The Boss’s Runaway (Possessive Kingpins)

Talking with Vincenzo and Rocco solidified my plans. The Lucianos were behind me, which would make everything easier. If there was anything the mafia understood, it was the importance of family.

I strode from the back office Rocco used for the most private meetings and headed back to Kat. I reached the room where I’d left her and found the guards looking on.

“Where is she?”

My head guard shifted uncomfortably, and a weight settled in my belly. “Your uncle needed to speak to her. He ordered me to stand down… but he didn’t come back.”

I was moving before I could stop myself. I grabbed the guard and threw him into the wall. I pressed him against the surface, my hand on his windpipe.

“You let that man take her? You let that man take my wife?” I snarled at him. My icy mask was long broken, and I couldn’t calm down. The thought of Kat being hurt turned me into a madman.

“I-I had no choice. She wanted … to go … with him,” the guard choked.

“You’re lying.”

“She asked… she knew what she was doing,” he gurgled.

I cut his air off for several more seconds before leaving him to cough and splutter on the floor.

I whirled and gestured to my men. “We’re going to pay Konstantin Ivanov a visit.”

My heart beat wildly in my chest as we left Luna and got into a line of cars. There was an urgency in my chest I couldn’t stand. I was worried like never before. Konstantin Ivanov had two women in his hands—my women—and I wouldn’t stop until they were safe.

I’d never been more afraid—or alive—in my life.

The Ivanov part of town was nothing like where the Songs and Lucianos lived. The old families of great power had built fortified and luxurious homes. Like modern-day kings and queens, they watched over their territories in comfort. The Ivanovs weren’t an old family, and it showed.

We crossed into their territory, and I immediately felt eyes on us as we drove. Here, in Brighton Beach, there was dive bar after dive bar, amusement park rides all closed down at this time of year, and the scent of year-old popcorn. Rain fell on the slicked boardwalk as we passed the carnival attractions lining the shore. It was the raw and gritty face of New York I didn’t see often, and it suited Konstantin and his rabble of violent circus freaks down to the ground.

We drew up outside a dilapidated shopping mall on the sagging pier. A man stood outside, uncaring about the rain, holding a gun out in the open. He was backed by about fifty others. Konstantin wasn’t messing around.

“Just you,” the man said as soon as I got out of the car, flanked by my security.

I’d expected that, but it wasn’t a promising start. A car pulled up behind my security team, and I was surprised to see Rocco Luciano step out into the drizzle. The infamous playboy looked dapper as always, but there was a firm set to his mouth that said today, he meant business.

“Konstantin will see us,” Rocco said arrogantly to the guard.

Rocco was like that—all confidence and charisma. While my life had frozen me in ice, an impenetrable fortress, Rocco had embraced the tragedy of a kingpin’s existence. A blazing short shot at glory and the darkness. He was the opposite of me, yet was willing to stand by my side and enter the wolf’s lair.

He slapped me on the shoulder. “Well, shall we go inside?”

“You don’t need to risk yourself like this,” I told him.

He shrugged with that devil may care grace of his. “I have no wife, no children, no duties. I can accompany my brother into certain death once in a while.”

Brother? All the defenses I’d kept in place for so many years crumbled like sandcastles in the face of the fierce personalities who had blazed into my life.

I could only nod as we went inside.

Konstantin had set up his headquarters in a store that seemed to have sold office furniture before it was abandoned. Now, it was all arranged in a huge circle around a long desk and chair. Kon Ivanov lounged in the middle, his heavy-soled boots kicked up on the table.  His sheepskin overcoat was still wrapped around him, despite being inside. Wind whistled through the place, making me cold. It was damp and uncomfortable as fuck, and I could see why Kat’s brother was so dangerous. He had little to lose, while I had everything.

“My, my, a visit from my brother-in-law, the great and powerful Song Jae Han. If I’d known you were coming… what’s the phrase? I would have baked a cake?” Konstantin chuckled, turning his eyes over his shoulder. “Well, Kira? Did you bake a cake?”

“Fuck you, Kon, and them too,” a sharp, female voice called.

A woman stood at the bottom of a long flight of stairs. She was dressed in black leather trousers and a dark jumper. She was nearly as blonde as Kat but had a deadly grace my wife didn’t. She looked like someone you wouldn’t trust enough to sleep next to.

“Ask Kat. Maybe she did,” Kon continued, enjoying himself.

He stood, and I saw he was shirtless beneath his sheepskin. His pale, muscled chest was elaborately tattooed. “Though, I’m not sure if she was up to baking.”

“If you’ve hurt her—” I stilled as Rocco cleared his throat. I was losing it, tipping my hand. Next, I’d be begging Konstantin to give Hana and Kat back.

“I don’t think we finished our discussion properly the other night. We don’t have to go this way and start a war. Business would be better if we worked it out. We’re family now, after all,” Rocco said.

A soft, feminine snort sounded from the woman behind Konstantin, the deadly looking one.

“Did you hear that, Kat? This man thinks that family works together.” Konstantin laughed.

Kira smiled, but it didn’t touch her pale eyes. “Family is the most dangerous of all, Rocco Luciano,” she said quietly.

Rocco turned his attention to her. “And who might you be?”

“She’s my fiancée,” Kon said, and Kira’s face dropped any pretense of a smile. The woman looked murderous at his statement.

