14. Mikhail

"Okay, so the reunion didn't go exactly the way you imagined. So what?"

I raise my face out of my hands just long enough to glare at my brother. "My wife won't even touch me. She looked at me like… like I was?—"

"Like you were Trofim?" Anatoly offers.

I snarl at him, but only because he's right. "She's treating me like I'm the bad guy here, but without me, she'd be married to my brother right now. Actually, without me, she would have been married to Trofim six fucking years ago."

"True," Anatoly agrees. "Then again, you're also the only reason she was almost forced to marry him this second time. If you hadn't kicked her out of the mansion, Trofim wouldn't have kidnapped her."

"I still saved her."

He wrinkles his nose. "Yeah, but it's kind of like asking for an award for putting out a fire you started."

"I didn't start shit," I growl. "If she hadn't lied to me about stabbing Trofim, then I wouldn't have kicked her out."

It's so much more complicated than that, but I'm not in the mood for nuance. I want Viviana and she wants time. Nothing else penetrates.

Anatoly flops back on the sofa, but I can't stop pacing. I'm surprised there aren't tracks worn into the carpet by this point.

"I rescued her," I repeat. "I risked my life to break into her father's house and interrogate him. Then I broke into the safehouse where Trofim was keeping her without any fucking clue what was happening inside."

"Raoul mentioned it was well-guarded."

"Because it was! I took out three guards on my own. Raoul and his team cleared out ten more, at least. They're still getting rid of the bodies. We could have died, but she needs time to think." I snort derisively. "Think about what? Everyone in her life has fucking tossed her under the bus, but I'm here trying to take care of her."

"After tossing her under the bus yourself." The look I fix him with must look as lethal as it feels, because he holds up his hands in surrender. "I'm just playing devil's advocate over here, brother."

"How about you play the role of pretending like you're on my side?"

"I'm always on your side, but my job is to argue with you when I think you're making a mistake."

"What mistake? I haven't done anything wrong."

Anatoly leans forward, elbows on his knees. "Tell me right now why you saved Viviana today."

"Because Trofim is a monster."

He circles a finger in the air to tell me to keep going.

"And she's the mother of my son," I add with a shrug. "Because I felt responsible for her."

"Why?"

"She's my wife."

"You were supposed to marry another woman six hours ago," he argues. "That's not a very compelling reason. Try again."

"You're the worst therapist I've ever had."

"You've never had a therapist. And I don't need to be a therapist to see what's going on here."

"I know you don't, because I already told you: Viviana is my wife and I couldn't let her marry Trofim and be tortured for the rest of her life."

"Why?" he asks again. Anatoly has the nerve to look frustrated with me, as if I don't want to lunge across this room and wring his neck. He sounds like Viviana in the hospital room.

I'm not used to people questioning my decisions. I don't even question them. My gut instinct is always, always right.

"Why?" he asks a third time, eyebrows raised.

"Because it would have been wrong."

He clicks his tongue in disappointment. "Why did you skip your wedding to Helen and risk your own life to save Viviana? Why did you care that she was imprisoned by Trofim? Why are you pacing around this room now, preoccupied about what she wants, when we are going to have the entire Drakos family beating down our door by dinner? Why?"

"Because I love her!" I yell. "Is that what you want to fucking hear?"

A smirk the likes of which I've never seen before spreads across my brother's face. He leans back on the couch, hands folded behind his head. "Actually, it is. That is exactly what I wanted to hear, Mikhail. Thank you."

Regret settles in immediately. Fuck only knows what Anatoly is going to do with this information in his back pocket. Nothing good, I'm sure.

I finally drop down into my chair, feeling more drained than I have in years. I can't remember the last time I slept through the night. I actually can't remember the last time I slept. Period.

"None of it matters anyway. It doesn't change anything. Viviana doesn't care."

Anatoly whistles. "Things really have gone topsy-turvy if even Mikhail Novikov has lost his mojo."

I roll my eyes. "I haven't lost anything."

"Okay, then buck up and show her exactly how much you care."

"I already showed her. I showed her by rescuing her," I point out. "As much as I'd love to make a slideshow of all the men I killed today to rescue her, Raoul is currently burning their bodies."

"Charming," Anatoly snorts. "I was thinking more along the lines of a nice apology. Maybe a heartfelt confession. You can toss in some flowers and chocolates if you want to get really stereotypical."

My face twists in disgust before I can stop myself. "I've done more than enough to show her how I feel."

Anatoly's eyes widen. "You blamed her for something she didn't do without letting her explain, locked her in her bedroom, and then exiled her from your house and kept her son. Which part of that screams ‘big, romantic gesture'?"

"He's my son, too," I mutter.

"The point is," Anatoly continues, ignoring me, "you two have been through a lot. You can't just tell her that everything is better now. You have to show her."

