45. Mikhail

Viviana sucks on the tip of each of her fingers and I'm a second away from sweeping our lunch off the table.

"Keep that up and I'll cut this meal short."

"Who, me?" She gives me wide, innocent eyes, but her mouth twists into a smirk.

I click my tongue. "My wife is a tease."

She sucks her middle finger all the way into her mouth. "‘Tease' implies I'm not willing to follow through."

I'm halfway out of my chair when there's a loud, exaggerated knock from the other side.

"Hello?" Anatoly calls, dragging the single word out for several seconds. "It is I, Anatoly Novikov, a person who does not want to see either of you naked. Can I?—"

"Come in, Anatoly," I snap.

"You've welcomed me in, but I repeat: I do not want to see either of you naked."

Viviana blushes, but she can't help but laugh. There's a reason my brother is one of her only friends in the mansion—he's annoying, but he manages to make it charming.

Finally, he cracks the door open and peeks his head inside, one eye squinted open. When he sees we're clothed and eating, he sighs in relief. "Thank God."

"I don't know what you thought you were going to see."

He arches a brow. "You know exactly what I thought I was going to see. I'd say it out loud, but I'd hate to embarrass Viviana."

"Too late," she chimes in, kicking the toe of her shoe against his leg.

He laughs and ruffles her hair like they're siblings. In a way, I guess they are.

It's laughable imagining a world where Viviana would be my in-law. I was never going to be her fun, goofy brother. If she'd married Trofim, I would have become the man who killed his own brother to get with his wife.

There's no world where this woman isn't mine.

Anatoly leans back against the wall. "Your new assistant is a hardass, Mikhail. She wouldn't let me past her desk until it had been exactly one hour. I swear she was counting the seconds."

"She's good, but she hasn't figured out the phones. She keeps dropping all my calls."

Viviana stands up, brushing crumbs off her lap. "The phones are a bitch. I can help her."

"You don't need to. Either she'll figure it out or I'll fire her." I shrug. "Doesn't matter to me."

"I don't mind showing her the ropes." She smiles, one eyebrow arching. "You can express your gratitude later."

My cock twitches, but Anatoly groans and waves his hands in front of him. "I'm glad you two made up, but I didn't miss this. You all are uncomfortable."

"Then leave."

"I would, but I have news." He smirks, knowing there's no way I'll kick him out now.

"I'll leave." Viviana blows me a kiss and then turns to Anatoly. "I'll wait for you in the lobby."

I watch my wife sway out of the room. When I look back at my brother, he's shaking his head. "I repeat: un-com-for-ta-ble."

"Say what you need to say. I have work to do."

"Yes, you must be swamped, now that you took a ninety-minute lunch to fuck your wife in the office." He narrowly dodges the pen I throw at him. "Relax, I'm done now. I'm happy for you. Really, I am. It's nice to see you like this."

I don't ask what he means. Because I already know. It's been a long time since I've felt like this. Maybe never.

"What news do you have?"

"The shipment will be here next week. It's confirmed with the Chinese manufacturer."

My pulse quickens with excitement. "Who knows?"

"The manufacturer, you, and me. And Raoul, obviously."

"No one else?"

He nods. "No one else. And as far as Christos Drakos knows, the shipment is arriving in three weeks. I planted that false information with half a dozen different sources. If he hasn't heard about it yet, he will soon."

"Good. I don't want him fucking up the deal." I drum my fingers on the desk, thinking.

"We've covered our bases," Anatoly tells me. "It's going to be fine."

I shrug. "Maybe. Or, while I'm distracted with this shipment, Christos is going to find a way to get revenge for the way I murdered his brother."

"He hasn't yet."

"Exactly. That is why I'm worried. Why hasn't he retaliated?"

"Because Damon's weeping widow passed along your threat and Christos is doing the smart thing for the first time in his life and backing off?" Anatoly guesses.

I want that to be true, but I'm not alive today because I assume the best in people.

"Stay close to Viviana," I tell him. "And Dante. I don't want either of them out of your sight until I know what Christos is up to. Even when they're in the mansion."