“She looks thrilled about it too. Anyway, back to Kat and Hanna. Where are they? I want to see them,” I stated flatly.

“And see them you shall,” Kon said, beckoning into the shadows.

Kat walked out of the darkness, her eyes flashing above the piece of tape over her mouth.

I reached for her, and Konstantin tutted. “Not so fast. First, an agreement must be reached.”

Kat rolled her eyes in annoyance, reassuring me she wasn’t hurt.

“Hana, too,” I maintained.

Something flashed through Konstantin’s eyes at the sound of my sister’s name. He shifted forward, looking every inch a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He braced his elbows on his knees and fixed his pale green eyes on me unwaveringly. For a wild second, I thought he might refuse to bring Hana to me. Was she hurt?

He nodded, and Kat disappeared. “She’s coming,” he muttered. “She’s quite the handful, your little sister.”

“That’s something we have in common.” I waited tensely for Kat to reappear. This time, she was leading Hana before her.

Hana’s eyes widened when she saw me, and I noticed that she, unlike Kat, wasn’t wearing a gag. “Jae, you came.”

“Of course, I came. I’m sorry you got mixed up in this. Did he hurt you?”

Hana turned and looked at Konstantin. That look was utterly unreadable. It went on for a second, but it felt like a lifetime. Rocco tilted his head to the side. He’d noticed it too. Something passed between Konstantin Ivanov and Hana at that moment, and I needed to know what it was. However, there was time for all that later when I got her home.

“No. He hasn’t. He’s been the perfect gentleman,” Hana said finally in a tone I couldn’t read.

Kon was staring at my youngest sister as if she was a puzzle he longed to solve. I needed to get her away from him as quickly as possible. Nothing good could come of the tension between them.

“Let’s talk terms, Konstantin, since you’ve been a good boy and not harmed your precious cargo,” Rocco interjected, breaking the spell that had fallen over us. “As I said, we are now all family. It doesn’t make sense to lose time and money fighting each other.”

“Agreed, so give me a piece of the Luciano-Song pie, and I’ll be happy,” Kon said, sitting back in his throne-like desk chair and grinning at us.

Rocco raised an eyebrow. “How big a piece of the pie are we talking?”

“I’m no math prodigy, but a third seems about right,” he said.

Fucking hell. I steadied my anger and forced a calm note to my voice. “A third? What do you bring that we don’t have?”

“Your wife and sister for a start,” Kon growled.

“I’m not talking about blackmail or leverage, I’m talking about business, and if you want to make money in this city, you’d better start thinking in those terms. New York is a playground for men, not boys,” I growled at him.

He flew toward me, a flurry of motion designed to make me flinch. I didn’t move a muscle when he got in my face. Close up, I realized why I’d hit a nerve. Konstantin was young—much younger than Rocco and me. That revelation made what he’d achieved even more impressive.

“Don’t patronize me. My father did that one too many times, so I boiled his head and fed the broth to my bratva,” he snarled.

The vivid imagery made me queasy. Only Kat’s rolling eyes reassured me he was exaggerating.

“Fine. We cut you into the alliance, but you keep your rabid wolves on a tight leash. You do what we say because we know this city. If it takes finesse, a Song or Luciano does it.”

“And if it takes skull smashing, an Ivanov does it? Are you trying to bargain your way into having a go-to bratva of enforcers?” he pressed.

I shrugged. “Why not go with your strengths and still get a third of the take?”

Rocco stilled. A third was more than we’d talked about, but there was no way I was leaving here without Hana and Kat.

“A third? What does Vincenzo say about that?”

Rocco nodded. “The Lucianos will honor the deal struck here today.”

I relaxed infinitesimally. He had my back.

Kon whistled. “I can’t say I’m not surprised. I didn’t think you had enough blood in that cold heart to care what happens to Kat or your sister.”

“I only care about family, and now, apparently, that includes you,” I said, shifting my eyes to Kat, who was trying to work the tape off her mouth.

“Take the olive branch, Kon, and end this. It’s getting old,” she finally managed through a gap in the side.

Konstantin turned to his sister and pulled the tape off. I itched to punch him as she cried out, but Kat had me beat as she smacked him hard in the side of the head.

He took it without flinching. “Fine, Katya, fine.”

Having both had their say, the siblings seemed to calm. Kat turned to Hana and held her hand out. “Hana, come with me. We’re taking you home” She put her arm around my younger sister as soon as she got close enough. “Let’s go. Kon has what he wants. He’ll play nice now.” She shot a murderous look at her brother, who merely narrowed his eyes at her in return.

“Is that true? Are we done?” I asked him.

He looked indecisive for a moment as his eyes strayed to Hana, but then he collected himself and nodded. “I’ll play nice as long as you do. Don’t forget our deal.”

“We won’t.” Rocco stepped firmly between us.

“Good, and remember to set an extra plate for dinner on a Sunday, seeing as we’re family now and all,” Kon sneered at us.

As I turned away, I caught Kira’s eyes. The woman was impossible to read.

Rocco’s eyes lingered that way as well. “We’ll set two. For you and your future wife,” he said, nodding in Kira’s direction.

“Don’t bother. Kira won’t be with us long,” Kon muttered.

Rocco looked as if he was about to question that cryptic phrase when I pointed him toward the exit. We had to get out here before Konstantin Ivanov changed his mercurial mind.