Milo’s POV

The meeting room was a den of wolves, each man at the table cloaked in ambition and deceit. The air hung heavy with cigar smoke, the acrid scent mingling with the faint metallic tang of tension. I sat at the head, my posture relaxed but my eyes sharp, scanning the faces of Russia’s most ruthless bosses. They spoke of territories, shipments, and profits, their voices a low rumble of greed, but my mind was elsewhere, back on that balcony, where Emilie’s trembling voice had ...