by Bethany-Kris
And God, every time he did, Viviana yearned and burned for more.
“Six weeks is long, but I think you’ll be okay,” she told him.
Anton smirked, offering her a cheeky wink. “The wait will be worth it. And besides that, we got something good from it.”
The sleeping baby caught both their eyes. Demyan was still cuddled in his blankets, his fist stuck up by his lips like it usually was. She couldn’t believe how much he’d taken after his father in his appearance. But, it was more than just appearance, too. Viviana had noticed her son calmed easier in the arms of his father. Anton’s voice, especially when he was speaking Russian, soothed the boy’s fussing. Demyan preferred the blue swaddling blanket his father had held him wrapped in for most of their stay at the hospital, probably because it smelled like Anton.
Already there was a bond between the two that was remarkable to witness.
Viviana smiled as she said, “We made something amazing, Anton.”
“We sure did.”
“All right, you better get going.”
“Still don’t want to,” Anton muttered unhappily.
“Sooner you leave, the quicker it’ll be over.” Viviana’s suggestion seemed to work as Anton’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “I’ll be okay with him, I promise.”
“I know you will, Vine. It’s me who’s having the meltdown here. Ten bucks says I’m home before supper.”
“Twenty says you don’t make it until noon,” she said, just to tease.
Anton grinned. “Oh, you’re on.”
*
Hollers welcomed Anton into his office at Seven Lights. Waving his hands in the air and giving his three favorite guys a bow, Anton grinned at the affection they showed his return. Not all of his men were there, but the most important ones were.
Erik, Boris, and Ivan.
The only ones he’d wanted to see without a prearranged meeting.
Erik reached out to cuff his shoulder while loud congratulations were expressed.
“He lives another day!” Erik leered.
Ivan laughed and said, “Oh, the new daddy is in the house.”
“Birth is as bad as they say, yeah?” Boris asked.
Anton chuckled. “It wasn’t that bad, actually.”
“Liar.”
Anton’s gaze found his best friend’s instantly, a relieved smile overtaking him as he regarded Ivan. His lawyer was pale, tired looking, and probably weak, but he seemed a hell of a lot better than he had the last time Anton was with him.
At least now he fucking looked alive.
Crossing the room, Anton met Ivan before he could stand from his spot on the couch. Ivan didn’t need to get up to greet him, not in Anton’s opinion. The man deserved more than that for the bullet he took. The quiet embrace between the two men lasted long enough for Anton to feel the strength in the hold.
“Does he look as much like you as I’ve heard?” Ivan asked.
Anton shrugged as he pulled away. “Quite a bit. He took after her, too. He’s got a good mix of us both.”
Ivan had yet to see Demyan, and actually, today was his first day away from his own home and family since the night over a week before that nearly took his life. Anton and Viviana had received a steady stream of visitors to their house since they arrived home from the hospital. Most were Bratva, a few had been his wife’s friends from school, and others were their mutual friends, people like Jen. Anton didn’t mind the visitors, but he liked privacy more. He was happy the guests were finally beginning to slow.
“Blue eyes, too?” Ivan asked.
“Just like his Papa,” Erik said as he sat down. Ivan winced at the jostle of movement on the couch. “Sorry, man.”
“It’s all right, but you don’t weigh as much as a horse, so don’t act like it,” Ivan replied easily.
Anton sat down behind his desk, relaxed back into the familiar chair, and propped his boots up on the oak top. Comfort and familiarity seeped into his blood like a drug, but he felt different sitting there, more so than he usually would. It was almost like something was missing. His mind was there where it needed to be. Ready to talk business, the new shipment coming in at the end of the month, and the issue of Jersey, but an odd sentiment prickled at him.
Or maybe his heart was simply elsewhere.
Like at home, with his wife and son.
Shit, now he just wanted to call Viviana.
Anton sighed away the melancholy. “So, anything new?”
“It’s only been five days, Boss,” Boris said, exhaling a heavy puff of cigar smoke.
