49. Viviana

It takes me a few seconds to realize where I am.

Within the last twenty-four hours, I've slept in three different rooms. First, the beach house in Costa Rica. Then Mikhail's room. Now, I'm waking up in my bed.

Alone.

My head hurts from crying. My cheeks are still sticky from tears. I sit up and reach for a tissue on the nightstand, but I freeze when I see a shadow in the corner shift.

I slam back against the headboard before I realize it's Mikhail.

"You scared me."

He's sitting in an armchair in the corner, his elbows resting on his knees. He's not looking at me; his eyes are fixed on the floor.

"You can't leave," he says without glancing up.

"It's the middle of the night," I point out. "Where would I?—"

"You can't leave." He looks up at me and my throat closes.

There's blood crusted over a slash on his forehead. More blood dried in the grooves around his knuckles. His hair is disheveled and there is pure hell in his eyes.

I shove the blankets away and stand next to the edge of the bed, as if whatever bloodied him up is in the room. As if I can do something about it that Mikhail hasn't already.

"What happened to you?" I breathe. "Are you?—"

"No walks," he interrupts. "No work. Nothing. You cannot leave. Do you understand me?"

He sounds haunted, raspy, mournful. Wherever he's been, he still isn't out of fight mode.

"Viviana," he says, rising to his feet. His shirt is ripped and there's a dark stain on the hem of his pants. "Do you understand me? This is an order."

"I thought I wasn't a prisoner here," I say softly.

"If you were a prisoner, I'd be keeping you away from the world. But I'm trying to keep the world away from you." His voice cracks and he scrapes a hand over his jaw. "I can't—I can't let anything happen to you. I can't?—"

"Can't what? What happened? Where have you been?" I reach for his hand. My fingers barely brush his wrist before he spins away from me and paces across the floor.

"I can't focus on keeping my men alive if I'm worried about one woman doing something stupid and getting herself killed."

The words are ice-cold. Don't read so much into it. He isn't protecting me because he cares; he's protecting me because my death would be a distraction.

"I've managed just fine without you," I snap. "If I'm such a distraction, why don't you just forget about me and focus on your job?"

"I can't!" he roars.

Between one blink and the next, Mikhail is looming over me. His chest is heaving and his jaw is set. There's something wild in his eyes I've never seen before.

"If I could forget about you, I would have done it by now," he hisses. "I would have done it before I broke into your bridal suite that night. I would have forgotten about you the moment I saw you at your engagement party to my fucking brother."

I can't breathe. Can't move. If I do, I'll break this moment. This glimpse into Mikhail's head will shutter closed forever.

"I never should have looked at you." He says it softly like he's talking to himself and I'm not here. "I hadn't looked at anyone for three years. Why should you have been any different?"

If he wants me to answer, he's out of luck. My throat is closed tight. I couldn't find the words right now even if I wanted to.

He drags a blood-crusted knuckle across my cheek. "You smiled at me. You were the first person in fucking years to do that. Everyone else was too afraid—afraid of me, afraid they'd say the wrong thing and set me off. But you just smiled and introduced yourself."

I remember. I'm your new sister.

I had no idea what I was doing when I walked up to the handsome loner in the corner. Truth be told, I still have no idea what I'm doing.

Mikhail brushes his finger over my bottom lip. I can taste blood.

"Whose blood is this?" I ask softly. "Are you okay?"

Maybe he's talking like this because he's hurt and confused.

Even if that's the case, though, he ignores my question.

"When I looked at you, you smiled, and… I wanted you." Mikhail drops his hand. "That's why I couldn't let you marry my brother. Not because I wanted to fuck you, but because he didn't deserve you. If you married him, you wouldn't have survived it. You would have ended up like Alyona, and I didn't want to watch it happen again."

Alyona.

The name sparks in some deep, forgotten part of my brain. I heard it in passing a few times. Trofim and his father talking to each other, complaining about "Alyona and the baby" and how they "fucked him up."

I didn't know what or who they were talking about. Asking Trofim questions never got me anywhere I wanted to be, so I stayed quiet.

But with Mikhail…

"Who was she?" I whisper.

"My first wife."

Out of all the things Mikhail could have said, that answer didn't even register as an option.

My chest hitches, but I try not to make a noise. Mikhail was married before. To someone else. I don't have any right to be jealous, but I am.

Did she leave him and break his heart? Is that why he's so closed off with me? Because his true love is running around out there without him?

Mikhail sighs and I can see the exhaustion written all over his blood-stained face. Maybe it's the only reason he's saying any of this. He's too tired to realize all of his walls are down. I don't want to make a noise and remind him.

"We got married young. I thought I loved her, but I don't know anymore. I loved her as much as I could at the time," he amends. "I was young and stupid. I thought I could take care of them."

"‘Them'?" I ask before I can stop myself.

Alyona and the baby.I close my eyes, half-wishing Mikhail would refuse to answer. I don't think I want to hear this.

"My daughter. Anzhelina."

He has another kid. Mikhail has another wife and another child. I'm just one in a long line.

Alyona. Helen. Me.

"She was only three months old." His voice catches and every thought in my head disappears.