Anatoly scratches the back of his head. "She's already chafing at the leash you have her on, Mikhail. She'll go crazy if I'm following her from room-to-room around the mansion all day."

"But she'll be alive." I lean forward, lowering my voice. "You're the only person I trust to watch them, Nat. It has to be you."

Something I can't read flickers across his face. Just for a second. Then he nods. "Of course. I'll take care of them."

Viviana wasn't wrong: I smell like her.

It's been an hour since she and Anatoly left, but I swear Raoul sniffs the air when he walks through my office door. He looks around like he expects someone else to be in the room.

"Viviana and Anatoly left?"

"You're the one who followed them here," I remind him. "You should know."

Anatoly would have thrown a fit if I told him that I was asking Raoul to follow him and Viviana to and from my office. He would have taken it as an insult no matter how much practical sense it makes.

If Anatoly and Viviana were followed and attacked by Christos or Agostino, I wanted to have the element of surprise on our side. That was Raoul. He was like the backup parachute: you don't jump out of a plane expecting the first parachute to fail, but you're an idiot if you don't plan for it just in case. It has nothing to do with not trusting Anatoly and everything to do with the fact that I'd never be able to forgive myself if something happened to Viviana.

Raoul looks around the room again like he still isn't sure.

"I assume they made it back to the mansion okay?" I prod.

Raoul runs a hand through his hair and it strikes me that I've never seen him fidget. I've never seen his eyes dart around the room the way they are right now.

He won't look at me.

"Raoul," I bark. Instantly, his eyes are on me and his shoulders are back. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Have you spoken to Anatoly?"

I ease back. "Yeah. He told me about the confirmed shipment. He planted false information for Christos to find, so everything is covered there. We're looking good."

Raoul's shoulders drop. "That's all he said?"

Shit.

My bullshit detector is world-class after everything I've been through. I trust it. But I still rewind through my interactions with Anatoly today, searching for something I missed the first time.

Nothing.

"Stop asking questions and tell me what is going on," I demand.

Raoul sits down in the chair across from me and I immediately know this isn't going to be good. "I followed Anatoly's car from the moment they left the mansion. He never saw me," he says. "I know he didn't see me because… he made a stop."

"What kind of stop?"

"At a nearby clinic."

I stand up before I know why. My body is ready to move even while my mind is wrapping itself around the information.

She went to a doctor's office before she came to see me. The first time I let her leave the house in days and she lied to me. Anatoly, too.

"What kind of clinic was it? Where was it? If she's sick, she should have told me."

"I didn't want to come to you without answers, so after I followed Viviana and Anatoly home, I went back to the clinic. I met with Viviana's doctor."

"And?" I press.

"She's pregnant."

He says it quickly like he's ripping off a bandage, but the news spreads through me slowly. It's a toxic swirl of dread and rage that turns my blood cold and pools at the base of my spine. "She would have told me."

She would have told me, right?

After everything we've been through, all the false starts and stops, Viviana wouldn't keep this from me.

Raoul looks down at the floor. "The doctor didn't want to tell me, but I threatened her. It wasn't a nice clinic and it didn't take much for her to show me Viviana's charts just to get me out of her face. Her first test was positive and they confirmed it with a blood test."

I was inside of her, telling her how much I wanted her to carry my child.

Once I fuck a baby into you, I want you to take these pictures again, I told her. I hope it happens now. Any time I see you and the way you're growing my child, I'll remember you like this.

It was already too late. She knew she was pregnant.

But she still didn't tell me.

"You're sure Anatoly was with her?"

Raoul nods. "He walked Viviana inside. He put his phone number as an emergency contact."

He sat in my office, alone, and said nothing. I told him how much I trusted him. He promised me he would take care of Viviana and Dante.

But he didn't tell me.

"I don't know what is going on, but if Anatoly didn't tell you, I'm sure he has a good reason," Raoul offers.

It's not like Raoul to try to persuade me—usually, that's Anatoly's job—but Raoul wants this to be a misunderstanding as much as I do.

"What reason can you come up with?" I ask.

Raoul looks away and I have my answer. There is no reason. Not a good one, anyway.

Viviana and Anatoly are hiding something from me. And I'm going to find out why.