“Who said we’d be dead and poor?” I asked him. “We can win this war without using the girl.”
“How do we do that?” Arturo asked me. “Seems like the girl isn’t worth all this trouble.”
I laughed. “This was never about her. You said it yourself.”
“True. I’ve been looking for an excuse to kill Russians for a long time.”
“Don’t listen to these cowards,” I said, gesturing at Gian and Alfonse.
“Yo, motherfucker, who you calling a coward?” Alfonse said.
“I’ll fucking strangle you,” Gian added, standing.
“Gentlemen,” Arturo warned, and the two captains took their seats again, but they looked pissed.
“Arturo, we can win this war. Let me watch over the girl. I’ll take care of her.”
“Aren’t you already?”
“Of course,” I said. “But I’ll keep her out of the way.”
Arturo looked at Lucas. “What do you think, son?”
“We keep the girl. We kill the Russians.” He shrugged. “Seems easy to me.”
“Fine. We keep the girl.”
“Isn’t this something the council should vote on?” Alfonse asked.
“Fuck the council,” Arturo said. “I made the call; now live with it.”
Alfonse sat back in his chair, looking annoyed.
“What now?” Gian asked.
“Vincent here will make a plan to hit the Russians back. Right, Vincent?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“Meanwhile, everyone calm the fuck down.” Arturo nodded at me. “Go get to work.”
I turned and quickly left the room. Lucas followed me out, shutting the door behind us.
“You should have heard them earlier,” Lucas said. “They keep pretending like they want to fight this war, but as soon as we talk about our dead guys, they’re suddenly all about giving Kaley back to the Russians.”
“Fuck,” I said. “I didn’t think this would happen so fast.”
“They’re cowards,” Lucas said. “But they’re more afraid of looking like cowards. We’ll keep fighting.”
“Not sure that’s much better.”
“Kaley unhappy?”
“Very,” I said.
“Understandable. We’re killing her family.”
I grunted. “Having a family is complicated.”
“Yeah,” Lucas said, “it fucking is.”
I nodded at him and walked off, heading back toward my room.
I shouldn’t have been so surprised about that scene back in Arturo’s office, but I was. I had assumed that everyone wanted this war and that everyone was on board, but apparently there was a large group of people who didn’t want to be fighting. Sure, everyone said they wanted the war, because otherwise you looked like a pathetic weakling. But when the bullets started flying, they were talking about giving Kaley back.
I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t want this war much anymore, since I could see what it was doing to Kaley, but I couldn’t let them end it either.
I had to find another solution.
I quickly walked through the hallways, heading back toward my room. But instead of going inside, I walked past it and went down toward Kaley’s place. I quickly knocked on the door.
She answered after a minute, holding Alexei.
“Vince,” she said. “What do you want?”
“Let me inside.”
She moved and let me slip past. She shut the door behind us and turned toward me.
“What do you want?” she asked again.
“Pack your stuff,” I said. “You’re coming to stay with me.”
She looked at me strangely. “What are you talking about?”
“Get your stuff and Alexei’s stuff. You’re coming to stay in my room.”
She bit her lip. “Why?”
“You said you felt unsafe, right? Well, there’s no better way for me to keep you safe.”
“I don’t know. Alexei cries all night sometimes, especially in a new room. He’s just getting used to this one.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “We’ll survive a crying baby. Come on.”
She looked at me for a second and then sighed and nodded. “Okay. But just to be clear, this is for Alex. To keep him safe.”
I grinned at her. “Sure it is.”
“Here,” she said and handed me the baby. “It’s for him. Don’t forget that.”
I watched her ass move across the floor and felt my cock stirring in my pants.
We both knew it was for the kid. But we also both knew it was because we wanted to be near each other, couldn’t get enough of each other.
“You’re coming to live with me, little man,” I said to Alexei. “Your mommy pretends like she hates me, but we both know she doesn’t.”
He just smiled up at me.
31
Kaley
I didn’t know how I’d ended up here.
One second I was staying in my own room thinking about how I could keep distance between me and Vince, and the next I was staying in his room, practically on top of him.
“You can have the bedroom,” he said.
“What about you?”
He shrugged. “I have an apartment in the city. Most of my stuff is there, so it doesn’t matter to me.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“Sure. I don’t live here.”