Page 15

Three months. Three long months—that was how it had been since the last time I saw her at the club downtown. Her warning still echoed in the back of my head, even now.

“I don’t wanna see you ever again, Sergei, so stay the fuck away from me!”

Those words were sharp as knife, and they cut my heart, punctured my soul like fucking a bullet. I wasn’t sure what annoyed me the most: the acid in her voice, the hatred in her eyes, or the fact that I just stood there like a fuckin’ moron, unable to explain himself.

What the fuck was she doing at the club anyway? Who did she come there with, another man?

My grip tightened around the tumbler in my hand, my face masked with fury. The thought of another man’s hands touching her man made my blood boil with absolute rage.

I couldn’t stomach the thought of someone else taking my place in her life.

My grip tightened harder, and I didn’t snap back to reality until the glass cracked in my hold. I blinked at the sound, loosening my grip by a fraction. Quietly, I set the tumbler on the table before me, my jaw clenching.

Deep down in my heart, I knew she didn’t go to the club with another man that night. I was just rambling around for something to justify my anger. Rage coursed through my veins like blood, and lately, I was even more distracted than ever.

The O’Hara girl was different from the usual girls who flocked around me.

I’d always known she was stubborn and headstrong—I just never experienced it firsthand.

Her rebellion, her zeal to do as she wanted without pleasing anyone but herself, was one of the things that attracted me to her.

Now, it was one of the very things that kept her from me.

That hate, that disdain in her eyes, still haunted me in my dreams even after all these months.

That night, her voice cracked when she spoke, her chest rising and falling as though her heart was about to explode.

Pain was evident in her tone, a testament to her shattered heart.

And every second was a struggle to keep her tears back inside—a subtle way of telling me I was undeserving of her tears.

She must have meant it because despite all that pain and fury in her gaze, she didn’t shed a single tear in front of me.

I must have hurt her really badly.

In all my forty plus years on earth, no woman had ever spoken to me the way Ayla did—nonchalant, pissed, and hateful. I’d had countless lovers before her, each one left heartbroken. But none of them had the courage to face me.

Ayla did.

This stubborn little devil confronted me, yelled at me, and was super harsh with her words, regardless of who the fuck I was. She expressed herself without fear and, more alarmingly, with no ounce of respect.

Did I lose that, too, her respect for me?

I could barely recognize the hurting woman in front of me that night. And as I just stood there, speechless and stunned, I felt something split open inside me. I wasn’t sure what it was; I couldn’t name it. But the feeling trickled out, slow and steady, like water dripping from a leaky faucet.

She wasn’t kidding when she said she never wanted to see me ever again.

Her voice echoed in my head again: “…stay the fuck away from me!”

I’d had a few girls in the past who were mad at me for something. But after a couple of days, they came running back, acting as if they had never tried to leave in the first place.

My biggest mistake was thinking Ayla would do the same. But it was three fuckin’ months already, and she hadn’t called or even sent a single text.

Goddamn it! She meant everything she said.

“Fuck!” I banged against the mahogany table hard enough to rattle the crystal decanter and send a few papers fluttering to the floor.

The echo of the impact lingered in the silence of the study, and I leaned back in my chair. I combed my fingers through my slightly tousled hair, my chest heaving with fury.

I was so upset because I’d never had to feel guilty for hurting anyone before. And also, no woman had ever made me this miserable. No woman had ever ghosted me like this–like I was a piece of shit.

That’s how she felt when you left her alone for over a week. No calls. No texts. Nothing. She just tore a page outta your own book, and now you’re upset, a voice spoke in my head.

The truth was bitter, maybe too bitter, and I hated this internal turmoil she caused. How could one woman make me see my flaws with just a single action?

That pesky little voice came again: You abandoned her immediately after you fucked her. How do you think she felt?

I sprang to my feet, fuming profusely, with both hands on my waist. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, my angry eyes fixed on the cityscape, my mind flooded with a myriad of thoughts.

This feeling of guilt was new to me—uncharted waters—and I was finding it difficult to navigate my way through.

Ayla had left a pit in my stomach that nothing could fill.

