4. Mikhail

I should feel like a piece of shit.

Not for fucking my brother's girl—I would have gladly busted into the suite in the middle of Trofim's wedding night and fucked his new bride first just to spite him.

But Viviana never belonged to him. Not in any way that mattered.

No, I should feel like a piece of shit because I wanted her at all.

Since the day we met, actually.

The only reason I was at their engagement party is because my father demanded it. "Family unity is important, Mikhail," he snarled when I suggested staying home. "You need to show your loyalty to your brother. You need to remind people that you're still here."

Still here after my world shattered. Still here after they took everything from me.

"Plus," he added, "Helen will be there."

It would have been physically impossible for me to care any less about Helen Drakos, the Greek mafia princess. My father didn't care about her, either. Not really.

Then and always, my father's goal was to make sure everyone knew the full might of the Novikov Bratva. He didn't want there to be any more questions about whose horse the family name was being hitched to.

Before my father announced Trofim as his official heir, there were whispers it would be me. That it should be me.

I don't mind answering those questions with an obvious truth: It should have been.

But I played the dutiful spare and watched Trofim parade his new pet around their engagement party without ever really looking at the spectacle. She was a nameless, faceless woman in a green dress. My sadistic brother's trophy.

Then Viviana came over to me.

I felt her watching me as the party dragged on. It was a prickling awareness. An itch down my neck. The same kind I feel when I'm being approached from behind. A vulnerability I can't ignore.

She hadn't tried to talk to me all night. There was no time, not when Trofim needed everyone to see the woman he would impregnate and then spend the next lifetime cheating on with a revolving door of mistresses.

I couldn't even blame him—well, not for that, anyway. It's what our father did. His father before him. A real noble lineage of Novikov pakhans fucking anything with a heartbeat, wedding vows be damned.

I was the freak who broke the mold. Alyona and I were only twenty-three when we got married, and I never once even thought of straying from her.

But during a break in the parade, Viviana slipped away. Trofim was caught up in a financial circle jerk with a group of businessmen desperate to strike deals with our family and too afraid to approach our father. He didn't see his little wifey-to-be cross the room. He didn't see her walk towards me.

But I saw.

I noticed all of it without noticing the one thing that was truly important.

I wanted her.

That realization rang loud and clear only once she was standing in front of me. The moment she curled her honey gold hair behind her ear and smiled.

It wasn't some fate bullshit or love at first sight. Life has kicked me when I'm down enough times for me to know that there's no reason to roll over and show it your soft underbelly. No, it was that my brother's fiancée had fuck-me lips and an ass I wanted to take a bite out of.

The second thought quickly chased the tail of the first: I should feel like a piece of shit.

But I didn't.

I still don't.

Viviana Giordano is the first woman I've wanted—the first woman I've fucked—since I lost Alyona three years ago. And I still don't feel one shred of guilt.

I spread my arms out across the bed in a long stretch. It's empty, thank fuck. Viviana must have made the right choice and ran.

No matter how glad I am I finally got to feel her tighten around my cock, it wouldn't have been worth it if she'd tried to stick around afterward. The last thing I need is some lovesick damsel in distress pining after me.

I meant what I told her last night: I didn't walk into this suite last night to save her.

I was on this path long before she made her dirty deal with my brother.

The moment I lost Alyona and our daughter, I knew I was done being the spare to my brother's heir. I was done waiting in the shadows while someone else called the shots. I was never going to let anyone else have the power to hold my family's fate in their hands.

I swore that much as I stood over my family's graves. Even as I swore I'd never have another family again.

Add "sworn bachelorhood" to the long list of reasons why I have no interest in taking Trofim's place at the altar today. I pledged my love, ‘til death do us part.

Then death parted us and took my wife and daughter with it.

One pretty woman moaning my name is not going to change my mind about the things I vowed while I stood over the corpses of my wife and daughter. Even if I go to my grave thinking about the way Viviana milked my orgasm out of me.

I'm sure six months without sex is like a lifetime for you.

It wasn't. I did just fine for two and a half years.

The last six months, however, have dragged.

Hell, maybe I solved two problems last night. Trofim is out of the line of succession and Viviana should be out of my system.

I told her I only wanted one thing from her. The only thing I've wanted for six months. The thing I imagined every time I wrapped my hand around my cock.

So I took it.

Now, it's time to claim the rest of what is mine.

My father is sitting behind his desk when I walk through the door. It's barely dawn, but he's in a white button-down and an undone tuxedo tie. The suit jacket he's planning to wear to the wedding I just canceled is hanging from a hook behind him.

