13. Mikhail

As I follow Raoul down to the dungeon, I don't ask the question burning through my mind: Where is Trofim?

I can't. I don't have the energy for half-baked theories and possibilities. As a leader, they aren't useful.

Questioning whether Trofim and Viviana showing back up on the same day after almost six years of radio silence is connected in any way isn't helpful.

Wondering whether the mother of my child is in cahoots with the ex-fiancé I saved her from is a waste of energy.

So I shove the thoughts deep down inside and descend the stairs into the dungeon.

In reality, it's a glorified basement. Despite everything I said to Dante, I don't really think I'm a king who lives in a castle. But when you hold prisoners in your basement, calling it "the dungeon" is the natural next step. What can you do?

Raoul unlocks a second door at the bottom of the staircase and lets me into the first soundproof interrogation room. A middle-aged man with a paunch is tied to a metal chair in the middle of the floor. His hands are bound behind his back.

Definitely not Trofim.

"I told you everything I know," the man whines through a thick Russian accent. His bottom lip is split and blood dribbles down his chin.

Anatoly wraps a length of tape around his bloody knuckles as he paces the concrete floor. "I wish I could believe you, but you've said that already. Twice now. And each time, a little knockaround shook some things loose."

The man is trembling. "I swear, I don't have anything else! I'm out of the game. It's why I moved here. Whoever you think I'm going to tell, I'm not. I don't have any more connections."

"Lucky you," Anatoly muses. "If you did, I might have to kill you. As it is, you only managed to run your mouth to a few old drunks at the bar."

"Run his mouth about what?" I ask.

Anatoly turns to me, a wide grin on his face. "I hear congratulations are?—"

"What did he run his mouth about?" I repeat with a warning glare for my brother.

He closes his mouth, but the amusement is hard to miss. After a few seconds of silence, Anatoly kicks the shaking man's chair. "Well, my pakhan asked you a question. Tell him what you ran your mouth about."

"I didn't run my mouth!" the man starts. "Some men at the bar started asking questions about my work. I'm retired now. I haven't practiced in four years. But I told them about my work as a coroner. People find it interesting. They have questions! These guys, they, they, they wanted to know if I'd ever cremated anyone they would know and I remember a case from a few years ago. There was a guy who?—"

Suddenly, Anatoly's fist connects with the man's jaw. His head snaps to the side, blood spraying out of his mouth.

"Anatoly," Raoul complains with a sigh, "he was talking."

"It was boring. Besides, I should be the one to deliver the news." Anatoly shakes out his fist and walks closer. He meets my eyes and, for the first time in a long time, there is no joke. "Trofim is dead."

I thought Trofim might be plotting something. I half-expected to find him strapped to a chair in the dungeon.

But… dead?

"How?" I ask.

Anatoly hitches a thumb over his shoulder to the bleeding man. "Long story short, I overheard this asshole running his mouth at a rival bar. He was talking about cremating the son of the Novikov Bratva in Moscow. I figured he was full of shit and just trying to get some clout with the bartender for free drinks, but… he had a lot of information."

"Description, tattoos, and where Trofim was staying," Raoul lists off. "It seems legit."

Trofim is dead. It's not so hard to wrap my head around. I haven't seen him since that night in the bridal suite. In a lot of ways, he's been dead to me since the moment I exiled him.

"That's not all." Anatoly spins around, kicking the man's chair again. The coroner is slumped down, but he blinks back to full awareness as we all stare at him. "Tell him the rest."

"I got the call to take care of Trofim Novikov's body in the middle of the night. Usually, these kinds of things can wait until morning, but there was a rush. Someone with more power than I have wanted the body cremated immediately. But when I got there, I noticed?—"

"He was murdered," Anatoly blurts. After a few seconds, he waves his hand at the coroner. "Go on. Keep going."

The man sighs and carries on. "Someone suggested it was suicide, but it wasn't like any suicide I've ever seen. There were cuts and bruises all over his body. Most people don't brutalize themselves like that before they pull the trigger. It didn't make sense."

"That's because you didn't know him," Anatoly drawls. "To know Trofim was to want to kill him. I'm not surprised it happened; I'm just surprised we're only finding out about it now."

"Did you hear anything about this, Raoul?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing. Trofim was staying in some tiny little town outside of Dzerzhinsk. I had eyes in the surrounding areas in case he ventured out, but he never did."

Because he was dead.

I counted it a luxury that my older brother at least knew when to call it quits. I exiled him and he didn't fight back. He took his defeat on the chin.

Or, maybe not.

Maybe someone killed him before he could scrabble together a comeback attempt.