In the last six years, I've acquired companies, turned enemies into allies, and built a gunrunning empire. I overthrew my own father and brother to claim what was mine.

But one thing I've never had to do… is grovel.

"Well?" Anatoly is annoyingly smug. "What's the plan?"

For the first time in my life, I don't have an immediate answer.

"The plan is to focus on something I know how to do." I push back to my feet and continue pacing. "Like talk to the Greeks."

Find a distraction. Yes. That's the plan.

"War it is," Anatoly sing-songs. I shake my head and he groans. "I hate diplomacy."

If killing everyone who annoyed me was a solution, I'd have filled a cemetery by now. Anatoly would be dead ten times over, too.

As if on cue, my phone rings. For the fifth time in two hours, it's Christos Drakos.

"Speaking of the devil." I hold out my phone so Anatoly can see who it is.

"The father of the bride." He winces. "Put it on speaker."

I lay my phone flat on my desk and answer. "Hello, Christos."

"‘Hello, Christos,'" he mimics. "That's the first thing you say to me after disappearing on your wedding day? We waited for you for two hours. Helen waited. She didn't want to take off the dress because she was sure you'd show up."

Helen never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. I told her to her face on several occasions that I had no interest in being married to her beyond what her father could offer me. She seemed to think I'd change my mind. Up until the very end, apparently.

"Something came up."

Anatoly seesaws his hand back and forth. He doesn't care for my explanation. Diplomacy isn't my specialty, either.

"Don't toy with me, Mikhail. I know exactly what came up."

I look at Anatoly and he shrugs. Raoul and I were discreet. Unless Agostino ran his mouth—the same way he did when he called ahead to warn Trofim I was on my way—no one should know what happened today.

"This is about that bitch, isn't it?" Christos spits.

A low growl rumbles through my chest before I can stop myself. Anatoly lays a hand on my shoulder in silent warning, but my hackles are up. It takes every ounce of restraint for me to blow out a deep breath and speak evenly.

"She's my wife."

"My daughter is supposed to be your wife! We had a deal, Mikhail. Two deals. I gave you a second chance and you embarrassed me. You embarrassed my daughter."

In my opinion, making your daughter a term and condition of a business arrangement is embarrassing enough. If Helen had any other prospects, she would have moved on by now. My guess is the marriage market is looking bleak for her.

"I could have married her and spent our entire relationship cheating on her with the woman I actually love." It's shocking how easily the words come. How simple it is to speak the truth—to everyone except Viviana. "I think doing things this way saved Helen a lot of embarrassment."

Christos is silent for a second before he cackles. "You should have taken your time and come up with a better excuse than love."

"I don't need to make any excuses to you. It's only as a courtesy that I'm explaining myself at all."

"We had a deal!"

"And we'll make a new one," I say with a calm I don't feel.

As sideways as this has all gone, I wouldn't mind ending this whole ordeal with a new pact. Preferably one that includes the ability to move my products at every Drakos-owned port.

"The time for a new agreement is over, Mikhail. We sat across that negotiating table and you told me what you wanted: access to my ports. I told you what I wanted: a husband for my daughter. That's my deal. It's the only deal you're going to get from me."

"I can't accept it. I'm married to someone else."

"Then she'll die," he says flatly.

I snatch my phone off the table like I might be able to lunge through the phone and grab the Greek don by the throat. "Think carefully about what comes out of your mouth next, Christos. Don't say anything you'll regret."

"The only thing I regret is thinking I could trust a man who could publicly disrespect his own family to get to the top. You don't know the meaning of the word ‘honor.' And now, you're going to lose your Bratva and your pitiful excuse for a family."

"Don't do this, Christos. I'll kill you. I'll slaughter you all if you come for my wife and child."

I wonder if I sound as tired as I feel. A week ago, I was ready to do whatever it took to avoid a war with the Greeks—to keep my plan on the rails. All of it mattered so much… until the second I heard Viviana was in danger.

Now, I know what matters, and it isn't Christos. It isn't Helen.

I need to make things right with Viviana, no matter what it takes.

Christos laughs. "I look forward to seeing you try."

Once the line goes dead, Anatoly sighs and leans back on the sofa. "Wow. L's all around today, huh?"

"We're at war. You do realize that, don't you?"

"It's not like we didn't see this coming."

He's not wrong. I didn't really expect Christos to accept my apology and sketch out the parameters for a new deal over the phone, no matter how nice that would be.

Still, it's annoying. I'd like for at least one thing in my life to be going the way I hoped.

"What's the plan?" Anatoly asks for the second time.

"The plan is for you to give me a better idea than flowers and chocolates. This may be my first apology, but I'm anything but stereotypical."

Anatoly grins and claps me on the back. "Fuck yeah, brother. Let's get you your woman."