“None at all, Miss Sokolov.” He pauses, readjusting his glasses with his middle finger. “Yet.”

The threat behind his gesture doesn’t escape me, so I counter using his subtle way. Still keeping eye contact, I slide the cup of coffee in front of me then crush a piece of sugar inside before it melts. “Good to know.”

His brows furrow, and his most loyal soldier, Aleksander, stiffens behind him, his hand going to his gun. He has feminine features and a smaller frame for a guard, but he’s as merciless as his direct boss.

He won’t do anything, though, because they both know that at the sign of any danger, I won’t hesitate to bring Kirill and his whole brigade down.

Sergei clears his throat, and I smile, pretending to drink from my coffee in a leisurely manner. My granduncle doesn’t want me to provoke anyone in the brotherhood, not even if they belittle me.

So I do it behind his back.

What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Damien hits my shoulder with his, grinning like we’re close friends and he wants in on the secret.

“Fun in paradise?” He reaches for the pack of cigarettes in front of him and retrieves one. Instead of lighting it, he places the lighter a breath away from it.

“None of your business,” I counter.

Kirill’s secret is mine and mine alone. If anyone else knows, it undermines the reason behind holding something over his head.

Adrian watches me for a beat, which means he’s also caught on to the fact that something is going on.

Vlad shakes his head at me, too, and Igor keeps watching Kirill and me from above his cup of tea. The only one who’s huffing and puffing like a damsel in distress is Mikhail. He’s too focused on not wanting me at this table and didn’t notice anything. The idiot.

His boyevik isn’t stupid, though. While he stands like a board at his back, he’s hearing and watching everything so he can report it all back to his boss later.

“We’re here because there’s a looming threat from the Irish.” Sergei speaks in Russian, using a moderate tone. “Adrian’s men have gathered intel that indicates they intend to attack the territories we rule with the Italians.”

“Those fucking Irish.” Mikhail snarls like the big bad wolf he thinks he is.

Vlad leans on the table, interlacing his fingers. “Rolan has always come strong against us, ever since he became the head of the Irish after his brother’s death. He tried before but has never gotten so close. This time he seems to be going all in, even bringing in some of his allies from the small eastern European organized crime families.”

“We wouldn’t have had a problem with them if it weren’t for your irrational attack, Damien,” Igor says in a low and accusatory tone.

Damien raises his hands in the air, expression incredulous. “I was protecting my fucking soldiers, thank you very much.”

“You were protecting your foolish pride,” Kirill mutters.

“You always put us in war,” Igor accuses.

“What’s better than war when it’s well deserved?” Damien lights his cigarette, takes a drag, and blows a cloud of smoke in the air. “It’s not my fault you’re too old to handle it anymore. How about letting your son inherit it if you’ve become such a bore?”

“It’s called being cautious.”

Damien yawns. “Which is another word for boring. You should try excitement sometimes.”

“You should stop making us enemies we don’t need,” Kirill shoots back.

“Oh, fuck you. Rolan would’ve hit us anyway since his brother, sister-in-law and nephew were killed due to one of our attacks during Nikolai’s times. It happened decades ago, but he’s still after revenge.”

“So you decided to give him the opening on a golden platter?” Igor snarls.

“I was only being a good sport and started the war before they could. You should thank me.”

“Or punch you,” Kirill says.

He and Igor gang up on Damien, and they get into an endless argument in intense Russian. Mikhail interrupts only to talk about how much money Damien’s brigade is wasting, but he forgets to mention that even with the recurring attacks, Damien still brings in more than he ever will.

Sergei, Vlad, and I watch silently. Adrian, on the other hand, sips from his coffee, not even pretending to pay attention to them. It’s like this is the last place he would rather be.

I agree with him on that front. While I don’t like being left out, this war of testosterone always gets on my nerves, mainly because nothing useful comes out of it.

“Enough.” Sergei finally puts an end to it, and they all fall silent. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, because the fact remains that we’re under threat.”

“And our Italian allies aren’t in much of a hurry to help,” Vlad adds.

“Blyad,” Mikhail curses. “Didn’t they always hate the Irish? Besides, We have a deal.”

Vlad pauses before his monotone voice fills the space. “They said the deal doesn’t stand when we bring this on ourselves.”

All eyes turn to Damien, who raises his hands in the air with feigned innocence. “Not my fault we didn’t strengthen our relationship with the Italians before this. Hey, Adrian, aren’t they your friends?”

The latter finishes sipping his coffee. “Why should my friends clean up your mess?”

“Come on. Do this for the brotherhood.”

“I can ask around, but they probably won’t grant enough manpower to ward off the Irish.”

“How about the Triads? The Japanese?” Igor suggests. “They owe us a favor or two.”

Kirill scratches his chin. “This isn’t their war, so even if they offer help, it will be minimal.”

“We will take what we can get,” Damien says cheerfully, like he didn’t land us all in this clusterfuck.

Vlad glares at him before he speaks to the group. “The Italians are still our biggest allies. If we don’t have them all in, we might lose territories.”

“Then we should force them in,” I say.

“Who asked for your opinion, Rayka? Aren’t you better off dressing dolls or something?” Mikhail smiles at me, and both Kirill and Damien snicker.

“I stopped dressing my dolls the day I outranked you in income, Mikel,” I say with a smile. Since he keeps using the disrespectful version of my name, I use a wrong name for him, one that’s even more diminutive.

Vlad’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t go as far as to smile. Damien nudges my shoulder, smiling wide.

Note to self: Don’t sit next to Damien in the future.

“How should we force them?” Vlad asks me, bringing us back to the subject.

I place two pieces of sugar on the rim of the coffee cup, one more close to the edge than the other. “This one is us, because the Irish are targeting the brotherhood. The Italians are here.” I motion at the other piece that’s a bit behind. “If we’re going down, we might as well bring them with us so they take this seriously.”

“And how do you suggest we do that, little miss genius?” Mikhail asks.

“We can’t make the Italians our enemies.” Igor says this to me, but looks over to Adrian since he’s the one who handles most of our outside PR.