48. Mikhail

The mattress shakes as Viviana sobs silently next to me.

I want to drag her against my chest and hold her. I want to lick away her tears and fuck her slowly until she melts all over me.

Which is exactly why I wait until she is asleep before I scoop her into my arms and carry her back to her own bedroom.

When I set her down, Viviana rolls onto her side and curls her arm around her pillow. Her hair is a mess of golden curls around her shoulders. Her lips are swollen from kissing me. And her eyes are puffy from crying over me.

I can't look at that anymore without wanting to claw my heart right out of my chest, so I turn around and march out of her room. It's late, but there's no chance I'm going to sleep now. So I go down to the kitchen for a drink.

"Ah, the prodigal son. I figured you'd be down eventually." Anatoly is sitting at the island with a beer. Raoul is across from him.

I drop down into a booth and hold out my hand. A second later, one of them, I don't know which, slides a beer towards me. I take a long drink and set it down empty.

"Busy night?" Anatoly asks.

"Whatever crack you're going to make about us fucking, stuff it. I'm not in the mood."

Anatoly holds up his hands. "No cracks. Got it. We'll all be moody and solemn."

"And silent," I add.

Raoul nods. "We'll be quiet. But you don't have to be."

"Is this who I am now?" I snort. "I sit up with the two of you ‘til sunrise and chat about my feelings? This isn't fucking therapy."

"Thank God for that," Anatoly retorts primly. "Some of the shit you've done would go way beyond doctor-patient privilege. They'd send your ass straight to prison."

I smirk despite myself and blow out a deep breath. "Whatever version of me Viviana thinks she knows, it's not real."

No one has ever cared about me enough to bother.

I should have shut her up the moment she opened her mouth. No good has ever come from a post-fuck conversation. It's why I usually get out of there as soon as possible. There are too many hormones and emotions swirling.

That's the only explanation for why Viviana thinks I care about her.

"I don't care about anyone," I spit, my inner thoughts bleeding out. "People are either useful to me or they're not. The only reason she's here is because of Dante. If it wasn't for that kid, Viviana would still be in her shitty apartment. She probably wouldn't even be my personal assistant anymore," I add. "She would have pissed me off too much and I would have fired her."

Or brought her into my office daily to bend her over my desk and teach her a hard lesson.

I take another pull of the dregs of my beer to wash the thought away before I go upstairs and do something stupid. Something worse than hearing one sob story from her childhood, tracking down the men responsible, and torturing them to death for ever hurting her.

"I didn't have those men killed because I care about her," I blurt. "I did it because there is a certain way things in this world should be done. When people mess with your family, you kill them."

"Amen," Anatoly agrees.

"It's why I'm looking into who murdered Trofim. Because he may have been a heartless bastard?—"

Anatoly raises a finger. "I take offense to that usage of the term."

"—but he was blood. Family."

"Yeah," Raoul drawls, face screwed up in thought. "But you also want to make sure whoever killed him isn't going to come for Viviana and Dante, too."

"You were supposed to stay quiet." I jab a finger at him in warning. "And sure, fine, that's another reason. I told Viviana I'd look out for her and Dante, and I will. It's what is expected of me as her husband. But I can't promise anything else. I don't want anything else."

"Well…" Anatoly starts with a wince.

But before he can finish his ill-advised sentence, little feet pad into the kitchen behind me. Dante shuffles into the kitchen, rubbing an eye with his pajama sleeve.

In a second, I'm out of my chair and kneeling in front of him. "What is it, bud? What do you need?"

"How did we get here?" He blinks around at the kitchen and Anatoly and Raoul. "We were at the beach."

"You fell asleep on the plane. You didn't wake up when I carried you to your room," I explain.

He frowns. "So the adventure is over?"

Yes. If I know what's good for me.

"We'll go on plenty of other adventures, but yeah, this one is over." I scoop him up with one arm. "Say goodnight to Uncle Nat and Uncle Raoul."

Dante gives them a sleepy grin and blows a kiss over my shoulder.

"Goodnight, little man!" Anatoly calls after him.

We're only halfway up the stairs when he lays his head on my shoulder. I sigh and pause as we reach the landing. My bedroom door is wide open and Viviana's is cracked. Dante must have gone both places looking for me.

"Why did you come all the way downstairs to find me?" I ask him. "Your mom is in her room."

"I know."

I think that's the only explanation I'm going to get until I lay him down in his bed and pull his covers over him. Then he chews on his lower lip and I see so much of Viviana in him. "Mama looked sad."

My heart squeezes. "What?"

"I went in her room and she was red and puffy. It's the way she looks when she cries."

"Does she cry a lot?"

Only when men she trusts rip her heart out and stomp on it.

He wrinkles his nose while he thinks. "Not so much as she used to. At our old house, she cried a lot. She said she didn't, but I could tell."

"Why did she cry?"

Getting information about Viviana from Dante is low, but my snooping is balanced out by the fact that Dante is five and knows nothing.

He shrugs. "I don't know. When I cry, it's because I'm hurt or because someone does something mean. But I never saw Mama get hurt. And I was never mean to her. Well… almost never."

"That's good. You should be nice to your mom."

One of us should be, at least.

"I am. And you are, too, right? That's why Mama likes living here so much?"

"Did she tell you that?"

"No. I can just tell."

That was before tonight. Before I muddied the waters and fucked everything up.

This thing with Viviana could've been civil and clean. We could've taken care of Dante and lived together peacefully. Instead, I listened to my dick and now, everything is a mess.

Before I can figure out what to say, there's a knock on the door. Anatoly pops his head in.

"I'm busy."

"I know." He gives Dante a tight smile before he focuses on me. "It's important. It's about the Greeks."

The grim look in his eyes tells me all I need to know.

Retaliation.

I expected it, but it still would have been nice if they'd chosen any other night aside from tonight.

"I have to get going, bud." I readjust the comforter around his shoulders. "Are you okay now?"

His brows pinch together. "Will you be safe? Will you come back?"

Nothing in the world has prepared me for this moment. For my son looking at me with worry in his eyes, afraid on my behalf.

I smooth his hair back and press a kiss to his forehead. "I'm always safe. I'll always come back."

"Good." He throws his arms around my neck. "I love you."

My chest aches. It's a physical pain, the way those three little words penetrate my heart.

"I love you, too."

It's easy to say. There's no denying it. Not the way I can with Viviana. The way I have to.

I kiss Dante's forehead again and slip out of the room.

Anatoly is waiting there, a gun on his hip. "They launched an attack on the lounge. The guards are dead and I'm waiting on a count of the waitresses, but it doesn't look good."

"Fuck the body count." I march past him down the hall. "It changes nothing. They attacked us. I'll kill them all."