How many times did my father have to look at me and growl? Each time he did, the sound reverberated through the empty funeral parlor. Like always, I was the lamb waiting to be slaughtered. This was the quiet time before the masses would arrive and tell us they were sorry for our loss, but they weren’t. It was hard to mourn the loss of a monster. Harder to feel bad for the man who made him.

The director entered and closed the casket at my father’s request. It wasn’t because Mikhail looked bad but because he looked nice. A sort of calm came over him in death that I never saw in life. I, for one, was grateful because this expression would never leave my mind.

The sweet scent from a thousand fragrant flowers wafted through the air as the doors opened to let the visitors in. It was a smell I remembered well. The smell a seven-year-old girl will never forget because it smelled like lost hope and dashed dreams.

My father pinched my elbow and pulled me to the front of the room, where people would pass by.

My heels clicked across the tile floor as I took up a position beside him. Sergei found his place next to me. I was trapped between two powerful men, both intent on destroying me. My father because he hated me—my fiancé, because it was what he was sent here to do.

I’d given Sergei a lot of thought in the last few days. All you had to do was look at him to realize he’d never be anyone’s second in command. The man ate steel for breakfast and spit nails for lunch, and yet, he showed moments of softness when it was needed the most. Most when I almost trusted him, and that made him all the more dangerous.

“Are you okay, my love?” His hand rested for mere seconds on my back before he pulled it away.

I turned my head to look at him. “I’ll be fine.”

“What a waste,” my father said on the end of a breath. “It should have been you.”

My internal ember flared, then flickered, then flamed.

“But it wasn’t. It was Mikhail. Maybe it should have been you,” I whispered back. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched my father’s face go from sun-kissed pink, to mottled red, and then purple.

While not smart to talk back to my father at all, it was at least safe to do it here because he wouldn’t lift a hand to strike me in front of his peers. To be goaded to violence by a woman would show weakness.

A half-smile was all I had to offer anyone who walked by. While the masses moved through the line and took a seat for the short service to follow, I watched for one man—Matt. My body knew he was here before I saw him. My skin prickled and my heart raced when he entered the room.

God, he was gorgeous dressed in a dark gray suit, crisp white shirt, and charcoal colored tie. While he always looked good, he was a man who could pull off jeans with as much finesse and style as a three-thousand-dollar suit. Why hadn’t my father given me to the enemy I knew? Oh, that’s right, he did right before he killed their father.

A chill raced down my bare arms. I understood the need to keep a place cold where they stored dead bodies, but did they need to freeze everyone in the process?

As the Wildes grew closer, I got warmer.

Alex Wilde approached first. He looked calm and happy. That’s what marrying the right woman did for him. Faye walked beside him. While her eyes were on my father, she kept a serene look on her face. No doubt she remembered the day he had her kidnapped and nearly killed.

On my right, Sergei stiffened and stood taller as the Wildes moved toward him.

Alex stopped in front of me and took my hands. “Katya, is there anything we can do for you?”

There were a hundred things I could think of, but not one that wouldn’t start a war. “Thank you for coming.”

He smiled and tossed back words I’d said to him the day he married Faye. “For these things, we have no choice.”

Next was Faye, who rather than shake my hand, threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. It was an odd action given the public perception about the hate between our families. “Hang in there.”

“By my fingernails,” I replied.

She moved on to Sergei, who merely grunted when each person passed, but when it came to Faye, he leaned forward and said, “You are the reason my cousin is dead.”

Alex pulled Faye behind him. “You will not talk to my wife. Dima is dead because the coward killed himself.”

Sergei lunged forward, but I stepped in-between the two men. “Put your dicks away. This is a funeral. Show some respect for the dead.”

Both men pulled at their ties and stepped back into place.

Next was Matt. My father gripped his hand so hard, Matt’s fingers turned white, but he didn’t flinch. “Yuri, I’m sorry about Mikhail.”

Under his breath, my father said, “You killed him, and I will kill you.”

Matt stepped back and yanked his hand from my father’s grasp. “I had nothing to do with it.” He glanced at Sergei. “You should be looking in your own backyard before you try to scale my fence. The Wildes had nothing to do with Mikhail’s death. We have nothing to gain. If I wanted to kill a Petrenko, you’d be the first on my list.” He moved to his left and stood in front of me.

He held my hands gently. His fingers brushed softly against my knuckles. “You okay?” He leaned in and whispered, “Sweetheart.”

“Yes, I’ll be okay.”

