Bought By The Ruthless Don

Episode5

SILAS.

Liora, or whoever the f**k she actually was, fell over the window, gone into the morning.

I breathed out slowly and glanced down at the throwing knives stuck in my chest and side. Blood soaked through my shirt, coloring my skin.

A flash of something unexpected ran through me. Respect. Very, very few individuals had ever attempted to strike me and it actually hit.

Stumbling a little, I turned and hobbled to the bedroom, my stride awkward. Each step sent a fresh spasm of agony cutting through me, and worse, I was feeling the poison spreading. My limbs were numbing, tingling. f**k.

I picked up my phone, ringing for help with a shaking hand. "Magnus," I gritted out the moment he picked up.

"Get a medic to my room. Now. Bring all possible antidotes for poison."

I hung up before he could respond, aware I had at best minutes before I lost all control with my body. I made it barely halfway to the bed before my legs gave way. I landed on the mattress, gasping for air.

Where the hell was Magnus? The edge of my vision blurred. My heart was racing. I clenched my teeth, fighting to stay conscious, but the blackness was pulling me down fast.

Then, footsteps. The door burst open, and I barely registered the people piling in around me. A medic loomed over me, checking my pulse, flashing a light into my eyes.

Magnus's voice cut through the fog. "Fix him. Now."

I heard the medic curse under his breath, but my head was already gone, the universe dissolving into blackness.

—

I didn't know how long passed before I regained consciousness. My muscles ached. I slowly got up, feeling pinpricks all over. Magnus sat beside the bed. As soon as I moved, he stood up, holding out a bottle of water and two painkillers.

"Take them," he said.

I did so, swallowing them down, already feeling the pain subside a little.

Magnus looked at me hard. "What the heck happened?"

My jaw clenched as my brain remembered last night. Her.

Miss not Liora Volkov. I huffed harshly.

"I slept with a woman," I said bluntly. "And she almost killed me."

Magnus raised an eyebrow, then released a short snort.

"Rookie mistake, Don," he said in a dry voice. "I thought you were past that."

I sighed, running my hand over my face.

"I know." I hesitated. "But…" I fell silent. There was no defense. It was a rookie mistake, the sort that brought down lesser men. And it had almost worked on me.

But there was something about her...

I pushed the thought away and hung my legs off the side of the bed. The pain had lessened enough that I could shift without struggling.

"Get the security tapes from last night," I ordered.

Magnus nodded and went out to place the call.

I got up and headed for the living room, my eyes scanning the room.

She’d come here to get something. I needed to find out what. I started searching. My eyes roamed the room until I spotted it, a drawer. Wide open. Empty.

I froze where I was standing. A rough breath hissed between my teeth as Magnus appeared behind me.

"I've told Dev to roll the footage," he responded. And then, looking at the open drawer, he sighed. "What did she take?"

I walked away, combing a hand through my hair. Frustration simmered in my stomach. Then I snarled, "f**k!"

Magnus didn't flinch. He just stood there looking on as I made fists and snarled again.

"She stole the information and the license for the Dravetti arms sale with the Russians," I growled.

His face hardened immediately. "f**k," he cursed. We both knew exactly what that implied. We had just missed out on a multi-billion-dollar sale. And this would not sit well with the Russians. Tensions would boil over. There would be repercussions. Issues we did not need at this time.

There was a knock at the door.

Magnus rose to get it while I stood there, anger fixed on the open drawer, fury burning within me.

A beat after, Dev came in, laptop in hand.

"Boss," he said, in my direction, nodding.

We all gathered around the table as he opened the screen.

"The footage was tampered with," he said grimly. "I’ve been working on recovering it. Should have something in a second."

We waited in silence.

Then, a grainy video played on the screen.

I sat, my muscles bracing as the tape rolled. She was careful always to turn away from the cameras. Smart.

Looking at her filled me with rage. "Pause it," I told them. Dev stopped it.

"Play it back."

He rewound it, pausing on a frame where we caught a glimpse, fuzzy and partial, of her face.

"Run facial recognition," I said calmly. "I want everything on her. Her actual name, where she lives, what she had for lunch, I want the entire report by the end of day."

Dev nodded. "Got it." He stood up from his chair, already running the search.

I headed towards the bathroom.

I had a very unpleasant meeting to organize.

——

I flung the door open with a violence that made the hinges squeak.

Storming out, I restrained with effort on raw fury threatening to boil inside me. My whole body shook with the desire to unleash violence, like perhaps murdering a certain redhead.

The waiting car was already parked outside, engine idling. I yanked open the door and slid into the backseat, locking eyes with Magnus as he sat across from me, his expression unreadable.

Without saying a word, the driver edged out onto the road, driving through the city as the streetlights flashed by.

Magnus leaned back, regarding me. "How did it go?"

I clenched my jaw, gazing out the window for a moment before exhaling a rough breath. "Bad," I admitted. "The Russians are not pleased. This will be a headache for a little while before we get it taken care of."

Magnus remained still but I sensed the familiar bristle of his shoulders.

I sighed, wrinkling the bridge of my nose. A throbbing headache pounded at the top of my head.

All of this because my d**k got wet.

"f**k, Silas," I muttered under my breath to myself. "You're a goddamn idiot."

There was the sound of rustling, and Magnus pulled out a folder, dropping it onto my lap.

“Here's the file you requested Dev put together”, he said.

I took it, opening it, my eyes greedily reading what was within.

Alessia Romano. Twenty-five years old. She wasn’t a redhead after all, but a brunette.

I scoffed.

This woman. This very beautiful woman had come closer to killing me than anyone had in years.

I turned the page and paused. Her father was Salvatore Moretti.

I stared at the name then bared my teeth in something between amusement and anger.She was a Moretti.

Dev had written a small note in the margin of the page. Very, very secret information.

That made sense. The Morettis were slimy f***s and our families had been at odds for centuries.

They could never match us, though.

The Dravettis were more than a simple crime family. We were mafia aristocracy. Royalty. Our reach was not confined to the underworld, but influenced world politics, laws, banks, and society. Our transactions, though wicked, were sophisticated.

The Morettis, though, had come up from the gutter, a syndicate of blood and brutality. They had slithered into power in ways that no one had ever expected. Their kingdom thrived in mercenary crews, flesh and blood businesses, p**********n rings, anything sordid, anything repulsive.

And yet this file told me the Morettis didn't claim Alessia Romano. Of course they didn't. Women in the crime world had two options: to be married off or to be f****d.

That was the extent of it. The Dravettis were more evolved than that.I paged through the rest of the file, reviewing documents, background, surveillance reports. Then I sighed and passed it to Magnus.

He took it, looking at me suspiciously.

"What next?" he asked.

My jaw clenched. "For the time being," I said slowly, "we wait."

Magnus's eyebrow shot up.

"They'll be on high alert now," I continued. "They know what they've done, and they'll know we'll be looking for revenge. So, we do what we always do, business as usual."

A slow, cruel smirk spread across my lips.

"And then," I murmured, "we’ll sneak up on them unawares."

I leaned back against the seat, eyes dark with intent.

"And then, Alessia Romano will be mine to ruin."