Chapter 162

Which means he doesn’t stand a fucking chance.

Yasha waves away my concern. “Alexander is a nobody. Konstantin told me he’d relay the details of the arrangement to him, including your ‘marriage’ to Cora. Beyond that, he doesn’t matter. His only power was in working with the Sokolovs, but now, the Sokolovs work for us.”

I waver. “They don’t work for us; they work near us. We aren’t partners and we have to be ready for them to find a better deal somewhere else and betray us.”

“I am ready for that. I’m looking forward to it, actually.” Yasha grins. “I want another crack at those assholes. Let’s give them what they deserve.”

“If it wasn’t for Cora, they’d already be dead. But I can’t risk having the Sokolov army out for blood. They’d come for Cora and she has been through enough. I don’t want a war.”

Yasha lets out a long, low whistle. “She really has changed you.” At the sharp look I toss him, he holds up his hands. “In a good way, man. You’ve always been a strong leader. Better than your dad ever was. For a while there, I was worried you’d burn yourself out fighting every slight against the Bratva. Now, you know what’s really important. The men trust your leadership.”

It’s rare to catch Yasha in a serious conversation, but he isn’t smirking or tossing out a secret wink between sentences. He means it.

That means something to me.

“I think we’re both made better by the women in our lives,” I say.

Yasha starts to nod and then catches himself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m free as a bird. No woman in sight.”

“Right. Then I guess I won’t remind you to tell your woman that you and I have plans tonight. It’s our first rendezvous with the Sokolov lieutenants. A gun shipment is coming into the harbor.”

“Oh. Shit,” he groans, digging his phone out of his pocket. “I forgot. Luckily, I have no one to text and cancel plans with. I definitely won’t tell her to come hang out with Cora tonight so she’s here when I get back to the mansion.”

This is the Yasha I’m used to. Even him keeping things on the down-low is him sharing all of his thoughts, feelings, and plans.

“Good thing, because Cora is busy tonight and can’t hang out with anyone.”

Yasha’s face falls. “Really? You’re letting her out of the house?”

“Fuck no. Not yet. But she and Marcus are meeting up here for dinner.”

“Wow. That’s a big deal for her.” He finishes his text to “Definitely Not Jorden” and pockets his phone. “Is she nervous?”

“She said she wasn’t, which is a lie. But she’ll be fine.”

Yasha stands up and saunters towards the door. “I’m sure she will. She has a lot of practice with this.”

“Practice spending time with her dad for the first time in ten years?”

“No. Practice dealing with emotionally-closed off men who are desperate to get to know her.”

Yasha barely darts out of the door frame fast enough to dodge the pen I chuck at his face.

The warehouse on the harbor has been in Pushkin control for decades Once upon a time, it was used as a front for illegal poker games and clandestine drug dens.

Now, it’s a storage facility on the harbor filled with construction equipment—and, for just a few hours once a month, weapons.

A unit of my men scour the property for any sign of betrayal. They scan the building and the surrounding warehouses searching for the slightest hint that Konstantin Sokolov is planning to push back against our arrangement.

Finding nothing, Yasha and I go in.

“I feel like a recruit again,” he says, checking the gun at his hip. “I haven’t been out on a run like this in years.”

“We’re just here tonight to make sure things go smoothly. Once I trust the Sokolovs are going to uphold their end of the deal, we’ll pull back and let the rank-and-file handle the transfer.”

Yasha snorts. “You say that like you’ll ever actually let yourself trust those slimy fucks. I’m going to be handling the weapons trafficking until I’m dead. Or until the Sokolovs are dead. Whichever comes first.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen tonight,” I mutter out of the side of my mouth. “I’d hate to get blood on this shirt.”

We step through the door to see Konstantin’s men waiting in front of pallets of boxed firearms. I approve everything, then they get to work. Half an hour later, the Sokolov soldiers are done repackaging the weapons shipments and have started taking their cut of the supplies.

“Look at this,” Yasha proclaims, his voice echoing off the metal walls. “Who would’ve thought we’d all be here like one big, happy family?”

There are a few too many suspicious glances being tossed around for me to feel like we’re a family. But this whole arrangement has gone a lot more smoothly than I thought it would.

No weapons have been fired and no one is dead. If the Sokolov gunrunners are pissed about the deal I made with their boss, they don’t show it. They toil in grim silence.

“Cats and dogs,” Yasha continues. “Oil and water. Yet here we are, working together. I’m inspired. Someone put me on the cabinet of foreign affairs. I think I’m ready to create world peace.”

Everyone has been letting Yasha ramble for a few minutes uninterrupted, but suddenly, a voice cuts through the nonsense. “You really love to hear yourself talk, don’t you?”

My gun is in my hand before I even turn around. Because I don’t need to see who it is. I already know.

I turn to face Mikhail Sokolov.

“I told your father to keep you far, far away from me.”

He’s standing in the doorway, flanked on either side by guards who don’t stand a chance in hell of saving him from me.

“My father is my don, but he isn’t my keeper. I can go where I like.” Mikhail walks slowly into the warehouse, arms extended like he’s a fucking circus ringmaster.

Yasha groans. “Well, so much for peace on earth.”

The Sokolov men have finished loading the weapons, but they’re all standing around watching their future leader question me. It’s not the end to the evening I imagined.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about where this might end.

Mikhail running his mouth and showing up where he doesn’t belong… If that isn’t a reason to put this mudak down, then what is?

“If you or your boss were going to kill me, you would have done it already. You know what I think it is?” He smiles. “I think Ivan’s little wifey asked for mercy for me.” Mikhail isn’t talking to Yasha or to me anymore. He’s giving a speech to the gathered men. He’s trying to rewrite history. “Cordelia plays the sweet and innocent part well, but no one bags men like the two of us without some ambition.”