"Is that all the information we have?" I ask.

"So far," Anatoly confirms. "I'd like a few more minutes with our witness here, though. He doesn't like to cough it all up in one go."

The man whimpers, rightfully so, and Raoul and I head back upstairs to my office.

Unlike Anatoly, Raoul knows when to give me space. He stands quietly against the wall as I pace the room back and forth, repeating these new facts in my head.

Viviana is back.

Dante is my son.

And Trofim is dead.

I don't believe in coincidences. Especially not when I'm this fucking close to controlling the vast majority of shipping ports on the East Coast.

I'm still pacing when Anatoly shoves through my office door. He drops into the leather chair across from my desk, panting and sticky with sweat. "The guy didn't know anything else."

"It could be a distraction," Raoul suggests now that the silence has been broken. "Someone wants to pull your mind away from finalizing the deal with the Greeks."

"Trofim is dead. That's nothing but good news in my books." Anatoly shrugs. "The son of a bitch got what he deserved. The only thing that's sad about it is that I wasn't there to witness it."

Anatoly never forgave Trofim for what he did to his mother. I don't blame him. If someone slaughtered my mother, I wouldn't have been able to breathe knowing they were still alive. Especially if it was over some fucking Bratva title I never wanted. Yet Anatoly livedwith Trofim. For years.

If Helen and I have other children someday, will Dante live the way Anatoly did? Will he be relegated to the sidelines simply because I'm not married to his mother?

Will someone go after Viviana to make sure there's no chance Dante can ever be legitimate?

My fists tighten into balls at the thought. Mental images of Viviana in her lacy bridal lingerie flicker through my head and something else tightens, as well.

I shake my head to clear it all away. "The problem isn't that Trofim is dead. The problem is that someone found him while he was exiled and murdered him. We need to know who it was to make sure they aren't a threat to what we're doing here."

"I already have men looking into it," Raoul assures me. "Should I alert Iakov to the development?"

On one hand, my father deserves to know his eldest son is dead.

On the other hand, knowledge is power.

"No," I decide. "I don't want this getting out until we know more."

"Which development are we talking about? Trofim's death? Or the new addition to the family?" A shit-eating grin spreads across my half-brother's face. Any chance at peace is gone now.

"Who told you?" I growl.

Anatoly hitches a thumb towards Raoul, who has the decency to duck down in shame.

"And who the fuck told you?"

"No one had to. I knew the second I saw him. He looks just like you, Mikhail."

I drop my head in my hands with a sigh.

"Bastard or not, the Novikov genetics are strong with that one," Anatoly chimes in.

I snap my gaze back to his. "Watch your fucking mouth."

"Mea culpa." He holds his hands up in surrender. "Where are they now?"

"Stella is getting them settled."

Anatoly's eyebrows shoot up. "‘Settled'? How long are they staying?"

"As long as I want them to stay,"

"Helen might have a few thoughts about that."

"Hard to have thoughts about something she doesn't know exists," I fire back angrily. "I don't want anyone breathing a word of this to anyone. I want a total information blackout until I understand what happened to Trofim."

"You think it has something to do with Viviana?" Raoul asks.

I throw up my hands. "I don't know. What I do know is, Trofim or not, Viviana and the kid are going to be targets the moment this information gets out." I turn to Anatoly. "You know I'm right."

A shadow crosses over his face. Memories he's never been able to fight or drink or fuck away rising to the surface. "Yeah. They'll be targets."

"So we keep them close and don't say a word." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "The boy is in school, so he'll need a tutor. We can have them sign an NDA. Money is no object, obviously."

"What about Viviana?" Raoul asks.

"What about her?"

He shrinks back slightly. "She's his mother. I assume she'll have feelings about his education and your plans. Does she know you're planning to keep them here long-term?"

"Considering I didn't know my son existed until an hour ago, I don't give a fuck about what she knows," I growl. "She's going to do whatever I tell her to do."

An image of Viviana lying beneath me fills my head. Her legs spread wide. She looks exactly the same, but I want to see all of her. I want to see her body now that she's carried my child. I want to see the ways I changed her.

"She might try to run again," Raoul says.

"She's in even more danger now than she was before. She won't run. I won't let her."

I push away from my desk and move to the bar cart. I pour myself a shot of vodka and toss it back.

Viviana can't leave. I won't let Dante end up like Anatoly. He's going to have an inheritance. He's going to have a mother and a father. I'm going to do for him what my father should have done for Anatoly.

When I turn back around, Raoul and Anatoly are looking at each other. They'll gossip about me later, I'm sure. Right now, I don't fucking care.

"Boys," I announce, "I have a job for you."