27. Mikhail

I stare at the message notification for the tenth time, waiting for the will to respond.

Anatoly messaged yesterday and said the new security protocols were in place at the mansion. As of eighteen hours ago, my mansion became the safest place in the state for Viviana and Dante to be.

As of twelve hours ago, Raoul warned me that the Greeks are about to make a move.

Still, even with the real world threatening to bang down the door, I can't quite bring myself to leave this cabin.

"Why are you awake?" Viviana mutters sleepily. Her eyes are still closed, but she presses her naked body into my side and flops her arm over my chest. Her body is warm and soft.

"It's morning."

She shakes her head. "It's morning for people who didn't have hours and hours of sex last night. For us, it's still the middle of the night."

I kept her up long past midnight, wringing orgasms out of her until she swore she'd die. Even then, I didn't want to stop. Stopping meant that our last night in this cabin would be over.

We were sitting on the couch in front of a fire with mugs of hot chocolate like we were in a goddamn Christmas puzzle. The night was perfect—and I could feel it slipping through my fingers.

I was deep in my head and I almost fucked it all up. I was quiet and sullen. As is her way, Viviana pulled me out of it.

It was a nice way to say goodbye.

I kiss her arm and slip out from under the blankets. She whines behind me, stretching herself across both sides of the bed. "Stay here."

"Someone has to load the supplies."

Finally, her eyes open. She sits up and leans against the headboard. The comforter falls to her waist, revealing the swell of her bare breasts and the curve of her waist.

Fuck the supplies. Maybe I should stay in bed.

She rubs at her sleepy eyes. "Supplies for what? Do we have plans?"

I turn away from the temptation and tug on my thermals. "I told Dante I'd take him ice fishing if the ice was thick enough. It's been below freezing for the last week. The lake should be ready."

I slide into snow pants and turn back as Viviana stretches her arms over her head and rolls her neck side to side.

I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from lunging across the bed at her. If we only have a few more hours in this cabin, I want to spend them inside of her. But we have our son to think about.

"Okay," she hums.

"Okay, what?"

"Okay, I'll come."

I blink, clearing my lusty head. "You're going to come with us? Fishing?"

"Ice fishing," she clarifies. "Yeah. Might as well. I want to be with the two of you."

"It's going to be cold."

She rolls her eyes. "You know, I actually guessed that. The ‘ice' in the name kinda gave it away."

"You hate the cold." She spent all of last night with her ice-cold toes wedged under my calf.

She stands up and pouts, the blankets falling away behind her. "I can handle it. I'm made of tougher stuff than you think."

After everything she's been through, everything I did to and on and inside of her, she isn't wrong. The fact she's still standing is a miracle.

"A mafia princess roughing it in the woods." I shake my head and pull her naked body flush to mine. "That wasn't on my bingo card."

"What about being outfished by a mafia princess? Was that on your bingo card?"

"Is that a challenge?" I tease, pinching her waist.

She yelps and whacks my hand away. "It's a guarantee, Mr. Pakhan. Prepare to be dazzled." Then she sashays into the bathroom, leaving me achingly hard but smiling like a damn fool.

"I caught one!" Dante cries out, no doubt sending whatever tiny fish might have come our way in the last half-hour darting back to deeper waters.

Viviana tosses me a look over one of the three ham sandwiches she packed. They were meant to be for lunch, but she's been so bored that she's eaten everything she brought for herself only an hour into our excursion.

"Are you sure?" she sighs. "You've said that a few times and every time?—"

"I'm sure!" He tugs on his little pole, jerking like he's fighting with a shark under the water.

Last time, he was standing on his own hook. I'm actually curious to see what he "caught" this go around.

I push up from my folding chair and cross the ice. "Let's see, bud. What do we have?—"

Dante pulls back and loses his hold on the reel. It starts to spin.

"Holy shit, he actually caught something." I stop the reel and start reversing course, bringing the line in.

"Holy shit, I caught something!" Dante yells over his shoulder.

Viviana chokes on a laugh. "Dante! Watch your mouth!"

"Dad said I could!" he proudly announces.

I'm too busy reeling in the fish to think about how much trouble that little line is going to get me in later. "You must have caught a whale," I tease.

Dante's eyes snap to me, wide. "Really?!"

