58. Mikhail

"I finished with her door." Anatoly leaves a hammer on the corner of my desk. "What did you do to it, anyway? It looked like the Kool-Aid Man had been in there."

I grimace up at him. I try to ignore Anatoly on a good day. And after everything that happened last night and less than an hour of sleep, today is not a good day. "What the hell are you talking about?"

He mimes crashing through a wall and rumbles in a fake-deep voice, "Oh, yeah!"

"You're talking about a damn commercial." I drag a hand over my face.

"No, I'm talking about you tearing through Viviana's door like it's a banner and you're the home team at a football game, only to have me bolting her inside six hours later."

"Is there a question somewhere in there? I'm not in the mood for a word puzzle."

"Why?" Anatoly kneels down so he can meet my eyes.

I stare back at him. "You know damn well why."

He groans and spins to standing, pacing across the room. "So she killed Trofim. Who the fuck cares?"

Raoul opens my office door, a steaming mug of coffee in his hands. I'm reaching for it before he even makes a move to hand it to me.

"She lied about it," Raoul says, picking up on what we're talking about as if he never left the room. "She should have told him."

"Why?" Anatoly snorts. "So Mikhail could have pulled this Annie Wilkes bullshit even earlier?"

"Enough with the fucking references," I growl.

"You're just mad because you don't read and aren't as cultured as I am," he fires back. "And I'm mad because no one in this room ever liked Trofim, so why do we care that Viviana killed him? I think we should throw her a parade. I mean, honestly, raise your hand if you cared for one single second what happened to Trofim?"

To no one's surprise, all of our hands stay down.

Anatoly throws up his own hands like he's made his point and then flops down into a chair.

"This isn't about Trofim," I snarl. "This is about Viviana. She killed our brother, didn't tell me I had a son, and is now my wife. If I don't stop and consider what the fuck all of that means, then I don't deserve to be pakhan."

"It doesn't mean anything. It means that fate brought you both together," Anatoly says, like either answer is completely acceptable. "Viviana isn't some mastermind working this all to her benefit. She would have kept hiding forever if you hadn't bought Cerberus."

I've almost forgotten about Cerberus… not that the board members are upset about that, I'm sure. They're probably hoping I'll never show up to another meeting so they can quietly reclaim their company. If the Greeks don't want peace and I lose shipping access along the Eastern seaboard, they might as well. Taking over Cerberus will have been for nothing.

"She told you her father made her kill Trofim," Raoul points out. "Do you believe her?"

I shrug. "We all know Agostino is a piece of shit. I wouldn't put it past him to threaten her."

I wouldn't put it past him to kill Dante, either. Viviana had good reason to be worried about what he'd do.

"Imagine asking your daughter to do your dirty work," Anatoly sneers. "What a coward."

"Agostino threatened her, but Viviana chose to follow through. She chose to kill Trofim rather than take that flight to Russia and disappear."

"Because she was worried that our psychopath of an older brother would come after her for revenge. Which he absolutely would have!" Anatoly argues. "Viviana was right. She didn't have another choice."

"I was the other choice!" I shout. I drum my fingers around the steaming coffee mug in my hands, watching the ripples move across the dark surface. "She could have come to me. I would have protected them both."

The room is quiet and I know instantly I've said too much.

Raoul and Anatoly know me better than almost anyone else in the world, but they still aren't used to getting this kind of peek into my head.

Anatoly slides to the edge of his chair, getting as close to me as he can without actually standing up. "She'd just watched you beat Trofim to a pulp the night before her wedding. The two of you had sex and then you told her to leave… She probably didn't know coming to you was an option."

Also, I told her it wasn't.

Viviana wanted to know if I was there in her bridal suite that night to replace Trofim as her groom. I assured her it would never happen.

"Why don't we sort out what is going on with the Greeks and then come back to handling this?" Raoul suggests. "We are fielding attacks all over the city. We can't deal with what's going on inside the family until we deal with the shit from the outside."

I shake my head. "If we don't deal with Viviana soon, there will be an uprising on the inside once the men find out."

"Then no one can find out," Anatoly offers.

"The same way we weren't going to let anyone find out about Trofim's murder?" I snap. "Our skeletons don't stay buried, brother. The men rallied behind me when I exiled Trofim, but if they find out my bride killed him, they'll think the same thing father does: that it was to ensure Dante had a clear line to power. I'll look weak, like she manipulated me. They'll doubt my leadership."

"No one gives a flying fuck about Trofim!" Anatoly shouts as he jumps out of his chair. "Literally no one."

