by Bethany-Kris
“I don’t know what happened.”
“Well, your pupils were the size of a dimes, if that helps any. Thank God for Rory driving you home. That was a selfish move, Anton. And coming home stoned, drunk, and stupid? That’s nothing like you.”
“I’m sorry,” Anton said softly. He wasn’t going to make excuses, because clearly he fucked up, but he really wished he could remember why or at least how it had happened. “Vine, really, I don’t know … Did I say anything?”
“Other than telling Rory that the wife would handle it? No.” A heavy sigh fell into the room. The sound felt like a loaded gun pointed directly at his chest. Viviana had never seemed so totally overwhelmed or angry at him before, not like this. “Anton, I just … After last night, I can’t do this.”
The beating heart in his chest might as well have stopped altogether. “What?”
Something was tossed to the bed and Anton didn’t miss the fleeting disgust that flitted over Viviana’s pretty face. Pushing himself up in the bed, he grappled for the dress shirt that now lay forgotten where she threw it. At first he assumed she gave it to him to put on, but a simple glance at the article of clothing told him that wasn’t the case.
Smelling like it’d been washed in a brewery with the faintest smudge of sparkly, red gloss at the collar, the dress shirt might as well have been a bomb ready to blow. Anton choked on the air in his throat. Sure, it was his shirt, no doubt about it. That gloss on the collar, though, meant something else entirely.
“No way,” he said, dropping the shirt like it’d burned him. “No fucking way, Vine. I wouldn’t ever—”
“Pick it up and smell it,” she whispered, anguish filling up the brown eyes that met his unflinchingly. “Smells like a whore, Anton. Smells just like she was all over you, and the fact that I had to take it off of you last night to get you into bed … Why would you ever do that to me?”
Anton hurt all over. It wasn’t just a physical pain from the hangover, but an emotional one. Simply looking at his wife, her heart so open and broken on her sleeve, he fucking damn well ached. What had he done? Surely there wasn’t any way he would do that to Viviana. It just wasn’t possible. He couldn’t even think the word, let alone consider it as a real possibility. They’d been married three years and not once had he strayed from his wife.
There were opportunities, sure. Considering his profession as a high ranking boss in the Russian mafia, mixed in with his many businesses that had beautiful women roaming in and out by the dozens, Anton was surrounded by those kinds of opportunities. Drugs, illegalities, and women were a common thing in his day-to-day life, but never … no. Anton could not even consider it.
“Vine, I swear to God,” Anton said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “You know—”
Viviana shook her head, the coffee cup in her hands trembling. “I don’t know anything.”
“You know me,” he insisted.
“The man I know doesn’t come home stoned out of his mind with a pint of vodka in his hand. He doesn’t worry me half to death, degrade me when he gets home, or forgets that he has a two-and-a-half-year-old son sleeping down the hall. This man …” Viviana said with a flick of her wrist in his direction. “Who in the hell is this man? Not one I need, or want, honestly.”
Before Anton could say another word, the sound of tiny feet pattering down the hallway stopped him. Usually the approach of his son in the morning only served to warm his soul, but today it felt foreboding. Demyan never witnessed his parents' disagreements. Children had a habit of blaming themselves, and Viviana and Anton kept their issues quiet and behind closed doors.
“Papa!”
Anton just managed to hide the dress shirt he didn’t want to look at for a second longer before his son was tumbling into the bedroom. Viviana reached down to tousle the boy’s raven black hair, but Demyan only had eyes for his father. Slipping across the hardwood floor in his socked feet, tiny white teeth shone as he grinned happily at the sight of his father awake and waiting.
“Hey, little man. Get up here.”
Anton reached down to grab Demyan around the waist before pulling him up into the bed. Tickling his son, the high pitch squeals and childish laughter filled the room. Anton took the moment with his son to enjoy the innocent happiness of a child, but a heaviness still hung thick in the air.
“Did you use the bathroom?” Anton asked Demyan.