She taught me the greatest lesson of my life: that I wasn’t as invincible as I thought.

That my heart wasn’t made of stone after all.

Over the past few months, I’d chased every distraction I could think of, including old habits I thought I’d left behind: gambling, clubbing, and whoring around like a horny teenager.

But none of those tactics worked. I was still the same: void and empty.

No woman had quite measured up to Ayla’s standards.

I was losing myself in search of peace, and I was doing that all on my own. My right-hand man, Kuzma, suspected, but didn’t pry. My brother, Yulian, on the other hand, had his own problems to deal with. I was a grown man; I should handle this situation as such.

I closed my eyes and drew a deep, long breath with both hands in my pocket. Perhaps this distance was a good thing. I’d been so focused on trying to fill the emptiness in my soul that I forgot this could be a sign to hit the pause button and stop thinking about Ayla.

She was, by the way, the enemy’s daughter, and that was reason enough for me to back the hell off.

***

Our informant sat uneasily at the end of the long, oak table that stretched beneath a low-hanging chandelier. Heavy curtains blocked out the afternoon sun, muffling the busy world outside. In here, the air was thick with the scent of cigars, curling smoke, and silent hostility.

Damian, our mole within the Irish Mafia, sat quietly, sweat beading along his temple despite the chill of the room.

“What do you have for us?” Yulian asked him.

He swallowed hard and leaned in, his voice low but firm. “It’s worse than you think. Ronan O’Hara is contacting our clients. Weapons. Exclusive deals. He’s undercutting our numbers by a solid forty percent.”

“Dang it,” Yulian cursed under his breath.

A low murmur, like distant thunder, tumbled through the room. Mean faces scrunched into frowns, fists slammed against the table, and curses in Russian wafted through the air.

The men were pissed—with good fuckin’ reason.

“I don’t understand why we’re still silent when those bastards are making moves against us!” one of the older captains growled. “When do we attack, when they’ve completely taken over?”

The others murmured amongst themselves, as if buying into his idea of attacking now.

I sat there, cradling a glass of vodka while leaning back in my chair. “And the clients?” I asked the informant, ignoring the men’s rage.

He turned to me. “Three have already responded. Two are on the fence.”

“It’s only a matter of time before he has them on his side, too,” another concerned captain chipped in. “If Ronan O’Hara succeeds, the Bratva influence in arms deals could take a major hit.” He looked me straight in the eyes like he had a personal beef with me. “That’s a huge fuckin’ problem.”

Still, I maintained my composure.

“That’s not all,” Damian said, his gaze shifting across the men in the room.

“Now what?” Yulian asked, a bit impatient.

“Word is that the Irish are talking to the Italians. South-side families—”

“We’re aware,” Kuzma cut him off.

Damian looked in his direction. “Are you also aware that the coalition is almost built?”

The room plunged into utter silence for a little while before breaking into a tangle of opinions.

“I say we act now!” The older captain slammed a fist on the table. “A show of strength—a warning to strike to remind that bastard O’Hara who ruled this city.”

“That would be impulsive,” Yakov said, his voice much more collected. “We need to verify Damian’s claims before spilling blood.”

“Caution?” the older captain asked, voice dripping with resentment. “That’s your opinion—to tread with caution? Since when did the Brava become weak?”

“Restraint is not weakness, old man,” Yakov said, maintaining his calmness. “You should know better.”

“And you should know your place, boy,” he snarled, eyes blazing red.

“Enough,” I declared, fingers drumming on the table.

Voices fell silent, all eyes pinned on me.

“There’s no need to fight amongst ourselves,” I began.

Then, I continued, “Ronan might be an idiot, but he’s not reckless.

He’s calculated. And if he’s this confident, then that means he has something we don’t see yet.

Leverage, perhaps.” My gaze moved around the table, cool and unwavering.

“In this case, we don’t just swat a fly… we burn the fuckin’ nest.”

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” the old captain said, nodding his head.

“How’re we gonna do that? What’s the plan?” Yakov asked me.

I was quiet for a moment, lips curled into a twisted smirk. “Leave that to me. I’ll handle it.”

And just like that, the meeting ended. But the war had already begun.