"They may not care about Trofim, but they care about honor."

"Killing a man to protect your child is honorable! What Viviana did under that kind of stress—while pregnant, no less—is badass. If you weren't the one she lied to, you'd see it, too."

Anatoly even sounds like Viviana now, almost word for word. I hear her voice echoing in my head. If you could forget about your wounded pride for half a fucking second, you'd see that!

"The only thing I'd see is that you've taken a strong interest in my wife," I spit.

Anatoly glares back at me, refusing to take the bait. "Dante and Viviana are family. I'll always defend my family—even from themselves."

A slow clap from the doorway draws all of our attention.

My father is standing on the threshold, a smirk on his face as he applauds Anatoly. "That's very sweet. Unfortunately, while you're sitting in here ‘defending your family,' the Novikov Bratva is being dragged through the mud out there." He turns to me. "I assume you know about the latest attack."

I don't. Raoul's subtle glance in my direction is enough for me to know that my second is handling it.

"We are more than capable of defending ourselves," I tell him icily.

"I know that," he says. "But if you take the deal I just secured, you won't have to."

I want to slam my office door closed and tell my father it's a closed meeting. He had decades to lead the Bratva the way he saw fit. All of that culminated in him poised to serve it up to Trofim on a silver spoon.

Unfortunately for him, I don't trust his judgment.

Unfortunately for me, I'm not in a position to turn down ideas right now.

I wave him in wearily. "Explain yourself."

He closes the door behind him and saunters towards my desk, stopping in front of Anatoly. My half-brother, to his credit, refrains from shoving our father out of the way. Instead, he stands up and shifts into the corner. Even a few feet away, he's a looming presence. He practically casts a shadow over Otets, who stretches his neck as long as it will go.

I know for a fact that Iakov Novikov hates that his bastard son stands a foot taller than he does.

"I was able to get a message to the Greeks. Helen's father is willing to stop this war in its tracks… if you marry Helen as promised."

"He's already married," Raoul interjects dourly.

The only thing my father hates more than Anatoly towering over him is Raoul being my second. He offered Raoul to me as a slave; I put him in a leadership position. If today wasn't already fucked beyond belief, his double helping of annoyance would bring me a lot of joy.

My father ignores Raoul and focuses on me. "You're married to Viviana now, but that could change. Especially if you do what honor demands. Everyone here seems to care a lot about ‘honor,' after all."

"Not that you know anything about it," Anatoly mutters.

Our father snaps his attention to Anatoly. "I know that my son was murdered and I deserve retribution." He turns slowly back to me. "I deserve to kill her."

"Fuck no!" Anatoly growls.

"Trofim was already in exile. That lessens the severity of what she did," Raoul posits. It's rare for him to interfere in a conversation with my father. If he's doing it now, that means something.

"He wasn't just in exile," Anatoly argues. "Trofim was sent away for being a sadistic, worthless fuck. Mikhail sent him away and would have happily let him die in squalor. The only reason we're having this conversation now is because Viviana did the world a favor."

"That's my son you're talking about!" my father bellows.

"And you're talking about killing my sister," Anatoly fires back. "Viviana is more my family than Trofim ever was, so fuck you. You're not killing her."

I wave a hand at Nat. "Relax."

He spins towards me, eyes wide. "You can't be considering this. All so you can marry Helen and have access to a few ports? Take them some other way, Mikhail. You don't need to do this."

"This isn't for Helen. I don't care about Helen," I explain. "It's about Dante."

"Don't lie to yourself and me. Dante needs his mom and you know that!"

"He won't need anything once he's dead. Which will happen if we stay in this war with the Greeks." I shake my head. "I'm not having another funeral for my child. I won't do it."

"Mikhail…" Anatoly's face breaks.

On the day I buried Alyona and Anzhelina, Anatoly was the only person at the funeral with me. I told him not to come, but he showed up anyway. I never told him how much that meant to me.

I meet his eyes, holding my gaze steady. "There's no way to save Viv. She made her choice. Now, I have to think of Dante and what he needs. We need to end this war with the Greeks if anyone is going to be safe again."

Anatoly frowns, but my father steps in front of him, grinning. "I knew you'd see reason, Mikhail. Where is she? I'll take her off your hands and you?—"

"She's still the mother of my child." When I stand up, he stumbles back a step. "I'll decide how and when she leaves my house. When that time comes, I'll let you know."

Anatoly drops his head in defeat, staring down at the floor. But his hand is clenched on the arm of his chair.

This fight isn't over. Not by a long shot.