The huffing, pink cheeked boy shook his head. “Nope.”
In a flash, Anton set his son to the floor. “Go do it and we’ll have some breakfast.” Once Demyan was out of the bedroom, Anton forced himself to move and get up from the bed, ignoring the pounding headache that made him want to puke. Viviana closed the door to shelter their conversation. “Vine—”
“No, I need you to listen to me for a minute, Anton. I am so angry with you. Even if something serious didn’t happen, you still allowed a woman to touch you, to get close enough to you that she left behind her smell and her lipstick. Goddamn it, you promised me you wouldn’t ever stray from our marriage, and I stupidly believed you.
“I can’t do this,” she repeated lowly.
Before Anton could say a word, Viviana kicked at a black duffle bag sitting on the floor that he hadn’t noticed before.
“What is that?”
Viviana wouldn’t meet his gaze. “It’s a bag, for you. You need to go somewhere else for a little while, okay?”
“But, Vine—”
“Be here in the morning for Demyan, and if you want, at night to put him to bed, but in-between, you can’t be here, Anton. I need to think, and I can’t do that with you nearby. All I want to do is scream at you, or hurt you. He can’t see that, so you need to give me some time.”
“This is my house, too,” Anton whispered. “You’re just going to kick me out of our fucking home?”
Viviana nodded jerkily and tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, though she didn’t make a move to wipe away the wetness. “I told you, I need to think about some things.”
“Things,” he said, spitting out the word. “You mean us.”
“That’s one, yeah.”
Fucking hell, why did she sound so indifferent and cold about it all?
“Well what the fuck else is there but us, huh?” Anton’s shout practically reverberated in the room. He didn’t miss the second flood of tears that fell from Viviana or the way her hand, still holding the coffee cup, had wrapped around her midsection as she folded in on herself. “I’m sorry,” he rushed to say. “Baby, I didn’t mean to yell.”
“Don’t … God, just don’t, Anton. I won’t keep you from this house, or your son. On the other hand, you need to leave me alone when you are here. That’s all I’m asking.”
Viviana still hadn’t removed her arm from her stomach. Anton’s gaze was drawn in on the protective nature of the hold and the way she just wouldn’t look at him. That wasn’t his wife standing there, frightened and weakened. Viviana was the strongest damned woman he knew, and somehow—by him—she’d been broken.
“I didn’t do anything, Vine. I wouldn’t—couldn’t.”
But he couldn’t remember for sure.
However, in the back of his hazy memory, Anton could feel the weight of someone on his lap, and the breath spilling on his neck. Blonde and blue-eyed with a sweetened voice, the female wasn’t his wife. She didn’t feel right. Nothing about her was.
No way, Anton thought brokenly.
He just couldn’t.
“Please,” Anton begged when Viviana refused to speak. “What aren’t you saying?”
Viviana finally regarded him with shining wetness in an anguished stare. “I’m pregnant.”
Oh God, his heart stopped. Anton wanted to be happy at her confession, but the absolute pain marring her features kept him from feeling anything but a deep, settling ache. “What?”
“I was a couple of days late, so the day before yesterday I stopped at the store and got a test just out of curiosity. I wasn’t sure if it would h
appen so quickly like it did for Demyan when I came off the shot. I should have known better, of course it would. The home test came back positive, but I wanted to be sure so yesterday I went into the clinic. They confirmed it.”
Anton’s mouth was so dry he could barely speak. “Pregnant.”
“Yeah. And I still need you to leave, Anton. Especially now.”
***
Anton stared at the blank screen of his phone, lost and confused. The three texts he sent to his wife had all gone unanswered, although they’d all been about them, and not their son as Viviana requested. The heart inside his chest was aching and breaking in ways he couldn’t even begin to describe. It was as if someone had taken his entire soul and ripped it apart before burying it deeper than he could try to dig.
At least Viviana had allowed him to take Demyan with him for the day. His little boy was keeping him sane with mindless chatter and constant business at the club. Anton, however, was still feeling like hell, but he was doing all he could to hide it from his son.
