Page 61 of Ivory Ashes

“I’m going to love this,” Mikhail says, crossing his huggable biceps over his cuddlable chest.

I do my best to ignore his words and his body.

“—you’re good for him. That whole speech in there was inspired. You connected with him and I don’t want to get in the way of your relationship.”

Mikhail is thoughtful, his jaw flexing as he thinks. “He really loves you, Viviana.”

“‘The boy has good taste.’”

He rolls his eyes. “He really loves you, and I don’t want to get in the way of that relationship, either.”

The silence between us settles into something comfortable. Even with his chiseled-from-marble pecs on display, I don’t have a hard time looking in his eyes.

“Then we’re in agreement,” I finally say. “We try to be civil. For Dante.”

“You think you can handle that?”

“I can handle anything, thank you very much.”

“Good.” He starts to say something else and stops. His brow furrows before he finally forces the words out. “Because we have plans tomorrow. We can practice being civil.”

“Plans for all of us?” I imagine another shopping spree and barely resist groaning.

“No. Just the two of us. You and me.”

My stupid heart leaps, but I quickly lasso and hogtie it down. “Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you have a choice. But we’re trying to get along, aren’t we?” He dips his head. His breath whispers over my skin. “It would be civil of you to cooperate… so I’m not forced to carry you, kicking and screaming, over my shoulder again.”

I’m tempted to ask about the spanking. Is that on the table, too?

But before I can find the words, Mikhail is back in his room with the door closed.

22

MIKHAIL

“Anatoly will hate us for coming here without him.”

A blonde waitress bends over to bus the table next to ours. She’s busy clearing away a few hundred dollars’ worth of half-finished cocktails, but her barely-there skirt would have the entirety of my brother’s attention if he were here. Which, admittedly, is part of the reason he’s not.

Raoul nods, fingers drumming on the glass in his hands. He looks around the lounge but doesn’t say anything. I know he isn’t paying any mind to the waitress. He’s looking for Fabio.

We’ve been all over the city today. Every so often, we have to make the rounds, pop in to visit the businesses we employ and the ones we protect. It hasn’t been long since our last visit, but with Trofim’s unsolved murder hanging over my head, I figure it’s worth making sure no one has seen or heard anything strange. I don’t want to take any chances.

Not least of all because I have Dante and Viviana to think about now.

Being on assignment means Raoul is focused, but I figured he’d relax once we got to the lounge. It’s been under Novikov ownership for decades. Everyone knows not to fuck with us when we’re here and the waitresses know how to be discreet.

Still, Raoul is tense.

It’s strange enough that I’m close to checking in to make sure he’s okay. Then the blacked-out door to the lounge opens and Fabio strolls in.

“He has got to be kidding,” Raoul mutters.

No. Fabio is definitely not kidding.

He’s in a blindingly white suit with a popped black collar underneath. He whips his sunglasses off to wink at the redhead working the bar and then strolls to the back corner where Raoul and I are waiting for him.

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