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39. Mikhail

The room is deadly silent. Helen is wearing a tight smile over my father's shoulder, but even she can't find the words for this situation.

There's a first time for everything.

When I bothered to spend any time with her over the last five years, she usually couldn't shut up. I considered it practice for the lifetime I would spend tuning her out.

Now, I don't have a choice but to pay attention.

Dante's fork clatters against his plate before I get the chance. "What's a fee-nan-say?"

I suppress a snort. Leave it to a five-year-old to break the ice.

"Stella," I call as I slide Dante out of his chair. Stella pokes her head out from behind Helen like a meerkat popping out of her hole. She was definitely lurking there to eavesdrop. I don't even blame her. "Take Dante upstairs and put him to bed."

"But I didn't get cake!" Dante complains. "Mama promised I could have?—"

"We'll take a slice upstairs with us," Stella assures him. She smooths her hand down his little back, leading him away from the fallout area. "You can eat it in bed while we read."

That gets him moving. Dante forgets about everything else, too focused on getting a corner slice to notice that his mother is currently homicidal.

But I notice.

Viviana is stone-faced, but there's a fire burning in her eyes. She's looking at Helen the same way she glared at the bouquet of roses on my desk today. Except now, it's Helen she wants to rip apart petal by petal.

Watching her do just that would satisfy whatever dark fantasy has my cock hardening, but I'd hate to make Stella clean up all that blood.

"Now that we're all here, let's eat." My father herds Helen towards the table.

I block their path. "First, let's talk."

Helen presses her hand to my chest. "What do you want to talk about, darling?"

"I want to talk to my father." I pluck her hand off of my chest and let it fall to her side. Helen's already angular face sharpens. She looks like she could cut glass. I step around her and look at my father as I add, "Alone."

Anatoly's chair scrapes away from the table. "Helen, you can wait for Iakov in the entryway. When they're done chatting, you can both happily fuck off to?—"

"Sit down," Viviana blurts. She pulls out Dante's empty chair. "Join us, Helen. I'd love to get to know Mikhail's fiancée."

She doesn't look at me. Won't. I can tell it takes physical effort on her part to keep her eyes locked on Helen instead of sliding over to me.

"Great," I announce. "While you two get to know each other, I'll speak with my father. Otets, I'll show you to my office."

My father brushes past me gruffly. "I know where the fucking office is."

Helen sits down next to Viviana, her face icy. Next to her, Anatoly is firing off silent pleas for me not to leave him alone with the two women. I've seen my brother take down half a dozen trained fighters at once, but this is the first time I've ever seen him scared.

If this shit wasn't such a nightmare, it would almost be funny.

I turn my back on my brother and follow my father to my office. The moment the door is closed, he turns on me, face red. "What kind of game are you playing, Mikhail? Do you have any idea what you're doing?"

"Before you showed up, I was having dinner."

His top lip curls in barely contained rage. "Don't be fucking cute. This marriage has been in the works for six years, but you wait until the home stretch to throw it all away. Why?"

"Circumstances changed."

That's putting it mildly.

He barks out a humorless laugh. "You're going to throw away our plan for that bitch out there and her little brat?"

"That ‘brat' is my son," I growl. "Watch how you talk about him."

"Your—" He drags a hand down his face. "After growing up with Anatoly and seeing what happened to him?—"

"What you let happen to him," I correct. "You could have stopped it."

He ignores me. "After all of that, you still fathered an illegitimate child."

"He is hardly illegitimate if we're married."

The information sits between us for a few silent seconds. My father stares at me like the disappointment I've always been to him.

The second child who talked back. The spare who never quite knew his place. The son who favored his bastard brother and overthrew the eldest.

I've never made him proud.

It's never felt quite so good.

"Helen and her father will wage war over this," he warns. "Are you ready to fight for your whore?"

I rise to my full height, looming over my father's hunched form. "I'll kill anyone who threatens my family. Anyone who insults them. Including you."

There's a lot more he wants to say, but he's wise enough to keep his mouth shut. He knows without me saying it that he has no power here. Not anymore.

I was prepared to kill him six years ago. He knows I'd do it now in a heartbeat.

Finally, he sighs. "When are you going to announce Dante as your heir? If you're ending your engagement to Helen, people will want to know why. An heir is a good excuse. If you don't do it soon, people will question his legitimacy."

If I don't announce him soon enough, they'll question his birthright. If I announce him too soon, they'll kill him before he can inherit.

There is no winning.

I understand more and more why Viviana wanted to avoid all of this. Life would be easier without all of the politics.

"I would never let anyone question the legitimacy of my child," I growl. "I would never let them disrespect my own flesh and blood the way you let people disrespect Anatoly. That was a choice you made, and I don't intend to make the same one."

Before my father can say anything, someone clears their throat in the doorway.

When I turn, I see Anatoly is staring at me, ignoring our father entirely. I know he heard what I said. But there is more important shit going on than his tender feelings right now.

"You should probably come back to the dining room," he mumbles. "Things are, um… heating up."

I can only imagine. "How long after we left before Viviana told Helen the news?" I ask.

Anatoly bites back a laugh. "Thirty seconds. She flashed her wedding ring and Helen spit wine across the table."

This isn't how I imagined breaking the news to either of them, but it is more efficient. Two birds, one stone.

"Handle it, Anatoly! We're busy," our father snaps. "They're two women, for fuck's sake. I'd hope you can keep them in line."

"Shows how much you know about Viviana." Anatoly smirks.

My father spins towards me, eyes wide in his patented mix of shock, disgust, and disbelief. "Viviana Giordano? I fucking knew I recognized her. First, you took Trofim's job—now, his wife?"

"She was never his wife," I snarl. "She never belonged to him, even when they were engaged. She's mine."

He scrapes a hand down his softening jaw, laughing even though none of this is funny. "Fine. She's yours. But so is this shitstorm. I'm not responsible for the chaos headed our way—you are."

My father storms out and I make no attempt to stop him. He has never done a thing for me. Why start now?

Anatoly leans in. "I wasn't kidding about getting to the dining room. The two of them might have already killed each other while I was gone."

I sigh. No rest for the wicked.

We emerge from the office. I hear raised voices the moment I step into the hallway.

"I don't know who you think you are," Helen hisses, "but I am his fiancée."

"And I'm his wife!" Viviana snaps back.

I didn't realize how nice it would be to hear her say that. To claim me.

"Just because you have that hideous ring on your finger, you think that gives you some power?" Helen snorts. "This marriage has been in the works for five years."

"And I carried his child six years ago," Viviana spits right back. "I had him well before you were in the picture."

Fucking hell. I should have introduced these two sooner.

I'm trying to decide the likelihood of getting Viviana to reenact this conversation later in the bedroom whenAnatoly claps a hand on my back. "Good luck, brother."

"You're not coming in?"

He's already ducking down the hallway like he's expecting shrapnel any second. "I think you can handle this on your own."

"Coward!" I call after him.

He gives me a two-finger salute and disappears around the corner.

"I'm sure you've had a lot of men," Helen says to Viviana. "Whores usually do."

I blow out a breath and step into the mayhem.

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