“Did you talk to Rory about last night?”
Anton glanced up at his lawyer’s voice.
“Yeah,” he croaked out.
“And?”
Demyan, playing in the corner with Rocco and his matchbox cars, didn’t seem to be paying attention to the conversation, or his father’s broken tone. The boy had done remarkably well all morning, despite the obvious frustration and hurt between his parents.
“And nothing,” Anton answered faintly. “Said Natalie seemed like she was pulling down her dress and I was fixing up the buttons on my shirt. She made a big deal about getting out of there, and Rory said I was completely blitzed right out of it, but—”
“That sounds bad, man.”
Yeah, Anton was aware. “Shit, Ivan, I can’t even remember. I don’t think I can count the amount of times I’ve drank enough to black out on one hand, and the hangover I’ve got is fucking ridiculous.”
“I don’t think you drank a heck of a lot, but you were slamming back on the bourbon pretty fast,” Ivan noted. “Maybe more than we thought. It happens.”
“Not to me,” Anton insisted. “My drinks have always been watered down, especially when I have Bratva in this club.”
“It’s not like you, I agree.” The lawyer nodded, shooting a look at the little boy in the corner. “Where are you going to stay?”
“Here for a while. I can go home for whatever I need, so I might as well.”
“And what about you-know-who?” Ivan asked with a cant of his head towards Demyan.
“Keep him with me when I can. Make sure he sees me around enough to know I didn’t leave. There’s not much else I can do.”
“Kids blame themselves for shit like this, Anton.”
But not his boy. Anton wouldn’t allow that.
“We’ll figure it out,” Anton muttered. “Somehow. Right now he doesn’t know the difference. Surely we can keep him from noticing for a little while.”
“That Papa, the one person besides his mother who is his absolute everything in this world, isn’t waiting for him every morning like he had every other day of his life?” Ivan asked sarcastically.
A lump lodged painfully in Anton’s throat. “We’ll make it work, like I said. My son … It doesn’t matter, Ivan, he’s my boy. She wouldn’t keep him from me, because he’s all of me and she knows it. Even if whatever this is between her and I right now keeps up like it is, then we’ll figure something else out for him.”
“You’re taking this well,” Ivan said frankly. “As good as can be expected for you, I guess.”
“I’m breaking apart inside,” Anton admitted. “That woman is my whole life and has been since I was eighteen. I’ve never loved anybody like I love her. I’ve broken every damn rule for her and would again in a heartbeat. I’m supposed to just accept that I stepped out on her because I drank too much liquor? Like fuck. Something doesn’t feel right here.”
Ivan hummed noncommittally. “If all else fails, you could pull rank, Anton. She’s your wife and he’s your son. Divorce isn’t an acceptable route if you don’t want it to be. I know you’ve always been a little cleaner cut than others is our business, especially where Viviana is concerned, but you’re more than capable of playing dirty if you need to.”
“Jesus. That’s …”
“It was just a suggestion. An option you can use if you want. I’m not saying I would, but I’m not you, either.”
“Even if … It doesn’t matter how much I love her, I still couldn’t do that.” Anton felt his molars practically crack beneath his jaw as he grinded his teeth. The thought of forcing a reconciliation on his wife just because he said so didn’t quite feel right for him. “This isn’t twenty or thirty years ago, Ivan. She has choices. I won’t take them from her because I fucked up. She’s not a piece of property.”
“Others wouldn’t feel that way.”
Anton scowled, the action causing his aching head to pound harder. “They’re not me.”
“What about Natalie, have you tried talking to her?” Ivan asked.
“Absolutely not,” Anton growled, glaring at his friend. “The last thing I need is to be near that woman again, Ivan.”
“She’ll be in the club tonight working.”
Anton flinched, disgust filling him to the brim. This whole situation was horrible, and he felt dirty with ten grimy fingers pointing straight at his guilty chest.
