52. Mikhail

The kitchen is busier than I've seen it in years. Dante is sitting on the counter, kicking his feet against the cabinet door below him as he helps Stella arrange cookies on a baking sheet. Anatoly is leaning across the island, tickling Dante's side every few seconds and sending him into a fit of giggles. Raoul is lounging at the table, disconnected from everyone, but watching closely.

I take account of each and every one of them in an instant.

I also take account of the one person missing.

"Where is she?"

Everyone stiffens at the sound of my voice except for Dante. He's still giggling from the latest round of tickling. He turns back to me with a smile. "Mama is sick."

For a split second, I believe him. Viviana is sick and no one told me? Why the fuck am I just hearing about this now?

Then I see Anatoly's face.

I storm out of the kitchen and am halfway up the stairs when Anatoly catches my arm. "I think you should let it go, Mikhail. She isn't doing well."

"It's been two days," I growl. "She can't stay in her room forever."

Though, now that I say it out loud, maybe it's not such a bad idea. Out of sight, out of mind. It didn't work the last six years, but might as well give it another go, right?

"It won't be forever. She just needs some time."

I hate that Anatoly thinks he knows Viviana better than I do.

I hate even more that he might be right.

It's easy for him to get close to her and Dante. He doesn't have as much to lose if something happens to them. He won't spend the rest of his life feeling like he failed them. Not like I will, at least.

"We don't have time," I spit. "The Greeks are on our asses. There was another attack last night only hours after we took out Yanis. If they attack here, I need her to be ready."

"Viviana is always ready to fight," Anatoly says with a sad smirk. "But she… she had a panic attack."

I frown. "When?"

"After you left her room yesterday morning. She was…" He drags a hand over his face. "It was fucked, man. I've never seen her like that."

My immediate thought: It should have been me.I should have been the one to find her, to comfort her. Not Anatoly. Me.

"I don't care if she's mad about the safety measures. They're for her own good."

"She wasn't mad," he corrects. "She was terrified. When she realized you'd changed the locks, she felt trapped."

"She's trapped in a mansion. Poor girl."

"With locked doors and guards watching every window. Even a mansion can feel like a cell when you can't escape. The walls started closing in on her and she was hyperventilating. I mean, she crumbled right in front of me. She collapsed and I thought I was going to have to call the doctor. Thankfully, she passed out and started breathing normally again."

Guilt burns through me hot and fast, but I shove it down. "I did what I had to do to keep her and Dante safe. Just like I always will."

Anatoly nods. "I know. Deep down, I think she does, too."

Very, very deep down, maybe.

"But she needs time," he says again. "Give it another day and I'll talk to her. I'll see if I can?—"

"I don't need you to talk to my wife, brother."

Anatoly looks down at the floor. "I didn't mean?—"

"She's coming to dinner tonight whether she likes it or not." I walk back down the stairs, brushing past Anatoly on my way. "Since you two are so close, I'll let you make sure she shows up."

He sighs behind me, but wisely doesn't respond.

Fifteen minutes later, he walks into the dining room with Viviana trailing behind him.

I don't have time to be pissed that she listened to Anatoly and came downstairs, because it's the first time I've seen her face in days—and she looks worse than I imagined.

Her skin is pale and her lips are cracked and dry. Her eyes are red-rimmed. If I didn't know any better, I'd think she really was sick.

"Mama!" Dante jumps out of his chair and hurls himself at Viviana's legs. The force of it sends her stumbling back half a step. "Are you all better?"

Viviana's eyes flick to mine for just a second before she quickly looks away and hugs Dante to her. "I'm better, baby." Her voice says the exact opposite. It's a husk of itself, hoarse and ragged and broken.

He drags her to the table by her hand. "Sit with me, Mama."

Anatoly moves to the other side of the table to make room for Viviana and Stella brings out a plate for her. Dante wedges himself between me and his mom with a bright smile. He's the only person in the room who can manage one tonight.

"Did you know ‘hat' and ‘cat' are rhyming words?" Dante asks the table. "Also, ‘gat' and ‘dat.'"

"Those last two aren't words," Anatoly points out.

Dante hits him with narrowed eyes. "But they rhyme."

Anatoly holds up his hands in surrender. "Too true, little man."

