28. Mikhail

I double park in front of the coffee shop to a chorus of honking car horns. I climb out, eyes locked on the large front window. Drivers curse as they navigate around me, but I'm too busy scanning for a head of honey blonde hair. Listening for the smooth velvet sound of her laugh.

My fists tighten at my sides.

I'll fucking kill him.

"Easy there, chief." Anatoly lays a hand on my shoulder. I didn't even see him standing on the sidewalk. "Let's inhale some peace and breathe out some homicidal ideations, yeah?"

"Tell me where they are, Nat," I growl.

He sighs. "Pyotr and I have been here the whole time. I wouldn't have let anything happen."

There shouldn't even be the possibility of something happening. She should have been with me.

"My wife is out with another man. Something has already ‘happened.'" I shove his hand off my shoulder. "Where the fuck were you? Why was she alone in the first place?"

"I was at the mansion with Dante," he snaps. "You were supposed to be with Viviana. You two work in the same goddamn building. I didn't think I needed to cover them both."

Viviana's voice echoes in my head again. He deserves better than either of us, but we're all he has.

I let them both slip through the cracks on the same day. I failed them.

I shove the thought away and march towards the coffee shop.

"What do you want me to do?" Anatoly calls.

"Leave. Take my car and get back to Dante."

Pyotr is standing by the car, doing his best to blend in with the passenger door. "Go with Anatoly," I spit at him. "I'll drive my wife home myself."

I don't wait around to make sure they follow my orders. My sights are already set on a woman sitting just inside, her back to the window. Her hair is twisted into a clip, the honey blonde ends spilling over and brushing against her neck.

I distantly register the shape across from her. The vague outline of a man who might be dead within the next five minutes if he doesn't play this right. Still, I can't pull my eyes from Viviana.

My wife.

I approach her from behind and bend low, my lips against the shell of her ear. "Pick a body part."

She goes rigid. Robotically, she places her coffee mug on the table in front of her. "Mikhail, what are you?—"

"Pick a body part," I repeat coolly. "Something to remember your date by."

Acoustic folk music pumps through the speakers. The sound of coffee grinders and chatting customers carries on. But it all feels worlds away.

This close to Viviana, I can smell sweet vanilla floating off of her skin. I want to take a bite.

"Margaret?" The man across from her doesn't even know her real fucking name. Pathetic. "Do you know this?—"

"If you don't pick, I will," I whisper, cutting him off. "I'll choose his tongue if he doesn't shut up."

Viviana turns to me slowly. "We're just friends."

"You're about to have a preserved reminder of your friend you can keep on your shelf. I'll start a collection for you." I trail my finger down her neck, watching as goosebumps bloom across her skin. "Any hand that touches you, I'll sever it. Any lips, teeth… Anything else…"

"We're just friends!" she insists, swiping my hand away from her neck.

The man across the tables leans forward. "It doesn't look like Margaret wants you here, man. Maybe you should?—"

"Sit down, Tommy," Viviana orders. Her eyes never stray from mine. "This is my husband."

The poor sap across from her sinks down in his chair. "You're actually married? I thought…"

I want to kill him for the disappointment in his voice alone. Whatever he told her, he isn't here because he's her friend. He wants more.

Of course he does.

"You didn't tell him?" I arch a brow. "Interesting. Seems like something a friend would know, Margaret."

"I told him I was married, but I failed to mention that you were a domineering psychopath." She juts her chin out, challenging me.

I grab it and slide closer to her. The room around us fades as I smell the hazelnut on her breath. I could lean forward and taste it right now. Taste her.

Claim her.

"Your mistake," I growl instead. "If you want your friend to live, you'll get up and come home with me. Now."

Viviana rolls her eyes, but I can feel her trembling. Her pupils are blown wide. Her cheeks are flushed. She pulls her chin out of my hand and turns to her date. "I have to go, Tommy. I'm glad we got to catch up."

"Oh. Yeah, I—Me, too," he fumbles.

Then he lets me wrap an arm around Viviana's waist and lead her out of the shop without a word.

"Your date didn't even fight for you," I tell her once we're on the sidewalk. "He let you leave with me."

She jerks away from me and storms towards the car. "He didn't ‘let me' do anything. I make my own choices."

She tries to wrench open the car door, but it's locked. I reach around her body and open it for her. I trace my eyes down the long line of her leg as she climbs into the passenger seat in her skirt.

"For his sake, I'm glad you chose correctly."

I close the door on her scowl and walk around the car. My cock is aching against my zipper. It's a miracle I don't turn around and sever her coward of a neighbor's head from his shoulders. Viviana may think they're just friends, but that's because she has no fucking clue the effect she has on men. The effect she has on me.

He wanted her.

And I want to kill him for even the thought.

Instead, I start the car and slam on the gas.

"If you were worried about my safety, you wouldn't be speeding through traffic right now," she bites out.

"If you were worried about your little friend, you'd let me put as much distance between us and that coffee shop as possible."

She snorts. "You're not actually jealous of Tommy."

Of course I'm not. Ridiculous.

"I'm going to do something stupid if I hear his name come out of your mouth one more time," I snarl. My knuckles are white around the steering wheel.

"Who is this little show for?" She twists towards me, her leg curled onto the leather seat so I can see the creamy white skin of her inner thigh. "You haven't spoken to me in days. You've been pushing me away ever since our not-a-date date night—which was your idea, by the way. You want to get to know me, but you don't want to be in the same room with me. Make that make sense."

None of this makes sense.

Nothing about Viviana and the hold she has on my thoughts or my emotions or my dick makes any fucking sense.

"You don't want me, but no one else can have me, either? Is that it?" she continues. "I don't understand who this little show is for. Are you trying to convince Tommy you care about me? Because he's gone. There's no one to act for. You can go back to ignoring me."

"You said his name," I growl.

The road is blurring in front of me. Blood pounds in my temples and in my balls. My body is too big for my skin and I'm going to explode.

I rip off the main road into an alley between buildings. I swerve around a rusted-out dumpster and turn into a water-logged loading bay. It's dark and cool and the noise from the street has faded to a blur.

But Viviana is in full clarity.

"Why are we stopping here?" she asks, a hint of fear in her voice.

She's all I can hear. All I can smell. All I can see. Touch and taste are begging to join the party.

When I close my eyes, I see her at the table with another man. Smiling at him. Laughing with him. Would she have gone home with him if I hadn't shown up? Fucked him?

"You were partially right," I breathe. "No one else can have you."

But I still want her.

Her brows pinch together and her full lips are parted in an angry pout. "What are you doing, Mikhail?"

Before she can say something else infuriating, I grab Viviana around the waist and drag her over the console onto my lap.

"Something stupid."