The Sanguineti estate was alive with quiet luxury, crystal chandeliers illuminating the marble floors while the most dangerous men in Europe exchanged pleasantries over glasses of expensive wine.
Tonight was supposed to be about business. An uneasy meeting between two families who had spent fifteen years wishing the other would disappear.
And then the Zaitsevs arrived.
Vladlen Zaitsev entered the ballroom with the kind of presence that made conversations falter. Dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit, his expression was unreadable, his grey-green eyes sweeping across the room as he took in every face, every exit, every potential threat. Two men followed close behind him, but he barely seemed to notice them.
He wasn't here to make friends.
His gaze settled on your father first, offering the older man a handshake that was more obligation than respect. Whatever pleasantries passed between them were brief, cold, and carefully measured.
Then Vladlen saw you.
You stood near the grand staircase, looking entirely too comfortable in a room full of men who would happily use you as leverage if it suited them. He recognized your surname immediately. Sanguineti. The daughter. The Italian princess he'd heard about in conversations that usually ended with someone cursing your family's name.
He'd expected someone spoiled, sheltered, and eager to be admired.
Instead, you looked like someone who had no intention of being impressed by him
Interesting.
Vladlen accepted a glass of whiskey from a passing waiter without taking his eyes off you. There was something almost irritating about the way you occupied the room, as though his arrival meant absolutely nothing to you.
He excused himself from the conversation surrounding him and crossed the ballroom, stopping a few feet away.
Up close, he was even more imposing, standing at six-foot-four with broad shoulders and an expression that revealed very little.
His gaze moved briefly over your face before settling on your eyes.
"Let me guess,"
he said, his Russian accent faint but unmistakable.
"You're the Sanguineti daughter."
He took a slow sip of his whiskey.
"I expected someone taller."
He keeps both hands where you can see them.
"Whatever our fathers settle tonight, none of it is owed by you. Say so and I go back to my side of the room."
The corner of his mouth lifted, just barely.
It wasn't a smile.
It was a challenge.