27. Mikhail

The moment my fist connects with the man's face, it's like the frustration that has been building inside of me for the last three days has finally found a conduit.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Novikov," he moans. "I didn't mean?—"

I pound the words out of his mouth, hitting him again and again.

Fuck, it feels good.

For the first time since I stood on that rooftop with Viviana, her body warm against mine, her lips soft and opening for me, I can think clearly.

Maybe I should keep an asshole who steals from me within arm's reach whenever I'm with Viviana. In case the tension gets to be too much and I need to release a little pent-up energy.

Blood and spittle fly. My knuckles start to ache, but I don't let up. I drive the man down to the floor and then follow him. I kneel over his cowering body until his eye is swollen shut and his mouth is a mangled puddle of blood.

Raoul never tries to curb me when I'm doing business, but today, he clears his throat. Only once, but it's enough.

It's a subtle reminder. Of where I am. Who I'm dealing with.

Reluctantly, I climb off of the man and he rolls over, spitting blood and half of a shattered tooth onto the concrete. I turn to his two adult sons. They aren't restrained, but they didn't make a move to help their father.

Cowards.

"Your father can't explain himself right now, so maybe you boys can help me out here." I pace closer, noting the way they flinch back. "You pay me to protect your family business, correct?"

The long-faced blonde on the left nods. "Correct."

"You sell car parts upstairs and run a gambling ring out of the basement, and I make sure no one comes in and shuts you down. Do you know how I do that?" I ask, not waiting for an answer. "Cameras. A metric fuck-ton of cameras. No one comes in or out of here without me knowing about it. So, explain to me, gentlemen, how a cache of weapons I stored here ended up missing."

The blonde looks like he's going to be sick, so I turn to his brother. "Someone stole them. That's all we know. We came in this morning and they were gone."

"Except the only people coming and going have been the two of you and your father here." I kick the father in the stomach just to make sure he doesn't think he's going to slip my notice. "Maybe I'm stupid, but that would tell me that one of you three knows a hell of a lot more than you're saying. So, tell me: am I stupid?"

The blonde shakes his head so hard I think his teeth might rattle loose. "No, sir. You aren't stupid. But we don't know what happened."

I sigh. "Next, you're going to tell me you don't know who has been skimming the top of my cut of the gambling money for the last… How long, Raoul?"

"Thirteen months," he fills in coldly.

I whistle. "My, my. That's a long time for all three of you to be in the dark."

The way the color drains from their faces tells me they know exactly what I'm talking about.

I kick the father in the stomach again. He groans and curls into a ball, but neither of his sons argues on his behalf. It's like they don't even care about him.

Is this what it looks like when your relationship with your kids is built on the family business? When the only thing you have in common is the title you were born to?

Viviana's voice hasn't stopped echoing in the back of my head since she walked out of my office this morning, but the volume kicks up a few notches right now.

Business is all you seem to understand, so try treating our son like a job.

If this is what treating my son like a job looks like, I don't fucking want it.

I hope I'm never quaking on the floor like the man at my feet now. If I'm unlucky enough to find myself in that position, I hope someone will have the decency to put me out of my misery.

Although the alternative to treating Dante like a business is treating Dante and Viviana like a family… and I don't want that, either.

I stomp on the father's knee to clear my head. "You can't all be as oblivious as you look. One of you knows something about who has been stealing from me."

Just as the trembling blonde brother starts to open his mouth, my phone rings.

I grimace and take the call. "I'm in the middle of something, Anatoly. What the fuck do you want?"

"Viviana is gone."

I feel my hackles rise. Just like that, I no longer give a shit about the three men in front of me. Viviana is all that matters.

"Where is she?" I bark. "You were supposed to have eyes on her. Pyotr was her driver."

Raoul hears the tone of my voice and pulls out his phone. He starts tapping away, clueing himself into what's happening without me needing to say a word.

I left the office today without a word. I didn't even look at her, which was harder than I made it seem. Her skirt hugged tight to every angle of her curves. It was painful to see her walk past my door without asking her to come in. Without bending her over my desk and tasting her?—

I growl, refocusing my thoughts. "What do you know, Anatoly?"

"So, I misspoke." I can hear the wince in his voice. "Viviana isn't gone so much as she is… out. Away."

I frown. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"Well, she wanted to stop by her old apartment after work and Pyotr took her."

"Pyotr wasn"t authorized to make that fucking call."

"He's very sorry," Anatoly says. "He is also the one who told me where Viviana went."

"And where in the fuck did she go?" I didn't have patience to begin with. Even if I did, it would be long gone now.

Behind me, Raoul curses.

I spin around and he's looking down at his phone. When he sees me watching him, he curses again.

"What?" I bark. "Someone better start talking. Now."

I snatch the phone out of Raoul's hand. He has a security camera feed pulled up. I recognize Viviana immediately. The man next to her, however, I've never seen before.

"Who is he?" I growl.

"You've seen the footage, then?" Anatoly asks.

"Who the fuck is he?"

"Her neighbor. Just a random guy across the hall. Harmless as it gets."

On the screen, the "random guy across the hall" offers his elbow and Viviana takes it. They walk down the stairs arm in arm and just like that, I want to rip his shoulder right out of its socket.

"I have eyes on the two of them," Anatoly offers, as if that could ease the knot in my chest. "They went for coffee down the street. They're just talking."

I hang up and turn back to the three cowering men in front of me. "When I come back, I want to know which one of you is responsible for stealing from me. Take this time to come to a consensus. If you can't decide, I'll just kill you all."

I look at Raoul and he waves me to the door. "I'll lock things down here. You have other things to handle."

Things like my wife.

If Viviana thinks I'm going to sit back while she throws a tantrum and fucks some other man, she has no idea who she is dealing with.

I think it's time I teach her.