Page 75 of Violent Pawn

There’s only one more ex-Elite member.

Anastasia and Lev’s father.

37

ANASTASIA

“Do you think I’m making a mistake?” Vanessa shuffles her feet, staring daggers at the entering crowd. I’m sure she’s aiming to slice them all at the knees.

“About Zeno?”

“About the wedding. I understand a large ceremony is expected, given our positions, but what if we eloped?” Hope creeps into her voice, making it rise. “Zeno is who matters, so fuck everyone else.”

I tip my head, taking in her floor-length burgundy-almost-purple dress. “You’ve always gone against tradition, so it’d be fitting.”

She purses her lips before casting another glance across the room at Zeno and Serafina, and then sighs. “We can’t. It’d crush his mother, and she likes me, so I’d prefer not to undo that. Besides, I think a part of him is looking forward to the ceremony.”

“It’ll make a statement,” Katya chimes in from my right, where she and Dimitri are standing beside us, doing their darndest to hide inside the walls. Well, Dimitri is, anyway. I half expected them to skip the party because it places Katya in public. Which is something Dimitri’s downright annoying about. When he saw her off-the-shoulder emerald-green dress, he lost it.

Vanessa crosses her arms, pouting at the crowd of businessmen and all the upper-class who enjoy kissing the Bratva’s ass. “It’s irritating because half of these people want me gone because of Zeno. Worse, too, since Georgy Vasilyev is in attendance.”

“Ew. The one who suggested a union a couple months ago?”

“The very one.” She gestures to a group some dozen feet away, a man in the centre belting loudly. “It’s one thing to call and annoy me, but it’s another to approach me during my own engagement party to say my papa would be horrified to learn I’m marrying an Italian—as if I don’t know that already. He’s insisting I marry him instead, for the good of Russia, or whatever bullshit he’s spewing these days.”

Dimitri shifts his death glare away from anyone looking at Katya towards Vasilyev instead. Next to Katya, he’s insanely protective over his cousin. “Too bad he didn’t say that in front of Zeno. No man would stand for that shit. I’ll volunteer if you want him gone.”

“Tempting but no. He’s harmless, albeit annoying.”

Lev pops up beside me, making my skin jump because he’s way too quiet for his own fucking good. “Fuck, Lev, you could⁠—”

“Police just phoned,” he cuts me off, his attention locked onto Vanessa. “Another one of your father’s Elite is dead. Same M.O. Slit throat. They found him hours ago.”

Vanessa’s smile doesn’t falter as the owner of a technology company nods his greeting. Once he’s passed and out of listening distance, it drops, expression flattening and almost deadly. “Who?”

“Does it matter?” I cut in, wringing my hands. “Someone’s targeting them. Taking out two back-to-back is ballsy.”

“Question is, who’s doing this?” Dimitri muses, shifting closer to Katya, who focuses on Lev’s phone, her brows drawing together.

“No, the real question is, when does it stop? Are they going after the old Elite or all Elite?” She scans the four of us—all of whom could be targets if she’s correct. “What other enemies do you guys have?”

Vanessa greets another person who waves as they pass. “None that I know of. None with the ability to pull something like this off anyway.”

“The Famiglia?” I offer, mentally going through the few options and selecting the most likely one. “What if Rossi’s up to something?”

“Why would he when he recently helped us?” Dimitri muses, indicating the time he contacted them for support in tracing his father, who hid after attacking Serafina and Zeno. “Both him and the Corsettis. They wouldn’t turn on us for no good reason. I doubt they’ve even thought of us since.”

My brother, being his socially inept self, ignores the irritation in Vanessa’s expression, the frustration in mine, and the utter fear of Katya’s, and starts listing every criminal group who could come after us. “Maybe the Irish had issues with Ursin. Geographically speaking, they’re nearby. The French Milieu enjoy getting into others’ businesses. There’s the Yakuza of Japan, the Chinese Triad, the Greeks—all a possibility. Talk to Zeno. What if it’s the other Cosa Nostra families?”

When Katya grows paler and paler with each possibility, I elbow my brother in the stomach. “You could not stress us all out.”

He makes a face reminiscent of the six-year-old version of himself. “It’s impossible for me to control your emotions when I’m stating facts. You asked who it could be, so I’m providing options.”

“How the fuck does Sera put up with your literalness?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “How’d you put up with it for twenty-seven years?”

“I didn’t.”