20. Viviana

"What are you doing here?" I ask with trembling lips.

A lot of other, more menacing, questions ricochet around my head. Like, How did you get in? and What are you going to do to me? and Am I losing my mind?, but I stick with the most obvious.

The coffee under my feet is already going cold. The nausea I haven't felt all morning twists my stomach.

"I came to see my daughter." My father rises gracefully to his feet and turns towards me. A bruise I didn't notice before covers the entire right side of his face. His eye is swollen slightly and his lip is cut.

"Did Mikhail do that?" I can't help but smile.

"Oh, this?" He gingerly touches his face and winces. "Yes. Mikhail won that battle. I'm not quite the fighter I used to be. But I have my ways of fighting back. Don't you worry—the next one went to me."

"I wasn't worried," I drawl.

I have no idea what he's talking about and I don't care. My eyes flick to the window over his shoulder. It's twenty feet down to the ground below, at least. Unless I want to snap my legs backwards at the knees, that's not an escape option.

If I dive into the hallway, I could probably make it to the door to the private balcony Mikhail and I were on last night. But it's secluded and would also end with me and my accordion knees lying in excruciating pain on the ground below.

I could just scream, but the house is empty as far as I could tell from the kitchen. I have no idea who is close enough to hear me, aside from Dante and Mrs. Steinman. And the last thing this situation needs is my six-year-old busting through the door to find his grandfather trying to murder his mother. No, I don't want to rope them into this.

"Stop looking for an escape route," my father says irritably. "I'm not going to hurt you."

I snort. "Funny, coming from the man who helped my ex-fiancé kidnap me. You haven't exactly spared any fatherly concern for me recently. Or ever, now that I think about it."

"Because you've never been anything but defiant. What kind of message do you think it sends to the world that I can't control my own daughter?"

"Probably that I'm a grown woman who makes my own choices."

His upper lip curls. "Choices like marrying your fiancé's brother? A man who is already engaged to the daughter of one of our allies? It's reckless."

"All of those marriages were arranged against the will of the people involved. Are you really surprised they failed? Besides, your alliances have nothing to do with me."

He bristles upright. "Except it is my alliances that have kept you alive this long! Trofim would have killed you if I hadn't convinced him to marry you a second time."

"That was you?" I growl. "You really think you did me a favor? You saw me in that cell. You saw what he was doing to me. Do you expect me to thank you for that?"

"However you may feel about it, you are still my daughter, Viviana. You are the daughter of the don of the Giordano Mafia. You belong to me."

Wrong. The only man I have ever and will ever belong to is Mikhail Novikov.

I lean forward, each word hissing out of me slowly so he can grasp exactly how serious I am. "I would rather die than spend another day under your thumb. I would rather die right this second than spend a single moment of my life married to Trofim."

He shakes his head. "That's exactly how you'll end up if you don't reconsider."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a fact," he spits. "If you can't give up this sad attempt at domestic life with Mikhail, you and your lover and your bastard son are all going to end up dead. You have no idea how many people you've pissed off. If you don't fix things now, it'll be too late."

Fear pricks at my heart. At one point in my life, my father's speech would have terrified me into submission. I would have dipped my chin and apologized. I would have begged for forgiveness and mercy—for me, for Dante, for Mikhail, for all of us.

Now, I know it's all a trick.

There is no peace on the other side of my submission. There's no safety with my father for me or Dante. It's just a different kind of fear.

And I'd rather be scared and free than safe in a cage.

"You have no say over how I choose to live my life," I tell him evenly. "I don't even consider you part of my life anymore. You don't belong here and, unless you get the fuck out right now, I'll scream for Mikhail. I highly doubt he'll offer you the chance at escape."

I don't think Mikhail is even in the mansion right now. But my father doesn't need to know that.

"When this blows up in your face, Viviana…" He smiles, but his eyes are narrowed to slits. "… remember I tried to warn you."

He brushes past me and walks into the hallway, leaving the way I presume he came without another word.