Page 17 of Dance of Thorns

BANE

“What the fuck were you thinking?”

It’s a far more complex question than my father might realize. WhatwasI thinking?

Several things. I’ve spentyearsconsidering what I would do or say or how I would act if I came face to face with her again. I suppose “revenge” would be in the mix. Retribution. But that barely scratches the surface of what I feel when I’m around her.

Maybe I wasn’t thinking at all.

Nikolai Antonov pours himself a vodka at the bar cart in his office. He doesn’t ask me if I want one too.

Nothing my father does is accidental, or a misstep. He doesn’t make those, which is how he’s successfully built our family into the empire it is today: a powerful force in the bratva world, one of the most feared and respected families in New York. Dad even sits at the Iron Table, with some of the other strongest bratva families in the world.

And yet somehow, even with all this weight on his shoulders, and even when he has every reason to be a cold, ruthless, miserable bastard of a father…he’s not.

He’s the opposite, actually. We’ve been among each other's best friends since Mom died. Even right now, after I’ve royally shit all over our plans, he’s notangry, per se. Pissed off, maybe, which is fair. Annoyed…also fair. But I think “what the fuck were you thinking” in this case might truly be based in curiosity.

He turns, his flinty gray eyes stabbing into me as he brings the glass to his lips and takes a sip. He drops the glass again, fingers clawed over the rim as he rakes the fingers of his other hand through his dark hair that is only slightly silvering at the temples.

“We had this worked out, Bane,” he growls. “We had a plan—yourgoddamn plan, actually! And it was notthis!”

He jabs his finger at the TV on the office wall. The volume is off, but the same paparazzi bullshit that’s been on all day is still playing across the screen.

The paparazzi bullshit involvingme.

And her.

It's a video of what looks like us making out against a wall. She’s even gripping my shirt, like she can’t get enough of me as I devour her mouth.

She tasted like cinnamon.

Even though the volume’s off, the news ticker is repeating the same crap they were babbling about earlier: how the “shock revelation” of the heirs of two of New York’s most powerfulmafia families found “canoodling” is “breaking the internet!!!”…whatever the fuck that means.

They’re all over the map with their info. Some reports are claiming we’ve been madly in love for years. Others call it a drunk hookup caught on camera.

Result: chaotic white noise.

…Which is exactly "what I was thinking" when I paid the two NYU media studies majors to follow me up onto the roof and film the two of us kissing.

The Antonov family, like most bratva families, works in shadowy, often ruthless ways. When there’s something we want, we take it, in any way possible, whether that be lying, or stealing, or outright war.

The Marchetti family has recently come into possession of a dock and shipping facility on the New York waterfront.Primespace, complete with warehouses, a container crane, the works.

Dad was prepared to pay top dollar for it, but then the previous owner sold it to Cesare Marchetti for a fucking song, because they eat pasta with too much garlic together. Birds of a fucking Italian feather and all that.

So I came up with another way in.

My original plan involved seducing the younger half-sister, Chiara Marchetti. Yes, she’s married, but it's an arranged situation and I know she is wildly unhappy.

Andoh-so-lonely.

That's where I’d come in. Charm the panties off Chiara, arrange for the paparazzi to get some photos mid-fuck, thereby forcing adivorce, and furthermore, forcing Cesare to marry her off tometo save face.

We get access to the shipping facility. Cesare gets the muscle he doesn’t currently have in order toholdsaid shipping facility.

Win-win for everyone.

Well, mostly everyone. Not that Chiara is hard on the eyes. But trust me, she doesn’t want to be married to me.