"‘Was'?" I rasp, echoing yet another word like some dumb parrot. "What happened to her?"

"They killed her," he croaks, eyes closed. A single tear carves through the smear of blood on his cheek. "Alyona wanted me to stay with her and Anzhelina. The fight with the Colombians amounted to no more than a turf war and she didn't like how often my father sent me to the front lines. She thought I deserved some level of protection as the pakhan's son. Like Trofim. But I wasn't Trofim; I was just another soldier in my father's eyes. So when one of our warehouses was attacked, he sent me to lead a group of men and take it back. But it was a distraction. The real target was the inner circle. The family. And since they couldn't get to my father or Trofim… they went after my family."

He's hurling the information at me so fast I can't process all of it, but I understand what's important.

Mikhail had a family… and he lost them.

The room spins, but I fight to stay standing. If Mikhail is still standing after everything he lost, it's the least I can do. Be here to support him.

"Mikhail, I?—"

"All the men had been pulled to the main house—thishouse—and there was only one security guard at the gate to my house. He didn't stand a chance. Alyona took Anzhelina into the safe room, but they pried it open. They dragged them out and—" He swallows hard. "I had the house torn down and I kept the caskets closed at their funerals."

Silent tears pour down my cheeks, but I force back a sob and reach for his hand. "Mikhail, I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I would have…"

What would I have done? Would I have let Mikhail raise Dante to make up for the child he'd already lost? If I'd known his daughter had been stolen from him, would I have still kept Dante a secret?

I don't know. So I don't finish the sentence.

Turns out, I don't need to.

Mikhail rips his hand away from me. When he looks at me now, I know he's seeing me. Wherever he went to dig up that story, he's back now. So are his walls.

"I stood over their graves and I swore I'd never let myself be that weak again. That I would never let anyone bring me that low. It's why I proposed to Helen. I was going to marry her to solidify my alliance with the Greeks. Then…" He looks at me pointedly.

He found me.

We got married.

We fell in?—

"I found out about Dante," he finishes sharply, slashing through my naiveté. "I have the power and position to keep you and Dante safe, but I won't let myself be distracted with a family or childish notions of love. You two will be safe here. That's all I can promise."

Hot and cold. Up and down. I've cycled through every possible human emotion since being startled awake five minutes ago and I can't stop the tears from pouring down my face.

"It doesn't have to be like this," I whisper. I hate that I'm begging. I don't know why I even bother. I know it won't do any good. "We could be happy, Mikhail. You and me and Dante… we could?—"

"Stay inside and stay out of my way. I have enough to worry about."

He turns and leaves without even a glance back.

My knees wobble. Everything in me wants to collapse into a heap on the floor and sob, but I can't. Not when I have Dante to think about.

I need to figure out what is going on.

The hallway is empty. I don't know where Mikhail went, but I take the stairs down to the first floor. All I can think about is getting to the front door.

I'm crossing the entryway when I hear footsteps behind me.

"Everything is okay, Viv," Anatoly says in a way that makes it sound like everything is absolutely not okay and he knows it as well as I do.

I ignore him and reach for the handle. It holds fast and the wooden door thuds against the frame. I instinctively reach to turn the bolt, but it isn't there. Instead, there's a keyhole.

"He just wants to keep the two of you safe," Anatoly continues. "He's doing this to?—"

"He changed the locks." I run my fingers over the smooth metal. Then I spin around, facing my brother-in-law. "He changed the fucking locks, Nat."

Anatoly winces. "It's not safe for you or Dante right now."

My chest feels tight. I focus on filling my lungs with air and blowing it out as I walk to the window.

Part of me expects to find bars installed over the glass.

Somehow, the reality is worse.

Armed guards stand on the porch. I can see two men just outside the front door and two more stationed at the corner of the house. I don't need to run to the sliding doors out to the patio to know there are more guards there.

We're surrounded.

My breathing picks up. I inhale and exhale so fast that I can't tell the difference between them anymore. My lungs burn from the effort of working so hard.

"Viv, it's okay." Anatoly lays a hand on my back. "This is temporary. Mikhail wants to take every precaution. He wants to keep you safe."

"This isn't about me," I rasp before a sob steals my ability to speak.

He doesn't want to worry about two more funerals.

He just doesn't want to be distracted.

Tears soak the collar of my pajama shirt and I don't bother wiping them away. Finally, I drop to my knees the way I wanted to in my bedroom. Why not? It's not like there's anywhere else to go but down.

I look around at the huge entryway and the high ceilings, but I might as well be back in that trunk. I can feel the walls closing in. Early morning sunlight streams through the windows, but my vision is going dark.

"Viviana!"

Anatoly's voice is far away. I can barely hear him over my wracking sobs. I press my forehead to the cool tile floor. My heart is racing and my lungs are closed in a tight fist.

"I'm right here, Viv." Anatoly pats my back and tries to lift me up. "It's okay. I'm right here."

I know he is, but it doesn't matter.

The problem is that he isn't.

The only person I want to be here with me is the same person who trapped me here.

So I squeeze my eyes closed and let the darkness wash over me.