“Eight,” Anton corrected. “I haven’t been properly caught up on anything since the sit down. Someone needs to fix that shit immediately. I hate being out of the loop.”
“You were the one who turned your phone off.”
“True.”
“I received an interesting call,” Ivan said, offering something new to the conversation. “I was surprised he didn’t call you directly, or his wife, for that matter.”
Anton raised a brow. It wasn’t like Ivan to be vague. “Who?”
“Who else has that ample amount of stupidity? The Don, of course. Wanting to wish Viviana congratulations from him and his wife on the birth of her first child. Maybe it was just his way of being respectful, but Conrad didn’t wait to get on the phone with me after Demyan’s birth was announced in the Times.”
“Wait, my son’s birth was in the motherfucking Times?”
“A baby boy born to a former Cosa Nostra Don’s daughter and the current Bratva mob prince?” Boris asked over the tip of his cigar. Scoffing, he rolled his eyes, “I’m surprised they didn’t plaster those titles on him just for good measure and call him New York underground royalty. You’re goddamn right they had that announcement in the Times, Boss. What would they call him, anyway? The Russian Don?”
Anton stared at his brigadier, wondering where on earth the man had gotten that from. It was funny, but it wasn’t. Anton was just trying to decide if he wanted to be offended or not. Somebody else who didn’t know Boris well enough probably would have taken it offensively.
“Jesus, Boris, you’re an idiot,” Ivan said through his laughter. “If I was close enough, and it didn’t hurt to get up, I’d smack the shit outta you.”
“Demyan can’t be the Don,” Anton finally said, deciding he wasn’t all too offended. It was all for shits and giggles, anyway. Something to lighten up the room, get the guys loose and ready to talk. “Couldn’t ever be, he’s Russian. Looks like a Russian, too.”
“I heard they’re taking ‘em even if they’re only half, now,” Boris replied with a teasing smirk.
“Yeah, but the bloodline can’t be disputed, and it needs to come from the father’s side. My child doesn’t have a lick of Italian from me.” Anton grinned smugly, catching the freshly cut cigar Boris tossed over the desk. “He gets just enough from his mother to color him up. Even with that, Demyan’s perfect.”
“So says the father he came from,” Erik said with a snort. “You wait till he turns into you. Wrecking every vehicle you could get your hands on, getting kicked off the baseball team for handing out ecstasy in the locker room, and running with girls whose daddies were one step away from putting a bullet in your ass. You might not think he’s so perfect, then, boy. God knows Daniil was ready to lay a well-deserved licking down on you more than once for the stunts you pulled growing up.”
Anton’s arm ached at the reminder. No, he had managed not to take a bullet in his backside, but the one that all but lodged in his shoulder had been a wakeup call of sorts. A few months later he was in Barbados with Viviana. The rest was history.
“Ah, you old fool,” Boris mumbled around his cigar. “Erik, you ran those women just as hard. We overlooked Anton’s issues because he eventually grew up. When did you manage to? How many wives now? Three?”
“Four.” Anton had to point out the correct number just to poke the bear.
“Mne vse ravno,” Erik said with a wink. “I’m onl
y in it for the pizda.”
Ivan shook his head in disbelief. “Oh! The pussy, he says. Because you need to be married to get that.”
Anton guffawed. “Don’t let your wife hear you say that. You won’t be getting any more pizda for a while, you perverted fucker.”
“Anyway.” Ivan whistled low, bringing their attention and laughter to him. “Back to the call from Conrad. It didn’t last too long, but it was enough.”
Erik grumbled under his breath, looking more disgusted by the second. “Ugh. Fucking Italians, man. Can we just be done with that family and move on? I’ve had enough. Wasn’t getting rid of their good for nothing boss a huge red flag that we don’t want their friendship? We’ve got our own issues with New Jersey. We don’t need to be slumming it with Cosa Nostra, too.”
“I agree,” Anton said. “What’d you tell him, Ivan?”
