Page 88 of Forsaking All Others

It spoke to what Dario had said that night about their connection. Something deeper than a gentleman’s agreement.

“Enough.” I shrugged one shoulder. “I’m a realist.”

Maksim barked a sharp laugh. “Well, that’s refreshing. Or is it that you’ve spent six years trying to change who he is and you’ve finally given up?”

“I’ve spent six years trying to change who I am,” I corrected haughtily, annoyed by his assumption. “And I like who I’ve become enough that I don’t need anyone else’s validation to feel complete.”

“Ah,” he said, and I realized it was a vocal tic of his. Perhaps a way to stall when he searched for English words, though he spoke remarkably well, with only a hint of an accent. “But validation is not affection.”

“I didn’t say I needed that.”

“No,” he mused. “But don’t we all?”

“Says the man who is happily unmarried,” I pointed out.

“Touché,” he acknowledged with a good-natured laugh before sobering suddenly, leaning closer with a hand braced on the bar beside mine. He tucked his head toward the bartender as if he meant to ask for another drink, only to speak softly in my ear. “I am sorry you were kidnapped by rogue Bratva. I can assure you, it will not happen again.”

I was shocked by his candor, and it must have translated because he grinned down at me, and up close, it was quite the sight.

“I mean no harm to someone close to Dario, even if, as you say, it is not a love match.”

“Thank you,” I decided to say, because nothing else seemed appropriate.

He dipped his chin. “I had heard he had some trouble yesterday, but he seems unharmed.”

“He is,” I agreed, then added, “Remarkably. Had you also heard who was behind the rumors he was . . . unwell?”

“Only that the Russians and Sicilians are not happy with him and have not been for some time.” When I raised a brow, he smirked, and it was a cruel, slicing expression like a wound. “I have, you know, no issue with the Outfit, but my brethren in the mother country do not understand anything but total domination. In their minds, Chicago is ripe for the taking because it is obvious to all that Dario has been slipping. As I said, there is no problem on my end, and I can keep my masters at bay. You do your own business, and we do ours. It is the Irish and the fucking Albanians who are the true scourge.”

“But the Sicilians,” I murmured, more to myself.

Because that didn’t make sense.

Serena had said something of the kind in the casino, and I’d disregarded it.

My marriage to Dario had been to soothe the tension between our two families, and the death of Papà, Ricco, and Beppe had seemed only to bring the two factions closer. Dario had helped in the power vacuum that followed and backed Niccolo’s father as the new capo dei capi there.

What umbrage could they have with the Chicago Outfit?

“Ah, just because I am Russian and so, too, are my brothers in Moscow, it does not mean we see eye to eye,” Maksim said cryptically. “Perhaps the same could be said for the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Chicago Outfit?”

I resolved to look into it more and was about to thank Maksim again when heat blanketed my back.

“I see you found my wife, Maksim,” Dario said as one arm curled around my side, hand flattening over my exposed belly to haul me back against him.

The Russian Pakhan grinned, and it was a truly warm expression. “Like a moth to the flame, Dario. I was helpless.”

Dario pressed his lips to my hair but didn’t respond.

“It was nice to meet you,” I offered to clear the tension in my husband’s frame.

Maksim transferred his glass of clear liquor—vodka, I guessed—into his other hand, and I noticed the black-outlined tattoo on his wrist.

A leaping rabbit.

The very same tattoo Dario had under the knob of his spine at the base of his neck.

Interesting.