Page 84 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
“Yes. And for this pack. Everyone needs to know we’re strong.”
Downstairs, the noise was rising. Someone laughed too loudly. No doubt Yuri, he'd always laughed like a man who wanted to be noticed laughing, and the sound carried up the staircase like a warning.
"I should go down first," I said.
"Yes."
"Yuri will try to bait me before you enter. He's been working the room."
"I know."
"He'll call you a club girl, or worse. He's not clever but he's persistent."
"Artem." She put a hand on my chest. "I was once prepared to stab a man in an alley with a steak knife that cost eighty pence. I think I can handle a Russian in an off-the-rack suit."
"We still need to talk about that."
"Later."
I kissed her forehead because if I kissed her properly I wouldn't make it downstairs at all, and then Ivan would have to run the meeting, and Ivan's idea of diplomacy was asking questions while cleaning a sidearm and looking at the dead bodies on the floor.
"Mac?" I asked.
"Gregor has him. He's also got Fergus in the sling, which I feel is overkill, but apparently Fergus likes being up high now. It’s the Rottweiler in him. He thinks he is protecting Mac."
"I think it’s so he can see Duke."
"He and Duke are getting in quite well considering you thought Duke would eat him."
I grinned at her and then made it down the staircase with approximately twelve seconds to spare.
The room was exactly as expected. Crystal glasses sweating onto mahogany. Cigar smoke curling toward the ceiling fresco, which depicted some mythological scene my grandmother had commissioned and nobody had ever bothered to identify. Twelve men in various stages of expensive decay, plus their seconds, plus their security, all pretending they weren't here to decide whether I lived or died.
Yuri was holding court near the fireplace, which was appropriate because he'd always been drawn to the hottest part of any room. He'd spent the past week whispering to the older heads, spreading doubt, promising them a share of the London operations if they voted against me. I knew this because three of the men he'd approached had come to me directly, which was either loyalty or hedging, and at this level of power those were the same thing.
He looked up as I entered. His smile was the same one he'd worn since we were boys—too wide, too quick, the smile of a man who thought charm could substitute for competence.
"Artem." His voice carried across the room. The conversations around him died in sequence like candles going out. "We've enjoyed your hospitality. We've drunk your vodka." He paused, clearly enjoying the silence. "But we are not here for a party."
"No," I agreed, taking my place at the head of the table. "You're here because I invited you."
A few of the older men smiled at that. Not because they liked me. Because they liked watching Yuri get corrected in public.
"Proof," Yuri said, louder now, trying to reclaim the room. "You promised the council a wedding. Which we never got invited to. So now we need proof of the McCarthy alliance. Where is your bride, cousin? Where is the certificate?" He spread his hands, performing disappointment. "Or do we take the vote tonight and strip London from a man who cannot deliver what he promised?"
I didn't blink. I'd spent thirty-two years learning not to blink when men like Yuri asked questions they already thought they knew the answers to.
I nodded toward the double doors at the end of the hall.
Blade opened them.
And Maeve walked in.
She wasn't on Ivan's arm or Gregor's. She walked alone, three paces ahead of them, her spine straight and her chin elevated just enough to make eye contact with every man at the table as she passed. The dress moved with her. The liquid emerald catching the chandelier light. But it wasn't the dress that silenced the room.
It was her scent.
Our scent. Pack-scent, the three of us tangled through her skin so completely it was impossible to tell where one alpha ended and the next began. Champagne and caramel, and underneath it all, storm-clouds, the note that had secretly haunted me since Prague.