It wasn’t that Anton didn’t appreciate the call, he just wondered if there was more behind Conrad’s motives. Hadn’t the Don been the one to say each boss should keep to their own territories? The last thing he wanted, or needed, was to have issues with the Italians. Anton mulled it all over as he found his favorite Zippo and worked on lighting up his cigar.
Things were finally starting to smooth out a little in his life. Couldn’t it stay that way?
Fuck, Anton hoped so.
“Didn’t tell him nothing he might have wanted to hear,” the lawyer responded. “Gave him a thank you on your behalf, as I should.”
“And as my Sovietnik?”
Ivan smirked wickedly. “Told him to keep his distance.”
“Good.” Anton sighed, relived that was one less thing he’d have to handle. “We don’t need that trouble.”
Both Boris and Erik agreed.
“What else?” Anton flicked his Zippo between his forefinger and thumb, hearing the clink, clack of metal as the top popped open and then closed again. No one spoke. “You’re telling me there’s nothing?”
“Nothing hugely important that needs attention,” Ivan said, sounding bored. “It’s been quiet. That’s not a bad thing.”
“Vegas is finally saying yes to my proposition with the last gun shipment,” Boris said.
There was something Anton could talk about. He’d been working for years to get his guns leaking into certain parts of the States. Vegas was just one of them, but it was a big fucking one. Getting his weapons out of the States was an easy feat, but working into an already booming illegal marketplace was tough.
“Just like that? No dividends for them?”
“There’s always something,” the brigadier replied. “Give it time. This is the first deal you’ve worked with a Vegas guy, so give him what he wants. It’ll pay off in the long run, I promise you that.”
“Well, shit,” Anton mused, leaning back in his chair as smoke curled high to the ceiling.
“And the shipment coming in at the end of the month …”
Anton flicked Boris with a sharp look. That shipment was over five-point-two million in illegal substance they couldn’t afford to lose. It would be even worse if the authorities picked up on it and trailed to back to him. “What about it?”
Erik made a noise under his breath. “Take a pill, Anton. Calm your nerves.”
“There’s a crapload of money we’re going to make on that boat,” Ivan muttered.
Anton jerked his thumb in his lawyer’s direction. “Truth.”
“Viktor let me know they had a little issue a week ago,” Boris started to explain.
“Oh, yeah? What kind now?”
Fucking Viktor, Anton thought. That goddamned brigadier was causing him more issues than he wanted to admit. If Viktor wasn’t causing some kind of shit, he was starting it somewhere else.
“Guess the load isn’t going to be as big as they thought. Viktor said the guys screwed up on the weigh in, but we paid just as much for the original. What was he supposed to do about it, he asked. I didn’t know what to tell him. I’m not the boss, you know?”
The room went silent for a good minute. Anton inhaled a burning drag from his cigar, letting the harsh smoke tumble around in his lungs before he exhaled it to the air. He needed to seriously think about what he’d just been told before he reacted to it.
Runners didn’t screw up a weigh in on shipments. That was the crux of the matter. Sure, they’d skim a little here and there to make a couple of thousand in profit above their original price, but that wasn’t anything to the grand scheme of things. It was expected, really. Runners wanted their money to come in clean, just like the traffickers did. Striking bad deals, or making mistakes that would cost them future ones, wasn’t in the repertoire.
The only plausible explanation was that someone else had skimmed off quite a bit of the drug shipment for themselves, or they were planning to. Quick money, even if the product still needed to be checked for quality and control. It didn’t matter to the thief who took it, they’d sell it just as easy and wouldn’t give a shit about the rest.
“That’s going to be an issue,” Anton said quietly. “One he’s going to have to answer for, somehow. I don’t care how, Boris, but it better be fucking good or I’ll see him in a grave. Mark my words, I’ll do it.”
Boris kept his face a mask of calm, but Anton could see the war fighting in the older man’s eyes. The two brigadiers had been friends for many years and tended to stick together. However, when Viktor fell out of Anton’s favor the year before because he smacked around Viviana, Boris had started to create a little distance from his friend.
You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, after all.
