafia-king routine.

But deep down? Elio is as soft as a marshmallow and just as sweet.

He's always wanted to be a family man. He's cautious with his investments, he's protective of the people he loves. He adores Caterina, and their daughter Luna, and he can't wait for their twins to be born.

In another life, Elio would have been made for a suburban lifestyle.

He and Caterina could have hosted dinner parties for the whole block and made drinks for the neighbors while they watched their kids play in the streets. Sure, he's played the part of a mafia don for the majority of his life, but deep down, he's not meant for this.

Not like I am.

I fucking love it.

The politics. The intrigue. The backstabbing. All of it thrills me, and while Elio recognized quickly that I was an asset to him, I never let him see all of the things I do.

Nominally, he runs the Rossi family.

But I've been doing it for him for years.

I tell myself that I don't mind, that the thrill of it all is what I enjoy. But lately, I've noticed that I'm a little less… inclined to believe that.

I'm thirty-five years old. I'm finally starting to feel like I need to make an impact that people can see.

And I'm also kind of fed up with the bullshit that living in a world of men and machismo brings me.

I don't want to take the family from Elio. I love him deeply, and he's my brother.

However, should he decide that the stay-at-home dad life is for him…

I finish my vodka.

I'm kind of hoping he does.

I set my glass down and stroll into the living room of my suite. The hotel offers an excellent view of Old Town, and while I can't see the red-roofed buildings in the dark, the city glitters before me.

It's pretty.

There's actually a little café down on the corner that I might go to in a minute. It serves a pretty mean espresso martini, and if I want to stay awake long enough to video chat with Luna after she gets back from her first day of school, I need to mix some caffeine with my booze.

The last time I had an espresso martini was…

I shiver.

In Minsk. When I was trying to figure out who the hell sold Luna out to the Irish mob.

When Sal…

I gulp. There's no other way to remember this.

He saved me.

The memories of Belarus feel like they're crowding my mind. I sit down on the couch and sigh, closing my eyes against the images that are flashing behind my eyelids.

I'm just tipsy enough to admit that I miss him.

I don't want to miss him.

My eyes snap open.

About four weeks ago, Sal made it abundantly clear that we were friends. That despite everything we'd been through together, he didn't want to ‘take advantage' of me.

I had offered him something that I'd never offered a man in my entire life.

And he said no.

So, that night, after Elio informed me that he would need me to take over some of his duties as the head of the family while he focused on Caterina, I had done the only thing I could.

I had told Sal there was nothing between us. That anything we'd had had just been because of Belarus.

Because of the way we needed each other then.

And we didn't anymore.

Two days later, he hadn't been at Luna's birthday party.

And now…

I haven't spoken to him in weeks.

The thought makes my heart ache. Despite the fact that Sal and I could never be anything other than friends, than relatives, I didn't want to stop talking to him altogether.

In the last four months, Sal became my best friend. We did everything together.

We slept in the same room because I couldn't sleep alone.

He was the only one who kept the nightmares away.

Despite the fact that he's wildly attractive, I never asked him for more. Not until I did, anyway.

And he rejected me.

The rejection still burns through me.

But alas. I need to move on. If Elio's new person is as good as he says he is, I probably don't have much time before he figures out where I am.

Or why I'm here.

The real reason that I'm lurking around Prague, aside from the fact that it's pretty convenient as far as hiding places go, is that I have a lead. And that lead is going to help me protect my family.

The family that I need to impress in order to get control of this organization.

And, be taken seriously.

Caterina, my beloved sister-in-law, is pregnant with twins. Clearly, that particular gene runs in the family, but I made a promise to her.

And I want to get it done before the babies arrive.

I promised that I would find her older brother, Marco.

At some point in the chaos of last year, Marco disappeared. I had no idea where he was, and that fact alone was annoyingly suspicious.

I am good at what I do. I am beyond good, I am great.

So the fact that Marco seems to have dropped off the face of the planet?

He's dead.

When Caterina finds out that he's dead, she's going to be inconsolable. If that happens while she's pregnant with two babies, she could put them at risk.

I need to find out the truth, I need to locate Marco's body. I need to control the narrative so that when we do find out, I have the ability to help Caterina through her sorrow.

So that she doesn't break down completely.

Not to mention, if I find out first, I can exact revenge on whoever killed Marco. I'm sure that Dino, their other brother, despite the absolute pack of dicks that he is, would be happy to do that.

I'm under the impression that each of the siblings had a role in their family, much like in ours. Marco, the boss. Sal, the spy. Dino, the muscle.

And Caterina.

Their heart.

Somehow, she's become our heart too.

I love her, and my niece, and my unborn niece and nephew. I'd do anything to make sure that they get the resolution that they need.

And that Marco gets the justice he deserves.

Prague is my latest lead.

I'm pretty sure that the low-level Irish gangster I tortured last week had some kind of connection here that he didn't fully grasp. He won't be talking anytime soon, and I made sure of that, but I'm here on a hunch after he spilled his guts to me.

Literally.

I smirk a little at the memory. He said something about the fact that Prague had some kind of refuge that Marco was also after.

If I can find what he was looking for, I'll likely be able to find out who killed him.

And I'll be in time to make it to Amsterdam in seven days for the meeting with the Russians.

Who, once again, better be on their knees thanking me for rescuing pretty, silly Stassi from the Irish gang's hold.

There's a noise outside of my room.

I hunch, ducking down, and slink behind the couch. The suite is large, and the living room opens to the front door. I hear a scrabbling sound again, like someone is going to pick the lock.

Quietly, I pad over to the gun I have on the coffee table. I grab it and I'm about to slink over to the side of the door when the lock clicks, and I freeze.

The door opens.

My heart kicks into my throat.

Suddenly, it's very clear why Elio was so confident that his new third-in-command would be able to find me.

Because standing in the doorway is the one man who always has.

The last man I ever want to see again.

Sal De Luca.

By the looks of it, he is absolutely livid.

I shiver.

I should not find that sexy but…

I do.