“Well, aside from firing her, there’s not much I can—”
Anton didn’t get to finish his sentence. A loud bang and shouted orders rang out in the downstairs of the club. The tinkling sounds of canisters popping along the empty floor echoed up to their spot. There was no denying what was happening downstairs.
“Fuck,” Ivan muttered.
Instantly, Anton was off his office chair, ignoring the gun he knew was in the desk, and the information of a shipment, never mind the laptop he should have tried to somehow destroy. No, instead, the only thing he could think of was the little boy on the floor with wide blue eyes and terrified, reaching for his father.
“Papa?” Demyan cried.
“Shhh, little man,” Anton whispered.
In his arms, he held his son tighter and turned his back to the door of the office. It seemed like only milliseconds, but his mind was running a million miles a minute. Anton couldn’t begin to understand why the officials would be raiding his club. His guys certainly hadn’t been given any indication and they’d all been pretty quiet.
Demyan’s shaking increased as the shouts down below became louder. “It’s okay, Demyan, it’s okay. Papa’s here.”
The sounds of a dozen or more pairs of boots pounding up the metal staircase ratcheted up Anton’s nerves to a breaking point.
“Anton …” Ivan started to say. “Anton, give me your son!”
The hardest thing Anton ever had to do, next to walking out of his house that morning knowing his wife’s heart was breaking, was hand his trembling, scared, and crying son off to another man. It was safer for Demyan, though.
No doubt, they weren’t there for Ivan.
Anton watched Ivan curl a fighting Demyan into his chest as he got to his knees on the floor and automatically put his hands behind his head. The less threatening he seemed at their entrance, the less likely they were to cause him harm, never mind his son seeing it.
“Demyan, it’s okay,” Anton repeated when the first kick to the door landed with a solid thump. The second and third only followed louder, harder. “Hide his face, Ivan!”
When the door finally broke, it wasn’t a second before Anton found himself face down on the floor, his son’s cries overtaking all other sounds. Cuffs tightened around his wrists to an almost painful point, but Anton refused to show it. A boot landed hard between his shoulder blades, keeping him pinned to the floor even though he wasn’t fighting.
“Papa!”
“Anton Daniil Avdonin, you’re under arrest for the murder of Sonny Carducci, Tatiana Belov, Sergei Bel
ov …”
Anton tuned the words out and focused on his son, instead.
***
“Vine!”
Frantically, Viviana turned in every direction she could look searching for the familiar voice calling for her. FBI agents had swarmed her home less than an hour earlier when she was getting ready to leave for the bookstore. Everything they held dear in their home, from photographs, to knickknacks, to their son’s toys, were thrown about and strewn so carelessly.
There was nothing clean or nice about this search.
Viviana felt intruded on in the worst way.
“Sasha, I’m in the kitchen,” Viviana called back.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you’re not permitted inside during—”
“Zatknis', idi na khuy,” Sasha spat. “Get out of my way, you fucking fool, so I can take my grandson in to his mother!”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Viviana snorted. In all her years of knowing her mother-in-law, Viviana hadn’t once heard Sasha tell someone to shut up so venomously, never mind the colorful words she used to do it with.
When a furious Sasha rounded the corner to enter the kitchen with a confused, frightened looking Demyan, Viviana’s heart broke a little more. From what she understood, thanks to the very short call with Ivan, her son had been there to see his father arrested. The team that went in on them at the club hadn’t been particularly nice about it, either.
“Ma!” Demyan wailed and reached with grabbing hands for Viviana.
“I’m sorry, Vine. I would have gotten him here sooner, but the traffic is awful and they’ve got roadblocks set up down the street,” Sasha said as she gave her daughter-in-law an awkward, one-armed hug.
“It’s okay, really.”
“Here, take him. I think he’s hungry, tired, and in desperate need of a nap.”
Viviana hadn’t been able to go to the club to pick Demyan up because of the goddamn agents searching her house. No way would it be acceptable for them to be inside the residence without her or Anton’s presence.