He doesn't look up from the letter he's writing as I enter. Someone probably warned him I was heading this way already. He knows it's me. He just doesn't care.

Until I drop Trofim's signet ring on his desk.

He stops mid-sentence. Stares down at it. Sits back.

Then he carefully picks up the ring with liver-spotted fingers that have grown shakier over the years and holds it to the lamplight. A spot of blood I didn't notice is dried into the grooves of the Novikov family crest. It was hard to inspect the ring too closely while it was deep inside of Viviana.

I bite back a rare smile when I realize I finger-fucked my brother's fiancée with the ring I won from him. It's almost poetic.

My father leans back in his chair and looks at me for the first time. He sighs, tired. "Is he dead?"

"As far as you're concerned, he might as well be. You're never going to see him again."

Iakov rolls his lips together and places the ring in the center of his desk. "What's the plan now?"

Are you going to kill me, too?The question is layered there, unspoken.

I could. It's been done before. A hostile takeover from within is the kind of patricidal shit that happens when power is passed to the person who happened to be born first rather than the person who is more qualified to wear the crown.

I overpowered Trofim. I stripped the ring off of his finger.

His position is mine.

"I'm going to wear that ring and become the next pakhan."

He nods. "And when will that be? My death?"

He's speaking evenly, staying calm. He's hiding it well, but he's terrified. Yet another sign that the sun is setting on his leadership.

The bloodstained legend who has run this Bratva for the last three decades wouldn't sit there and ask when he was going to die. He'd stand up and fight. But my father doesn't even bother calling for the guards I know are stationed nearby. He sees the writing on the wall, clear as day.

"I'm not going to kill you unless I have to."

His shoulders ease down from around his ears. If he's sad about his oldest son's fate, he doesn't show it. For thirty-one years, my father prepared the way for Trofim. He poured everything he had into making him a great leader. Now, he doesn't even shed a tear.

I never expected him to. Death is a cruel fact of our world. If you're powerful enough to avoid it yourself, then you'll live long enough to see everyone you care about die. One way or another, it takes everything from you.

"I didn't even have to fight him," I add. "He was too busy beating his fiancée to see me coming and too drunk to resist. I exiled him. With the promise to kill him if he ever returns."

He arches a graying brow. "I'm surprised you didn't kill him for hitting Viviana. You've always had a tender spot for that kind of thing."

"You're confusing me with Anatoly."

My father snorts. "I wouldn't insult you like that. It's always been you and Trofim. Now… I suppose it's just you."

That's what it takes to earn my father's respect: don't be born a bastard like Anatoly and don't be overthrown like Trofim. Who knew a father's love could be so fickle?

"You're right. It is just me. Which is why you are going to begin the process of handing over power to me."

"You think you're ready." It's a statement, not a question. But I hear the doubt in his voice.

"I'm ready to take the Bratva to new heights. I'm ready to demand respect."

"That's what we've been doing for?—"

"Not with fucking pageantry and politics, but with strength. Raw power."

He leans back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. "How will you do that?"

If there was any chance my father could wrench power away from me and keep control, I wouldn't say a word. But he knows it's already over.

I've won.

"I'm going to consolidate the entire North American gunrunning market under our control."

His cool mask cracks under his surprise. "How?"

"I'll worry about how," I snap. "The only thing you need to know is that I'm going to make our family richer than you ever have. If you keep things peaceful, I'll make sure you're taken care of. If not…"

I don't need to finish the rest. This is his best option. He knows it. I know it. The only alternative is that I kill him now.

So he nods. "Things will need to be arranged. Plans unmade. I assume I'm not going to a wedding this afternoon."

"It's been canceled," I confirm.

He starts to unbutton his sleeves. "What happened to the girl, then? The bride?"

Does he even know her name?My father was ready to sign Viviana up for a lifetime of suffering with Trofim and he doesn't even bother with her name.

The realization chafes, but I ignore it. It doesn't matter. She doesn't matter.

"She's dead."

In every way that matters, Viviana is dead. That's all my father needs to know.

"That's just as well." He sighs. "One less thing."

Exactly.

One less thing.

"Is there a body to dispose of?" Raoul asks the moment I step out of my father's office. He isn't smiling—he never is—but I see the hopeful gleam in his dark eyes.

"Don't be ridiculous. Mikhail wouldn't have killed Dad without me." Anatoly elbows him in the side. Then doubt flickers across his face. He turns to me. "Right? Please tell me you didn't kill him, Mikhail."