"No, not really. No whales in this lake. But this must be a big one. It's putting up quite a fight."

I let Dante take control as much as he can, so the back-and-forth goes on longer than it needs to. Finally, the little fish flops up onto the ice and Dante throws his hands over his head, victorious. Well, he tries to throw his hands over his head. The layers of bulk Viviana insisted he wear make it hard for him to move, let alone celebrate. But he gives it his all.

"I catched a fish!" He runs in a circle around the hole we cut, skipping and twirling. "I catched a fish!"

Viviana is grinning, but she waves him back. "Careful of the hole, bud. Don't fall in."

"He wouldn't even fit with all the layers."

She rolls her eyes at me. "Still. Be careful. Dying of hypothermia definitely isn't on the bingo card."

I gave Dante a long lecture before we even stepped foot onto the ice about staying away from the mouth of the river. The flowing water there makes the ice thin. But it's around a bend in the trees and Dante is still too scared of bears to venture far from us.

"Are we going to eat it?" Dante sidles closer to me, watching his fish flop on the ice. "I can clean it by myself. I watched you do the deer."

"Cleaning a deer is a lot different than cleaning a fish."

"I can do it," he insists. He grips my sleeve, tugging hard. "Please, Dad. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeee?—"

"Fine." I laugh and hold up the line. "But turn around and take a picture. Your mom is going to want to remember this."

Just as I suspected, as soon as we turn around, Viviana is kneeling on the ice, her phone out and ready. "Say cheese!"

Once the Kodak moment is captured, Dante is all business. He leads me to the camp we've set up along the bank and unrolls my collection of knives.

"I can't watch this," Viviana declares before Dante even touches a knife. I'm not sure if it's because of her morning sickness or the fact her baby boy is holding a knife. Probably both.

Then we get to work.

My entire life, I've struggled to watch people do a bad job at something that I know I can do perfectly. I've never been able to stand by and let someone struggle. But teaching Dante how to control his blade is so rewarding that it's worth all the hunks of fish meat lost to his clumsy movements.

"Like this?" he asks, slowly moving the knife down the fish's backbone.

"Perfect, bud. You're doing great."

He grins and keeps going and I do my best to savor this moment. To remember the angry kid who crashed into my gym a couple weeks ago and taught my heavyweight bag a lesson. In that moment, I was positive I'd ruined him.

But just like his mom, Dante is made of tougher stuff than that. He's resilient.

I think he'll turn out just fine.

Once the fish is prepped and there are no dangerous weapons involved, Dante's interest wanes. "I want to skate!" He tries to twirl in a circle, but the bottoms of his snow boots grip the ice and he ends up kind of staggering around.

"We're about to eat." Viviana gestures to the picnic lunch she packed. "You can find the napkins or pour the soup into?—"

"I'm going to skate." He glides clumsily along the surface of the ice. His breath puffs in front of his face in little clouds.

"Be careful!" Viviana calls after him.

Dante waves his puffy arm over his head at her in his version of confirmation.

"He'll be fine. Don't worry."

"Of course you would say that." She wipes her hands on her coat and stands up, eyes narrowed. "When did you tell our six-year-old that he could curse?"

Here we go.

I wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her close before she can get mad and shove me away. "I told him it was okay if we were hunting."

"And fishing, apparently?"

I shrug. "He extrapolated. It was a moment of excitement. It was all in good fun."

"Tell that to Mrs. Steinman when he drops an F-bomb after acing his spelling test," she snaps.

"Better an F-bomb than an F." She tries to look annoyed with me, but she can't quite manage it. Her mouth twists at the corners and I bend down and press a kiss there.

"He's a good kid. A few curse words won't kill him."

She wraps her arms around my waist, tightening until it's almost painful. "No, but the moment he flings one of those curse words at me because I tell him to eat his vegetables or make his bed, I'll kill you."

I pretend to think it over. "Seems fair."

She rolls her eyes and tries to turn away, but I hold onto her. How can I not? This is it. This afternoon is the last one we'll have out here. The last peaceful day we'll have in a long while, if Viv's father and Christos Drakos have anything to say about it.

Viviana softens against me. "What's wrong?"

I should tell her—warn her that we need to leave. But I don't want to shatter the moment. As it turns out, I don't need to.

The sound of cracking ice and Dante screaming shatters it for me.