“Do what you gotta do, Boss,” Boris stated. “He knows how this goes.”
“If I find out he did something and make the call to cull him, are you going to give him warning?” Anton asked.
“It’s not my call to make.”
“Good answer.” Anton wasn’t quite finished, though. He wanted to make sure exactly what side his brigadier was on. “And what if I make the call to you?”
Boris cringed. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
“But?” Anton asked.
“I’d do it. Business as usual,” Boris said dully. “What else?”
Exactly, Anton thought. The life wasn’t easy, but they lived it nonetheless. What else?
Anton leaned back in his chair, propping his boots up on the desk once more. “Anything else?”
Looks were shared between the men in the room, but nothing was amiss. Apparently it truly had been quiet, for the most part. Damn, Anton didn’t want to get his hopes up for things settling down but it was sure seeming like that was going to be the case. There were such things as miracles, after all.
“Just that prince of yours,” Ivan said with a smile. “I’ve got to get over there soon.”
“Want to see a picture?”
Three grown men might as well have turned into children right before Anton’s eyes. Laughing, he pulled out his cell phone and brought up the picture files. It wasn’t long before he found the one he’d taken early that morning. It had automatically become his favorite in the bunch, and damn, he’d taken quite a few of his son in just the short span of five days. Regarding the photo before he turned the phone to show the guys, Anton was reminded of that odd feeling he started out the morning with.
The one that told him to go back home for a little while longer.
Sunlight had just started to filter in through the bedroom windows, illuminating the photo with natural light. Viviana was rolled to her side on their bed, sleeping with one arm laying up along her son’s back to hold him close. Demyan was curled in the sheets with his mother, that tiny fist of his up against his mouth while his other hand was grasping tight to a lock of his mother’s hair. He wasn’t sleeping, though. Those blue eyes of his were wide open, staring up into his mother’s face with an awestruck amazement only a baby could have.
People could say newborns didn’t have in-depth understanding of emotions all they wanted, Anton knew they were wrong. De
myan had love already. He just did. And like his father, all that love he felt revolved around Viviana.
When Demyan had started up his fussing that morning, Anton knew the baby couldn’t be hungry or dirty. Viviana just fed, cleaned, and laid him down in his bed not thirty minutes before. She had just managed to fall back asleep, too. Anton wanted her to get some more sleep. Getting up six times a night for thirty to forty minutes each time with their son was tiresome; she needed the extra rest.
So, when even Anton couldn’t get the baby to fall back to sleep, he thought maybe … maybe his son was just like him even straight from the womb. Perhaps all he wanted was the thing he loved the very most. The touch, closeness, smell, and sight of all that love. When he placed Demyan beside his sleeping mother, and a tiny little fist shot out to snag Viviana’s lock of hair, Anton wasn’t surprised to find out he was right.
“What do you want to do today, Boss?” Boris asked, bringing Anton from his musings.
Anton glanced around the room. Things were good. Great, even. He didn’t need to be here.
“I owe my wife twenty bucks.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Anton stared at the grave.
It was standard size, but the hole in the ground seemed larger than normal. Like maybe it was ready to suck him up and swallow him whole, too. The black marble headstone was meticulous in detail and design, the inscriptions clean and clear. Everything had gone along perfectly without a single bump in the plans of the funeral.
The day was sunny, warm, and summer hung thick in the air.
Just as his father would have wanted.
Slowly, every progression and battle won in Daniil’s fight against cancer had been lost. In a short two week span, Anton’s father had slowly slipped away a little more. If it wasn’t his organs failing, his lungs wouldn’t catch air. The hospital wanted to keep people out to preserve what time Daniil might have had left, but the man didn’t want that at all.
He wanted everybody.
Anton had to respect his father for that.
Goodbyes weren’t easy. But he’d said each one with a smile.
Anton missed him already.
Demyan had been born early on the morning of July third. Daniil said his final goodbye exactly two weeks later, thirty minutes before the time when Demyan had entered the world. It wasn’t nearly enough time. It wasn’t.
