I wasn’t sure what was going on with Vitoria. I had been disappointed to wake up alone the morning after we’d had sex. I wondered if I should have specified that she could stay the night, but I didn’t realize that she thought that she was expected to leave. Of course, she probably knew I was a player; my reputation was no secret around Barcelona. I still didn’t know why I was so hung up on this one woman.

But even now, I couldn’t seem to get her off my mind.

Or get my mind off her I thought, as I woke up hard and aching for the third morning that week, rutting fruitlessly into the sheets.

But I was starting to wonder if something was really wrong. No matter how many times I tried to call, she didn’t answer. I wondered if she was busy at school, but I would have expected her to at least shoot me a message if that was the case. All I got from her was silence, though.

And as a couple days turned into a week since I’d last seen her, I started to realize that she hadn’t left because she thought I expected it. For some reason, she had wanted to leave. Maybe the house had made her feel uncomfortable? Maybe she wasn’t interested in me in that way?

But I didn’t believe that for a second.

Anyway, it was confusing that Vitoria hadn’t even said anything to me about it. I’d always thought she was direct; it was one of the things I had liked best about her. There was no toying around with her. What you saw was what you got.

Still, there was nothing I could do about it. If she didn’t want to talk to me, there was nothing I could do to make her, short of looking up her address and stalking her. I wasn’t that desperate for a bit of sexy Spanish pussy.

Besides, I had other things to think about; I couldn’t dwell on the situation with Vitoria even if I wanted to.

Sergei frowned across his desk at me. “We’ve decided to put you in the Peoria Hotel as a sniper,” he said, holding up a hand. “I know that we had originally discussed having you lead one of the dispatching teams into the headquarters, but in light of your relationship with the Mata girl, we’ve decided that’s too risky.”

I rolled my eyes and folded my arms across my chest, looking first at Sergei and then at Uncle Evgeni, standing just beyond the man’s right shoulder. “Come on, it’s not like someone from Audaz is going to be able to recognize me.”

“It’s still too big a risk,” Sergei snapped.

“What if you were to come across the Mata girl’s father, or the girl herself?” Evgeni asked reasonably. “Can you truly say that you would be able to dispatch them without a second thought?”

“I don’t even know what her father looks like,” I insisted.

“All the same,” Sergei said, shaking his head. He frowned. “I don’t need to remind you that any deviation from the plan could lead to losses that we neither can nor want to sustain.”

I scowled at him, even though the rational side of me knew that he was right. There was no way I could hurt Vitoria. Even if whatever we’d had was over.

“The thing with the Mata girl—Vitoria—is over, anyway,” I informed them.

“Good,” Sergei said, nodding approvingly.

Evgeni peered closer at me and then laughed. “But it wasn’t your doing, was it?” he crowed.

I buried my face in my hands. Sometimes, working with your family is the worst—especially when your mob boss of an uncle could figure out everything from your expression and tone.

Sergei wasn’t laughing, though. “It’s interesting that the girl would decide she was finished with you right before the attack.” He shook his head, looking at Evgeni. “You don’t think they know all about what we’re up to?”

“How could they?” Evgeni asked scornfully. “We’ve been very careful to make sure that we don’t have spies in our midst—easy enough to do when we’re all related, in some way or another, and when we have ample financial resources to make sure everyone stays happy!”

“True,” Sergei said, but I could see from the way he was looking at me, that he suddenly was doubting that.

I stood up abruptly. “Just let me know where you want me to be and when,” I said, stalking out of the room before he could air his suspicions.

The day of the attack, I stood poised in position, staring across the street towards the Audaz headquarters building. It was late in the evening, and as we’d suspected, there weren’t many lights on in the building. But we knew that there were people inside, holding one of their weekly meetings. Deep inside the building, our dispatchers would be starting the offensive, stirring up chaos. As the rest of the guys came pouring out of the building, we would be here waiting, to pick them off. Once all of our men were out of there, they would detonate a string of bombs, killing anyone who had remained inside.

