Irina
Pacing the house, I knew Yannick wasn’t coming home, that gut feeling of disappointment turning sour in my stomach. First his absence in bed, then his absence at home. We were going downhill fast. Since he’d stormed from the dining room earlier, I’d mulled over everything he’d said and had hated every bloody word though I’d known his intentions. Yannick walking away like he didn’t owe me a goddamn thing suddenly felt like a joke, and not one that was likely to make me fall about laughing. No, whatever thoughts I’d had lying in bed with him the other night were lies. This wasn’t who I was.
I’d lost him, and Irina Ischmova did not lose things. Which was laughable really, because I’d never found the key to whatever made Yannick tick, now had I?
Tayte had been the only one to stay behind, gathering up remaining documents and locking them away while I sat at the end of the table and pouted, something I did well and often. Of all Yannick’s men, Tayte was the one I avoided the most. The dark-haired man looked younger than his forty years, but his face couldn’t hide the loathing he had for me. The sneers he sent my way were always warning enough, he had no time for me, which suited just fine. Sure, he was easy on the eye, looked like he could give a woman a good time, yet I had never thought twice about making any advances on him to piss Yannick off. The man had an invisible ‘do not fuck with me’ sign hanging off him, what with the way he growled and looked down his nose in disgust at me.
“Whatever he wants.”
Tayte had stopped what he was doing and glanced my way, those shrewd eyes of his assessing. “Yes, Irina. Whatever he wants.”
“Why?”
Walking the length of the table, Tayte stood off to the side, regarding me still. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, the man always guarded his emotions and expressions too well for me to decipher, unless he was shooting scorn in my direction. Tayte Litvenko was truly an enigma I’d never been tempted to unravel, afraid of what I’d find.
“Because, Irina, he is a man of his word. I’ve been with him a long time, and he’s my friend.”
“He’s your boss.”
“Maybe that too. Whatever he asks, it’s not a problem. But you know, he never asks, never demands. Unlike yourself.”
“Yannick doesn’t need to.”
“No, I guess he doesn’t. He understands respect works both ways, something you know nothing about.”
I hadn’t taken offence for he wasn’t entirely wrong. I’d waited until Tayte was long gone before I’d left the silence of the cavernous dining room, locking the door behind me. Hours later, I was still pacing the house, running through scenarios in my head, figuring out schemes to put Yan’s ideas down, to keep him by my side. Protecting the empire we’d built, ensuring it kept going long after I’d taken my last breath, was paramount, I’d worked too hard for it. It was my legacy, and I wasn’t ready to give it all up because Yannick said so.
I loved the depravity, the violence, the blood - always had. I’d grown up immersed in this very life, as had Yannick and Yosef. We’d been mobster’s kids, learning how to cut off fingers before hitting puberty, how to hustle down a witness so they’d never talk, by the time we were graduating school. All our exams had taught us was how to do the math and wangle the best profits on the illegal shit we did. There was no college for us, though Yannick had tried, just father’s hell bent on an alliance that made their business the most formidable one on the streets of London. We didn’t walk around watching our backs because no one dared put a target on us. If they were foolish enough to do so, well… concrete blocks tied to feet and a man named Slaughter were not just a thing you saw in the movies. To others, it was no way to live a life, to me, it was mine.
Yannick needed a reality check, a swift kick up the arse to see what was right in front of him. If he walked, he was nobody and that kind of anonymity didn’t suit him, he couldn’t just slink off like he fancied. He needed to cool off or get drunk or fucked, maybe. Yan had never been an irrational man, yet he was walking a thin line with this nonsense, he had to realise it was not as easy as saying fuck it, I’d make sure of it. No, there was no inclination to let Yan go, I couldn’t do it. I’d placated him the other night, told him what he wanted to hear for selfish reasons, but it wasn’t happening.
My father had once said, if I ruled the man, I could have it all. He had been a liar. I’d certainly ruled Yannick Ischmov, but I didn’t get him all, not even the tiniest piece of him. His loyalty had been to his brother, his dead brother. To his men, to his business, to Lev. Never to me. The more I stewed on these things, the more my anger stoked and the less I wanted to do the right thing.
No fucking way was Yannick giving this up. Finding his weak point, and exploiting him, would be the answer to getting him to bend to my will. Problem was, I’d never been able to find that soft
