Page 46 of Ivory Ashes

“Like you?” I ask.

“Like Mikhail,” he corrects. “You might be pissed at him right now, but Mikhail could have abandoned you and Dante to your fates. He could have taken Dante and left you with nothing. But he’s offering you the key to the kingdom.”

Too bad it feels like the key to my own prison cell.

I’m exhausted and off-balance. I entertained this conversation to try to endear Anatoly to me, but now, I’m sitting here feeling sympathetic for him and Mikhail.

It’s too much for one day. It’s too much for one lifetime.

I shake my head. “Please leave.”

This time, Anatoly listens. He stands and walks to the door. But he stops, his hand on the knob, and looks back at me.

“You thought you knew me when I walked through this door, but you didn’t,” he says softly. “Give my brother the same benefit of the doubt. You think you know him, but you don’t.”

“I know enough,” I fire back, doubting the words before they’re even out of my mouth.

I know Mikhail is offering me something a lot of men wouldn’t. Again and again, he has taken care of me when he didn’t have to.

But he said it himself: the Bratva is an extension of him. No matter what kind of man Mikhail is, I can’t separate him from the world I hate.

Anatoly sighs. “He saved you once before when he didn’t have to—when you didn’t ask him to. Think about the life you’d be living right now if Mikhail hadn’t done that.”

With thoughts of a Dante-less, Trofim-filled life bouncing around my head, Anatoly finally leaves me alone.

17

MIKHAIL

I keep my distance the next day.

It’s not hard. Viviana and Dante spend most of the day in the pool. I hear the splashing and Dante’s excited shouting through the walls, but I stay in my office.

I told Viviana I’d give her time to consider my offer, and I meant it. I laid out her options and now, it’s up to her to decide.

But also, the last thing I need right now is to see her dripping wet in a bathing suit.

The image of her bent over the edge of the bed, my hand curling perfectly around her ass, is enough of a distraction. Not to mention the low moan my spanking dragged out of her.

I readjust my aching dick and try to focus on the contracts in front of me. My lawyers have summarized everything I need to know about the Cerberus Industries takeover, but the words refuse to lodge in my brain. There's already too much other shit lodged in there.

Like, I proposed to Viviana. And I have a son. Also, Trofim was murdered.

But mostly, I proposed to Viviana.

It makes sense. Logical. Undeniable. We already have a child and, no matter how much she might hate her father, Viviana is well-connected, by virtue of the blood in her veins if nothing else. There’s a reason my father agreed to her marriage to Trofim in the first place. It’s a good match.

So why do those words make me want to punch through walls?

Good match. Like Viviana is some pocket square I’m trying to accessorize with my tie.

It doesn’t matter. The proposal wasn’t about her anyway. It had absolutely nothing to do with how I was on my way to see Viviana for no reason at all last night when I found her trying to sneak away. It definitely has nothing to do with the way I wanted to rip through her panties to feel how wet she was for me.

No, this is about the Bratva and my son.

That’s what I’m still telling myself hours later as someone knocks softly on my office door. A second later, it opens and Viviana lets herself in.

“Can we talk?”

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