The entire meal is stiff and awkward except when Dante quizzes us with everything Mrs. Steinman has been teaching him during his tutoring sessions. He asks Raoul if he knows The Muffin Man and almost falls out of his seat in delighted shock when Raoul sings the song along with him.

Seeing my usually-somber second-in-command sing children's nursery rhymes should be enough to break me out of any funk, but it doesn't so much as touch the dark cloud over my head tonight. Mostly because Viviana hasn't so much as touched her dinner.

I interrupt the third round of singing by pushing Viviana's plate closer to her. "You need to eat."

She juts her chin out but doesn't look at me. "I'm not hungry."

"Considering you haven't eaten all day, I don't think that's possible."

"She had some lunch," Anatoly offers in her defense. But he closes his mouth when I glare at him.

"Eat," I demand.

Slowly, she turns to me. Her cheeks look sunken-in. I didn't think that was possible after only a few days, but Viviana looks gaunt, skeletal.

I did that. This is my fault.

Without breaking eye contact, Viviana lifts her fork to her mouth and takes a bite. She chews slowly and I swear I can see her turning green. It takes visible effort for her to swallow.

"How's that?" she asks coolly.

"A good start. You need to keep your strength up. We don't know what is coming for us."

"Something is coming?" Dante looks up at me, a purple juice mustache on his upper lip.

Viviana smooths down his hair. Her nails are bitten down to the skin. "Nothing is coming, bud. Mikhail is just talking silly. You have nothing to worry about."

"He does," I counter. I bend down to Dante's level. "We all do. There are people out there who want to hurt us and we have to be ready."

"Mikhail!" Viviana hisses at the same time Anatoly knocks my knee under the table.

"He deserves to know what is going on," I tell them both. "He needs to understand why I have to send him away."

All at once, the air sucks out of the room. I can hear my own heart beating in my ears.

"I'm going away?" Dante's voice wavers.

It's better for him to be upset now than to be unprepared. I'm doing him a favor. "You wanted to go back to school, didn't you? That's where I'm sending you. To school."

Viviana gasps. "But I thought you didn't want to?—"

"In Russia."

Viviana moves so fast I almost don't see her. In a second, she's out of her chair with a protective arm wrapped around Dante's chest.

"Like hell you are!" she hisses. "Stay away from him. You aren't sending him anywhere."

Raoul shoves away from the table, poised to take action wherever it might be necessary. Anatoly just looks exhausted.

"He isn't safe here," I tell her as calmly as I can. "He needs to get out of the city. No one knows about him yet. If I send him away, we can keep him anonymous until I've cleared up?—"

"This will never be ‘cleared up'! There will always be danger!" she cries out. "It's why I didn't want to come back here in the first place. Now, you expect me to stay trapped in this house while you send him halfway around the world? Absolutely not. No!"

"We can talk about this like adults," Anatoly suggests, rising out of his chair. "We should all sit down and think this through—after Dante goes to bed."

"There's nothing to talk about," Viviana growls at him. "You can't take my son away from me."

Suddenly, Dante darts out of Viviana's arms and runs down the hall. I hear his little feet scampering on the steps.

I start to follow him, but Viviana steps into my path. "Let him be. He wants to be alone."

A door slams somewhere upstairs.

"You don't know that."

"I do," she insists. "He is hiding in a closet right now because he knows I won't follow him in there. He knows I don't like feeling trapped."

The casual mention of her claustrophobia is a reminder as much as it is a challenge. She's driving the knife of guilt in a bit deeper.

All of this is my fault and she wants me to know that.

As if I don't already.

"I'm not doing this to hurt him."

"That doesn't mean you aren't hurting him anyway," she spits. "You're hurting all of us."

The knife in my gut twists and saws.

"We're in the middle of a war. Do you think I should let the two of you wander around in the yard and pick flowers when, any minute, a fucking army could tear down the gates?"

"I think you should give us a choice!" she fires back. "I think you should talk to me. We are both his parents. You told me that we would work together."

I also told her I wouldn't send him away. But that was before we landed in the middle of a war. Things have changed since then.

"How about, for right now, we work together to get my son out of a fucking closet?" I snarl. "Let's focus on that."

None of this is resolved, but this is an issue we can both agree on.

Viviana grudgingly follows me upstairs.