Page 62 of Scorned Beauty

“I don’t know. They wouldn’t let anyone in. All I know is one of the residents fell from the fifth floor.”

A vise screwed my chest tight and I grew lightheaded. “Male or female?”

Sandro paused. “Was she with someone else? Start talking, De Lucci. We need someone who has access to Hoboken PD if we want to get in there. I sure as fuck don’t.”

We were in a cold war with the Italians running New Jersey, but I knew someone who did. Grigori. I could probably navigate through my associate list for favors, but it wouldn’t get us in there as fast as I wanted to. As in, as soon as it would take me to get to Hoboken. Hell, my underboss would know more than I did. I’d been playing politics at the higher level, so I had lost touch with the street game.

“I’ll make some calls,” I told him. Though Sandro cemented his place as the head of the Rossi crime family by defeating his challenger in the Game of Bosses, his people skills needed work. “Find out information, but don’t piss anyone off.”

He grunted, “I swear to God, if you got Sloane into trouble.”

“Talk later.” I ended the call.

Dangerous static clotted the air behind me. I stiffened, and even without turning around, I knew who I would find.

“Don’t you know it’s impolite to eavesdrop on people’s conversations?” I faced Kirill.

Indeed, he was leaning indolently against the wall. “I needed a smoke.”

“You’re not allowed to smoke in here.”

“As if that would stop you.” He extracted a cigarette and offered me one.

I shook my head. “I need to make more calls.”

I started to walk away from him, but he wasn’t done.

“For someone trying to protect his sister, you seem to have other priorities tonight.”

Aggravation and fury shot through my veins and clenched my fists. This unity between the Zahkarovs and the De Luccis was to show Congressman Tomlin he had nothing to worry from us. In our clandestine meeting, Kirill expressed disdain for the congressman, but the politician was greasing some business for them. Lucy and her dead lawyer friend’s digging had triggered a backlash to one of the Russians’ investment firms, putting it on the radar of the SEC. Not that I didn’t applaud Lucy, except the corruption and moral charges against Congressman Tomlin disappeared with our witness and the death of that lawyer.

To the public, Ivan stepped down as CEO of Zahkarov Holdings. Behind the scenes, he stepped down as the pakhan of the bratva.

Lucy’s involvement in their troubles had put a bull’s-eye on my sister and Kirill had put a contract out on her while the feds had been interrogating me.

Dinner was tense as fuck, but it was a temporary Band-Aid hatched up by my mother and the matchmaker Margo Winthrop that enabled this truce.

Kirill canceled the contract but required my family to appear at this dinner to honor his father as an apology.

It was a quick fix, and it was hard to swallow. Ma was all for it, Lucy was still defiant, and Pop wanted to put a contract out on Kirill in retaliation.

Fuck me.

So this was the initial remedy. Neither of us could break the truce without our scandalous secrets being spilled, and Margo definitely had more than a few.

I invaded Kirill’s personal space. He was the same height as me. The same build. Same dark hair. But that was where the similarities ended. I doubted if there was an emotional bone in his body. Like he showed emotions because it was required of him. Though he seemed to genuinely care for his mute sister.

Sonny laughingly suggested that Aralina Zahkarov would make the ideal wife who didn’t talk back. But she was only twenty-one for fuck’s sake.

“Who do you know in Hoboken?”

He raised a brow. “Are you asking for a favor, De Lucci? Who called you?”

“You’re looking for Grigori, then I might have a lead.”

He returned the cigarette back into the case. “You’re going to Hoboken right now?”

Nothing would stop me. I nodded. “Are you going to hurt my sister?”