Not Knowing His Poor Ex Had Married A Mafia Boss, He Kicked Her At The Mall

Viktor spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the stones. He clutched his shoulder, his breath whistling through cracked ribs, but his pale eyes still held the poisonous arrogance of a syndicate prince.

"Shoot me, Vance," Viktor hissed, coughing. "Do it. My father has four brigades between Boston and Montreal. You kill me, and you start a war that will turn this city into a graveyard."

Roman walked over to him slowly. He didn't draw a gun. He simply stood over Viktor, towering over him, silhouetted against the burning remnants of the wharf warehouse behind them.

"Your father isn't coming, Viktor," Roman said quietly.

Viktor frowned through his pain. "What lie is this?"

Roman pulled a secure satellite phone from his pocket, hit speed dial, and tapped the speaker button.

A raspy, tired voice answered in Russian. It was Mikhail Petrov—the patriarch of the northern family.

"Roman," the old man said, his voice weary and hollow. "Is it finished?"

Viktor’s face drained of what little color remained. "Father?! Father, kill him! He ambushed us—!"

"Shut your mouth, Viktor!" the old man barked through the phone, the rage in his voice trembling with age. "You stole my men. You traded with that pathetic banker Sterling without my blessing. You brought the Vance family’s guns to our borders because of your idiotic pride!"

"Father, please—"

"Roman," Mikhail continued, ignoring his son’s desperate cries. "The shipping manifests have been deleted from our servers. The men who followed Viktor without my orders are disowned. Our family will honor the northern boundary we agreed upon five years ago. Do with him what you must. He is no longer a Petrov."

The line went dead with a quiet beep.

Viktor stared at the phone in Roman’s hand as if it had turned into a scorpion. "No... he wouldn't. He wouldn't abandon me..."

"He didn't abandon you," Sadi said, stepping forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Roman. Her ivory suit was ruined, her hands stained with gunpowder, but she looked more terrifying than any hitman in the yard. "He cut his losses. Exactly like Marcus did. You men think you are gods until the bill comes due, and then you discover you are just collateral."

Viktor looked between them—the mafia king and the woman he had crowned. There was no mercy in either set of eyes.

"What are you going to do to me?" Viktor whispered, the arrogance finally peeling away, leaving only raw, shivering terror.

Roman looked at Silas, who was wrapping a field dressing around his wounded arm.

"Take his phone," Roman ordered. "Record a video of his confession regarding the logistics theft and the warehouse bombings. Send it directly to the Federal Attorney’s desk."

Viktor’s jaw dropped. "The feds?! You’re giving me to the police?!"

"A bullet is too clean for you, Viktor," Roman said coldly. "If I kill you, you become a martyr for some hotheaded cousin in Moscow. But if you spend the next forty years in a supermax facility in Colorado, isolated twenty-three hours a day in an eight-by-ten concrete box with your name erased from the registry... you rot as a nobody."

Roman turned his back on Viktor, wrapping an arm around Sadi’s shoulders and guiding her toward the idling armored SUV.

"Get him out of my sight," Roman said over his shoulder.

As Silas and the operators dragged Viktor screaming into the back of a van, Roman helped Sadi into the passenger seat of their vehicle. He climbed in beside her, pulling the door shut, locking the world of blood and fire outside.

In the quiet interior of the car, Roman took her hands in his. They were cold. He brought them to his mouth, kissing the bruised knuckles that had fired a twelve-gauge shotgun without flinching.

"You should never have had to pull that trigger," Roman whispered, genuine pain bleeding into his voice. "I failed you tonight."

Sadi pulled her hand back slightly, forcing him to look directly into her eyes.

"You didn't fail me, Roman," she said softly, but with steel beneath every syllable. "You gave me the power to protect myself. For my whole life, men took things from me because they knew I couldn't fight back. Marcus took my dignity. My boss took my wages. Tonight, Viktor tried to take my life. But you gave me the ground to stand on."

She leaned in, pressing her forehead against his.

"I am not your weakness, Roman. Don't ever treat me like I am."

Roman’s chest heaved. He wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her neck, holding her as if she were the only anchor keeping him tethered to the earth.