Throne of Power (Throne Duet #1) by Rina Kent

“It’s called being cautious.”

Damien yawns. “Which is another word for boring. You should try excitement sometimes.”

“You should stop making us enemies we don’t need,” Kirill shoots back.

“Oh, fuck you. Rolan would’ve hit us anyway since his brother, sister-in-law and nephew were killed due to one of our attacks during Nikolai’s times. It happened decades ago, but he’s still after revenge.”

“So you decided to give him the opening on a golden platter?” Igor snarls.

“I was only being a good sport and started the war before they could. You should thank me.”

“Or punch you,” Kirill says.

He and Igor gang up on Damien, and they get into an endless argument in intense Russian. Mikhail interrupts only to talk about how much money Damien’s brigade is wasting, but he forgets to mention that even with the recurring attacks, Damien still brings in more than he ever will.

Sergei, Vlad, and I watch silently. Adrian, on the other hand, sips from his coffee, not even pretending to pay attention to them. It’s like this is the last place he would rather be.

I agree with him on that front. While I don’t like being left out, this war of testosterone always gets on my nerves, mainly because nothing useful comes out of it.

“Enough.” Sergei finally puts an end to it, and they all fall silent. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, because the fact remains that we’re under threat.”

“And our Italian allies aren’t in much of a hurry to help,” Vlad adds.

“Blyad,” Mikhail curses. “Didn’t they always hate the Irish? Besides, We have a deal.”

Vlad pauses before his monotone voice fills the space. “They said the deal doesn’t stand when we bring this on ourselves.”

All eyes turn to Damien, who raises his hands in the air with feigned innocence. “Not my fault we didn’t strengthen our relationship with the Italians before this. Hey, Adrian, aren’t they your friends?”

The latter finishes sipping his coffee. “Why should my friends clean up your mess?”

“Come on. Do this for the brotherhood.”

“I can ask around, but they probably won’t grant enough manpower to ward off the Irish.”

“How about the Triads? The Japanese?” Igor suggests. “They owe us a favor or two.”

Kirill scratches his chin. “This isn’t their war, so even if they offer help, it will be minimal.”

“We will take what we can get,” Damien says cheerfully, like he didn’t land us all in this clusterfuck.

Vlad glares at him before he speaks to the group. “The Italians are still our biggest allies. If we don’t have them all in, we might lose territories.”

“Then we should force them in,” I say.

“Who asked for your opinion, Rayka? Aren’t you better off dressing dolls or something?” Mikhail smiles at me, and both Kirill and Damien snicker.

“I stopped dressing my dolls the day I outranked you in income, Mikel,” I say with a smile. Since he keeps using the disrespectful version of my name, I use a wrong name for him, one that’s even more diminutive.

Vlad’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t go as far as to smile. Damien nudges my shoulder, smiling wide.

Note to self: Don’t sit next to Damien in the future.

“How should we force them?” Vlad asks me, bringing us back to the subject.

I place two pieces of sugar on the rim of the coffee cup, one more close to the edge than the other. “This one is us, because the Irish are targeting the brotherhood. The Italians are here.” I motion at the other piece that’s a bit behind. “If we’re going down, we might as well bring them with us so they take this seriously.”

“And how do you suggest we do that, little miss genius?” Mikhail asks.

“We can’t make the Italians our enemies.” Igor says this to me, but looks over to Adrian since he’s the one who handles most of our outside PR.

“We will bring them in, not make enemies with them.” I push the first piece of sugar. “If the Irish attack the Italians, even indirectly…” I pause for dramatic effect then jostle the cup causing the second piece of sugar to fall with a small plopping sound. “They will have no choice but to defend their territories and their honor.”

“Do you suggest we betray our biggest allies?” Kirill stares at me as if I murdered a member of his family.

“I’m suggesting we don’t take the hit when the Irish attack. If we lure them to the Italian territories, the chess pieces will take care of themselves. We can go and help after the damage is done.”

“That way, we can reinforce our relationship with the Italians while dragging them into war with us,” Vlad explains.

“Exactly.” I push my coffee away because there’s no way in hell I’ll drink it now that it has so much sugar in it.

Igor, Adrian, and Damien remain silent, but Mikhail clears his throat and Kirill makes a face. They know I’m right and my plan is the best we have, but their male egos don’t like the fact that a woman outsmarted them.

“Igor.” Sergei speaks, and everyone at the table pays attention—including Adrian. “Work on getting as much manpower as possible from the Triads and the Japanese. Kirill and Mikhail, protect the territories, including the shared ones. We never know where they will hit next. Adrian, keep negotiating with the Italians.”