Page 150 of Ivory Ashes

MIKHAIL

I toss my third—or shit, I don’t know, it could be my fourth, fifth, or tenth—drink back, but I don’t even taste it.

There’s no familiar tingle in my extremities. No warmth low in my gut. Despite the alcohol, I feel ice-cold inside and out. Numb.

Maybe that’s why I don’t flinch when my office door flies open and my father is standing in front of me, practically frothing at the mouth.

“What in the fuck are you doing?” he snarls.

I hold up my glass. “Having a drink. Or, I was having a drink. I just finished it.”

“You’re drunk.” He swipes out to bat the glass out of my hand, but I pull it back with plenty of time to spare. I’m wasted, but even still, I’m faster than the old bastard.

“Not drunk,” I correct, placing the glass safely on the corner of the desk that used to belong to my father. “Just drinking. Now, what the fuck do you want?”

A deep, angry growl squeezes out of his throat. “I want to know why you’re sitting here kicking your heels up while we are being attacked.”

“If you’re talking about the assault at the lounge, I’ve responded to that.”

He snorts. “Yeah, by killing Yanis Drakos in front of an entire theater full of witnesses.”

“No one who matters saw me. Even if they did, they won't breathe a word.”

“It doesn’t matter either way. If you don’t end up in prison, you’ll be in the grave. The Greeks aren’t going to stop until you pay for humiliating Helen.”

“Helen humiliated herself,” I drawl. “She fell in love with me without any encouragement. She let her feelings get in the way of what should have been nothing more than a solid business deal.”

Which is exactly why I won’t do the same thing with Viviana.

I don’t care that I can still feel the way her breasts pressed against my ribs. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been half-cocked since she pressed her hand to my cheek. It sure as fuck doesn’t make a difference that she all but admitted she loves me. I won’t make this shit any messier than it already is.

“Helen isn’t the one who let her feelings get in the way of things, son,” he snaps. “That was you. You let this woman turn your head and make enemies of the Greeks.”

“This isn’t about her. It’s about my son.”

He rolls his eyes. “The bitch probably got pregnant on purpose. You destroyed her wedding to Trofim right when she was banking on a connection to the Novikov Bratva. She needed to tie one of you down and beggars can’t be choosers, eh?”

I remember everything about that night in vivid detail. Neither of us were thinking with enough clarity to manipulate anyone. The draw between us was magnetic. I couldn’t have pulled out of her even if I’d wanted to.

And Viviana still doesn’t want anything to do with this world.

“That’s my wife you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, she’s your wife,” he agrees. “She’s also your brother’s murderer.”

Even if I was drunk, that sentence would have sobered me right up. My blood runs cold and I sit tall. “Explain yourself.”

My father tosses an envelope onto my desk. “It’s all in there.”

I pull a flash drive out of the envelope. “What is this?”

“Play it and you’ll?—”

“I don’t want to play it,” I bark. “I want you to tell me why the fuck you are accusing my wife of murder before I kill you for insulting her.”

My father has the audacity to smirk. “I wouldn’t have thought I’d know more about this than you. I don’t have an army of men at my command and doing my bidding anymore. It seems you’ve gotten distracted from your investigation. Does Viviana have anything to do with why you haven’t found who killed Trofim?”

Viviana has everything to do with why I haven’t really cared that Trofim was killed at all.

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