I looked at my watch, impatiently counting down the minutes before anything would happen. I didn’t want to be here, on the back lines, especially not when my comrades were inside the building already, possibly in danger. But there had been no changing Sergei and Evgeni’s minds, even when I’d tried a last-ditch plea.

It was probably for the best, I knew.

I had woken up the night before, tangled up in the sheets, a nightmare still flashing through my skull. I’d been there, in Audaz’s headquarters, searching through the hallways for something—I hadn’t been sure what it was, though. Finally, I came around a corner and saw Vitoria curled up sobbing in the middle of the hallway. She’d looked up at me, tears in her eyes, right as I’d lifted my gun and shot her.

I still felt guilty about this, even though I knew that Vitoria wouldn’t be in the building: she had nothing to do with Audaz, even though her family was tied to it. But on behalf of her family and her family’s friends, I didn’t particularly like waiting here to shoot men down.

If Vitoria hadn’t already stopped talking to me, she definitely wouldn’t have deigned to talk to me after this attack. I knew that she wouldn’t understand.

For the first time, I started to wonder if I understood. Things were fine around the city at the moment. We had plenty of work, and plenty of money coming in. There was no reason to have to expand our territory there.

I understood, in some ways, where Evgeni was coming from: he thought it was only a matter of time before Audaz turned on us and tried to root us out of the city. The longer we allowed them to exist there, the longer they would have to build their strongholds and recruit men to their cause. It would be easy enough to convince Catalonians to get rid of these outsiders, these Russian scum.

But at the same time, if we had peace, why not relish it for at least a little while longer?

I shook my head, knowing I needed to focus. If everything was going according to plan then our dispatchers should have reached the meeting point by now and started their task. That meant we only had minutes before it was time for us to focus.

It didn’t work out that way, though.

I spun around as I heard glass breaking on the far side of the building. We were in what had once been the ballroom, a large open space with fading wallpaper and viciously sparking light sockets. The place had gone out of business years ago, and no one had ever moved in with the money to renovate it. There were already enough hotels in the city, nicer hotels, and this one wasn’t needed. It made the perfect spot to snipe the headquarters from. But we had already cut holes in all the windows that we needed to shoot through.

Sure enough, the guys streaming into the ballroom were anything but Russian. They were shorter, darker—Spanish. And they all wore Audaz’s insignia on their chest.

I swallowed hard, knowing our guns were no match for the rapid-fire pistols in their hands. Everyone else knew it as well—we were just the backup unit, the snipers. We were massively outnumbered, and we had the wrong weapons for this kind of a fight. What’s more, everyone was looking to me for some kind of action. I considered trying to fight my way out for a long moment, but finally, I dropped my gun.

The other Russians in the room quickly followed suit, dropping their guns and putting their hands behind their heads, showing that they didn’t intend to fight.

I didn’t have enough power to think that I could negotiate with them on Evgeni’s behalf, but I needed to figure out how to keep my men alive. Inwardly, I was seething. I didn’t understand why there weren’t any guys streaming out of their headquarters building—because even now, the place was quiet. Somehow, they seemed to have figured us out.

“El comandant,” one of the Spaniards said imperiously, gesturing to two of his guys, who stepped forwards and grabbed me. They pulled me roughly in front of their leader, who smiled toothily at me before punching me hard in the stomach causing me to double over.

He began to rain blows on me with both his fists and his feet, hitting me in the stomach, the face, the shins, the groin. I gasped for air, tasting blood, wondering why they seemed content with beating me up. After an eternity—it seemed—he finally quit beating me, probably just catching his breath.

I hung there, suspended between the two henchmen, unable to get my feet back beneath me even though my gut instinct was to stand tall and stare this coward in the face. What about a fair fight?, I wanted to taunt him.

“You Russian dogs,” the guy sneered in heavily-accented English. “You come into our city and piss all over our territory and then you want to rut with our women too.” He punched me again, and I groaned. “You stay away from Vitoria from now on.”

Who the hell was this guy? Some ex-lover maybe? But how had they figured out our plan?

Before I could respond, someone came up behind me and smacked me hard in the temple. My vision flickered for a moment and then went dark as I collapsed in a heap on the bloodied floor.