"Not yet."

He sighs. "Good. I want to watch."

I'd hate my father a lot more for acting like Anatoly isn't his son if Anatoly didn't hate him so much. The only thing he ever felt towards the man who fathered us both is resigned loyalty. The kind of loyalty that bides its time. Waiting for the moment it can turn. When that day comes, all the training Anatoly has gathered will be aimed directly at our father.

It'll be well earned. Our father all but fed Anatoly's mother to Trofim. He let Trofim kill her to secure his own ascendency.

Those kind of twisted family dynamics can really fuck a guy up. I'm just glad that guy in question is on my side.

The moment Trofim killed Anatoly's mom, my allegiances were set.

For my father, there is only me.

For me, there is Anatoly and Raoul.

I walk past them down the hall and they fall into line behind me. "Where is Trofim?" I ask over my shoulder.

"Airport, last time we saw him," Raoul says. "He booked the first flight out to Moscow."

Anatoly snorts. "Our guards saw him arguing with the desk to upgrade him to first class. Poor baby is exiled to the tundra for the rest of his days, but God forbid he fly coach."

"I would have lent him the private jet. So long as he's gone, I don't care."

"He's gone. Dad is out of the way." Anatoly slings an arm over my shoulders. "Who would've thought a bastard like me would be the right-hand man to the pakhan?"

"I'm not the pakhan yet."

"Good as," Raoul says quietly. "You've always been pakhan to me."

Not always. But since the moment Raoul and I met three years ago, he's looked up to me.

It has a lot to do with me not killing him on sight.

Like Anatoly, Raoul was born a bastard, but he hails from the Falcao cartel in Colombia. He was never supposed to be in the line of succession—bastards being barred from inheriting the family name and all that—but when the war between my family and his escalated, Raoul was the only surviving offspring. His father offered him up as a sacrifice. A peace offering to save his own life and assure us the cartel had no plans to continue operating in our territory.

My father then gave Raoul to me as some kind of twisted consolation. As if killing Raoul might erase the fact that his family killed mine.

But one death would never satisfy my rage. Anyway, it felt like a waste of his talents.

Instead of killing him, I gave him a job.

I fall back a step so I'm walking between Raoul and Anatoly. "Good. Then your new position as my second shouldn't chafe too badly."

Raoul's mouth twitches. It's the closest I've ever seen him to a smile.

Anatoly reaches around me to clap Raoul on the back. "Look at us! Who woulda thought a bastard and a slave would be the two right-hand men to the pakhan?"

If Raoul doesn't like being called a slave, he doesn't show it. He just mutters, "He can't have two right hands."

Anatoly hums thoughtfully. "You're right. Someone's gotta be left. Should we solve this in the ring? I was hoping for a bit more of a fight from Trofim. I have some energy to burn off."

I wave at them to stand down. "No fighting. I need you conscious and walking."

"I'll be conscious and walking," Anatoly mutters.

"Both of you," I amend. "You all don't know when to quit. We don't have time for a hospital stay."

"Boo. You're no fun now that you're the boss," Anatoly complains.

Raoul ignores him and steers us back to business. "Did you tell your father about the plan?"

"As much as he needs to know."

"Does he know you're planning to ally with the Greeks?"

Anatoly whistles. "If you were sick of Helen before… She's going to be all over you now. Maybe she'll convince you to break this pious monk act of yours."

I scowl at Anatoly, who has the good sense to look apologetic.

We don't talk about Alyona. Directly, indirectly—it doesn't matter. Anatoly knows that and he holds up his hands in surrender. As a nice bonus, his guilt keeps him from looking directly at me and noticing the half-mast hard-on tenting my pants at the thought of just how thoroughly I broke my "pious monk act" last night.

I readjust discreetly. "Helen can't convince me of anything. Least of all that."

Viviana, on the other hand…

The way her lips wrapped around my name when she came. Fuck… those lips would have looked good around my cock. I should have stayed. Should've dragged the night into the morning.

No one would be calling me a monk if they knew the thoughts swirling around my head.

"Where is Viviana?" Raoul asks suddenly.

It jerks me out of my regrets. For a second, I think he knows about what we did last night.

Then he adds softly, "I heard you tell your father… Is she really dead?"

"She might as well be." I shove every thought of her down deep. If I don't give them air, they'll suffocate. They'll disappear and she'll be gone for good. "We're never going to see her again."