Chapter 94: Chapter Thirty-Nine

Phoenix

“Nice swing.” I pulled off my aviators and watched as Luca stiffened and then turned toward me and cursed. “Not happy to see me?”

He grabbed his club, his fingers tight. “Was thinking about throwing this around four minutes ago but figured Bee would be mad if you came home with two black eyes.”

I grinned. “She’s seen worse.”

“Haven’t we all.” He sighed and slowly walked over to me, wearing black trousers and a black long-sleeve shirt that looked a bit out of place on a golf course.

“Your gun’s showing.” I pointed.

“I don’t play well with others.”

“And that extends to your golf retirement as well?”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe we had a meeting today.”

“We didn’t.”

“And yet here we are.”

“Here we are.” I jumped into the golf cart. “I’ll drive.”

He sighed and got in on the other side while I drove us to the next hole. “I need you to be there when we tell Andrei.”

“We?”

“Yes, we.”

“Did you have a plan outside of just shocking the hell out of him?”

“No, I thought ripping the band-aid as aggressively as possible would be the best way to get myself shot so I decided to bring you in to soften him up.”

“Andrei doesn’t understand the word soften.”

“And you do?”

He barked out a laugh. “You’ve made your point.”

I slowed down to the next hole and stared ahead as the sun started to set. “He’s not going to take the news well.”

“You could always bring in Nikolai and Maya.”

“Thought about that, but then we’d be asking Nikolai to fess up and let her know he’s been working for Andrei ever since Alexander’s death.”

“Your point?”

“I think he’d like to stay married. You know, regular sex and all…”

Luca shrugged. “He will need family.”

“He has us,” I found myself saying even though half the time I wanted to shove him in front of the nearest semi. Something shifted today, though, something I didn’t expect.

He showed a bit of humanity.

Along with self-control I wasn’t sure I would have if someone had said something like that about Bee.

And by the looks of him, he still hadn’t slept with her.

He was too uptight.

“You done thinking in my golf cart?” Luca whispered, sarcasm dripping off every word.

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t tell any of the guys.”

“It was your call to make.”

“Yeah, but what the fuck am I going to do when the Sinacore Family shows up for family dinner? You know they’ll move the entire family here.

Luca sighed long and hard. “They’ll want to take the place of the De Langes.”

“They’ll have a right to.”

“We would once again be strong, five families strong,” Luca said more to himself than to me.

And if the Sinacore Family ever found out she was from the De Lange bloodline.

They’d kill him before letting him sully their blood.

Bad enough that he was half Russian.

Even worse, to fall in love with a De Lange.

“Does he love her?” Luca asked the question I’d been pondering for the last week.

“Andrei doesn’t know how to love. I know that, you know that, the very fact that he’s fallen this hard this fast tells me he could, but it may be too late for him.” I hated admitting it.

“And if you’re wrong?” Luca asked.

“Then I’m completely fucked because even I don’t want to get on Andrei’s bad side. Like I said, I made a judgement call because it’s what’s best for him, and what’s best for the families.”

Luca patted my shoulder. “You better hope you’re right.”

“What would you have done?” I looked up at him.

He winked. “I chose well.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Luca got out of the cart and grabbed a driver from his bag. “Wanna play?”

“Luca.”

“What?”

I crossed my arms.

“Phoenix grab a damn driver and stop staring at me like I’m the devil. We both know he rarely visits me anymore now that he’s off torturing Andrei.

“Temptation must be hell for that boy.” He pointed his club at me. “The only other person I’ve ever seen that needed to get laid more than his next meal was you and at least you weren’t a virgin.”

I rolled my eyes.

“And for the record,” he grinned, “I would have done the same thing.”

It didn’t make me feel any better.

Then again, I rarely felt good about decisions that could ruin lives or end up killing people.

“Grab a damn club.”

I flipped him off and grabbed a club, and tried to forget about what was coming in the next week.

And the many lives that would be taken.

All because a Sinacore woman fell in love with the devil himself, Alexander Petrov.