He looked down at my dress, which wasn’t black. I’d refused to swath myself in darkness any longer, so I chose an emerald green dress.

“You look beautiful despite the somber circumstances.”

“Thank you.”

Sergei moved closer. “It’s good to see you again, Wilde.”

Matt stood nearly as tall as Sergei, but he wasn’t as wide. My future husband was large and intimidating, but Matt didn’t shrink in his presence.

“Matt, you remember Sergei from Capone’s.”

Sergei offered his hand, which meant Matt had to drop mine to shake his. He did so, but not before he gave me a reassuring squeeze.

“He’s a hard man to forget.”

“Have you given my offer much thought?” Sergei asked.

I stared between the two men. What offer? I wondered.

“Nope, not even a second of thought.” Matt turned back to me and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Don’t shut me out again,” he whispered. “I’m going to figure this out.”

My breath hitched, and my heart raced. There was nothing to figure out. I would marry Sergei. I’d give my husband a son and my father an heir, and then maybe, just maybe they’d set me free.

Next in line was the Irish contingency. While I had little to do with them, I was familiar with their family. My father hated the Wildes, but he had a special hateful place in his cold heart for the O’Learys. Liam walked past my father without a word and stopped in front of me. “Katya, I’m so sorry about your brother.” He held my hand in his the way I imagined a father would when his daughter needed reassurance. I glanced to the man’s right and saw his daughter Kirsten. We’d never become friends because of our fathers. It was too hard to separate who we were from what our families did. You couldn’t have a sleepover on a Friday night and a shootout the next day. Out of all the mafia families I met, the O’Learys seemed to be the most family-oriented despite the fact that Kirsten’s mother died at her birth.

“Katya, your brother held your hand for a little while, but may he hold your heart forever,” Kirsten said.

“Thank you.” The Irish were funny that way; they always had something to say, and when they said it, it was like a calming balm to a wounded soul.

Liam held his daughter's hand and walked to Sergei, who turned away from the Irish mobster. Liam shrugged and led his daughter toward a pew. While it was customary to have the service first in most cases, mafia families got the niceties out of the way first in case all hell broke loose later.

I watched the O’Learys walk away. Was it crazy for me to be jealous of the relationship they had? There was no doubt Kirsten would also be used to bring good fortune in marriage, but would she at least have some say in the matter?

The line ended, and we took our seats to listen to the priest say a few words. No one stood to give emotional testimony to the greatness of my brother. He’d terrorized and tortured half the people in the room.

While the priest promised we’d see him in heaven someday, it was simply because he was paid handsomely to put in a good word on behalf of the Petrenko family. None of those words were said for my mother eighteen years ago.

Unlike the Wildes, there would be no celebration of life gathering. We would travel to the cemetery alone and make our way home and back to our normal lives.

After the short service, I stepped into the sunshine. The heat of the rays warmed my skin. At least fifty people gathered on the sidewalk, waiting for the casket to be rolled to the hearse.

Not far away was Matt. He stood to the side and watched me. In a sea of black and gray, I was easy to pick out wearing green.

While I would have loved to feel the comfort of his arms around me, I stayed put and waited for my father.

He led the pallbearers to the hearse, and once my brother was tucked inside, he turned and stomped toward me.

He poked his finger into my chest. “You show such disrespect wearing this color, like the passing of my son is a celebration.”

I stepped back from his touch. “I refuse to wear a color that reminds me of the soulless abyss of your heart.”

Yuri leaned in to put his face in mine. “You’re just like your mother.”

“God, I hope so.”

“She was a whore,” he spat out. A spray of spittle hit my cheek.

“If I’m a whore, it’s not because of my mother; it’s because you continue to pimp me out like one.”

I’d heard my father talk poorly of my mother on many occasions, but never had he called her a whore. Something inside me reared up like a feral, angry animal. I fisted up and punched him in the nose. He staggered back. When he realized what hit him, he lunged forward and raised his hand to strike me.

I closed my eyes and waited for the hit, but it didn’t come. A shadow fell over me, and Sergei stood in front me, holding my father’s fist in his hand.

“I’d reconsider if I were you,” Sergei said with the threat of death in his voice. “It would be easy to bury two today.”

I looked up to Sergei with gratefulness in my expression. That feeling of thankfulness ended quickly when a black Escalade rounded the corner. The window opened a crack, and a hail of bullets sliced through the air. Everyone around me scrambled for cover, but I stood and dared a bullet to hit me. Death was not the worst thing that could happen.