34. Mikhail

Raoul and Anatoly are waiting for me in my office. Raoul is a dark shadow in the corner. His face is drawn and his hands are folded together tightly between his legs. His direct opposite in every way, Anatoly, has tossed himself over my couch, legs loosely crossed and his arms thrown wide.

"I almost thought you forgot about us. I was about to bang down your bedroom door and make Viviana share."

Anatoly thinks I was with her and I don't correct him. It's better than the truth.

The first time I've seen her in days and I snapped at her like an asshole. She wanted to make me dinner and take care of me, but all I wanted to do was wash the blood off my clothes before she could see it.

I wanted to wash this entire fucking night off, if I could.

I drag a hand through my damp hair. "I'm here now. Do we want to talk about what the fuck happened tonight?"

Anatoly's face falls. He's good at putting on a front, but tonight sucked as much for him as it did for the rest of us. There's a limit to how much death and bloodshed he can handle.

None of us want to talk about it, but we can't afford not to.

"They saw us coming," Raoul grumbles finally.

"They didn't just see us coming; they prepared for it," Anatoly counters. "We've had eyes on that warehouse for months. I could have told you every single motherfucker inside by name on any night of the week. But tonight, there were three times as many people as I've ever seen."

"I should have pulled back. We weren't ready."

If tonight's failure was anyone else's fault, I'd be the first to point the finger. As pakhan, it's my job to make sure we're as strong as we can be. If someone is fucking up, they need to hear it and they need to fix it.

Tonight, the fuck-up is me.

"Bullshit." Anatoly jumps to his feet and paces. Anxiety ripples off of his tall frame. "We all went in there willingly. You didn't force anyone through that door."

"I didn't have to. You all trust me to make the right choice. Tonight, men who trusted me died. That's my fault."

Christos's men were ready the second we got through the door. It was a barrage of gunfire and blood. I can still smell it.

But my concentration was in tatters. Men were falling at my feet, and all I could see was Viviana and Dante. Usually, a fight hones my senses. Tonight, my head went somewhere else.

To a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Viviana's soft breathing in my ear.

"You're such a fucking martyr," Anatoly snarls, snapping me back. "It was my bad intel."

"And mine," Raoul adds somberly. "I had no idea that many men were inside. Christos moved them in secretly. I have men looking for tunnels right now, but?—"

Anatoly snorts. "Tunnels under a fucking warehouse? They use that place to store stolen laptops they sell online and rent it out to shoot shitty pornos. You really think they're organized enough to tunnel underground like moles?"

"They were organized enough to get the jump on us," Raoul fires back. He's not used to being outmaneuvered and he isn't taking it well. "I'm going to look into every possibility until I know how they knew we were coming and what we can change."

"We need to divide Christos and Agostino." I take a long drink. The two of them could go back and forth like this for hours, but I already know what needs to be done. "I should have killed Viviana's father as soon as I knew he'd handed her to Trofim. I didn't and now, he's teamed up with the Greeks against us. That's my fault, too."

Anatoly rolls his eyes, but doesn't try to defend me this time. As much as he wants to, he can't.

"We're stronger than each of them separately. Together, they're a bit more of a problem."

"If you're suggesting we take one of them out, that was the entire point of tonight." Anatoly drops down on the edge of the couch, his elbows resting on his bouncing knees. "Even when shit hit the fan, I was looking for Christos. I didn't bring my hunting knife to not rip his insides out."

"Taking out Christos tonight would have been a bonus, but it wasn't the mission. We were there to take out one of his strongholds and weaken him financially. Now," I say carefully, "I'm suggesting we set our sights on one of the figureheads. Christos or Agostino, take your pick."

Anatoly's eyebrow arches and he grins. My brother is a golden retriever ninety percent of the time, but at the first mention of bloodshed, he turns into a shark. "Why choose? I say we go for both."

Raoul shakes his head. "We can't split up. If we go in with half the men and get surrounded the way we did tonight, even fewer of us will make it out."

Liev wasn't even twenty-five. He was one of the first soldiers cut down once we got inside. If he didn't die from the initial wound, he probably wishes he did. I don't assume Christos was in a merciful mood when it came to dealing with captives.

Right now, my vors are delivering the news to Liev's fiancée along with a payout. More than enough to get her back on her feet.

It could have just as easily been Viviana getting the bad news tonight. Widowed, days after our wedding. Dante left once again without a father.

I blink hard to clear my head. "Christos's niece is getting married tomorrow. I say we crash the wedding."

Even Anatoly looks tense. "She's marrying the D.A.'s son. You think he'll risk showing his face at a high-profile function like that?"

"He arranged the entire marriage. He's going to want to make sure it goes off without a hitch." Men like Christos—men like my father—don't know when to let go. They'll cling to whatever scrap of control they can get until the very end. "Christos would rather die than admit that he's scared of me. He'll be there just to prove that he isn't."

Raoul stands up. "I'll check out the location."

Anatoly frowns up at him, clearly surprised to be the only one pushing back. After a few seconds, he sighs. "I guess that leaves me to round up the soldiers and weaponry."

Before I can say anything else, my phone rings. I recognize the number immediately and pick up. "This is Mikhail."

"Nice meeting," Anatoly whispers, standing up. "Goodbye to you, too."

I roll my eyes and he only laughs.

The way he can flip his work brain off and on like a switch is as annoying as it is impressive. I'd probably be better off if I had the same switch. The only way I can seem to relax is when I load my family up and get off the grid.

The other end of the phone crackles and then a familiar voice cuts through. "Mikhail. Good to hear from you again. This is Dr. Rossi."

"Thanks for getting back to me. I know it's late."

"I gave up normal hours the second I started medical school," he says with a laugh. "Babies don't keep a nine-to-five schedule."

He made the same joke when I met him almost ten years ago. Alyona was so nauseous I had to pull the car over five times on the drive to his office so she could be sick. We walked in thirty minutes late and found him eating lunch. He waved us in anyway.

"You left a message with the nurses station and they told you I wasn't accepting new patients," he recounts, clearly reading the notes in my file. "Well, what Marcy didn't know is that you are not a new patient."

"No," I breathe. "I'm not."

There's a beat of silence before Dr. Rossi speaks again. "I was so sorry to hear about Alyona and Anzhelina. You can't imagine how sorry."

A house fire. That's what the papers ran with. It's what my father paid the papers to run with, to be more accurate. I burned the house to the ground because I couldn't stand looking at it, and my father made it work in our favor.

Dr. Rossi would be even more sorry if he knew the truth.

"Thank you, Doctor."

The heaviness hangs there for a second before Dr. Rossi chimes back in, voice chipper. "But most people don't call me unless they have exciting news to share. I'm assuming you have a new little one on the way?"

"My wife is pregnant."

Saying it out loud still gives me a rush. That Viviana is my wife. That we have a family. I wasn't sure I'd ever want this again, but now, I'm biting back a smile. After the clusterfuck of a day I've had, that's almost a miracle in and of itself.

"Congratulations, Mikhail! I'm thrilled for you. So let's see what we can do." He hums and I can hear him drumming his fingers on his desk. "It's short notice, but I can see your wife tomorrow afternoon. Would that work for you?"

I should have taken Viviana in sooner. The second she told me she was pregnant. But, as always, life had other plans. I snag the appointment and thank Dr. Rossi for squeezing us in.

I wasn't able to be there for her or Dante the way I should have been, but I'm going to make up for that now. There's a lot I can't control, but I can do absolutely everything I can to make sure this baby is healthy.

"Yes," I say quietly. "That's perfect."