Page 79 of Ivory Ashes

“Her neighbor. Just a random guy across the hall. Harmless as it gets.”

On the screen, the “random guy across the hall” offers his elbow and Viviana takes it. They walk down the stairs arm in arm and just like that, I want to rip his shoulder right out of its socket.

“I have eyes on the two of them,” Anatoly offers, as if that could ease the knot in my chest. “They went for coffee down the street. They’re just talking.”

I hang up and turn back to the three cowering men in front of me. “When I come back, I want to know which one of you is responsible for stealing from me. Take this time to come to a consensus. If you can’t decide, I’ll just kill you all.”

I look at Raoul and he waves me to the door. “I’ll lock things down here. You have other things to handle.”

Things like my wife.

If Viviana thinks I’m going to sit back while she throws a tantrum and fucks some other man, she has no idea who she is dealing with.

I think it’s time I teach her.

28

MIKHAIL

I double park in front of the coffee shop to a chorus of honking car horns. I climb out, eyes locked on the large front window. Drivers curse as they navigate around me, but I’m too busy scanning for a head of honey blonde hair. Listening for the smooth velvet sound of her laugh.

My fists tighten at my sides.

I’ll fucking kill him.

“Easy there, chief.” Anatoly lays a hand on my shoulder. I didn’t even see him standing on the sidewalk. “Let’s inhale some peace and breathe out some homicidal ideations, yeah?”

“Tell me where they are, Nat,” I growl.

He sighs. “Pyotr and I have been here the whole time. I wouldn’t have let anything happen.”

There shouldn’t even be the possibility of something happening. She should have been with me.

“My wife is out with another man. Something has already ‘happened.’” I shove his hand off my shoulder. “Where the fuck were you? Why was she alone in the first place?”

“I was at the mansion with Dante,” he snaps. “You were supposed to be with Viviana. You two work in the same goddamn building. I didn’t think I needed to cover them both.”

Viviana’s voice echoes in my head again. He deserves better than either of us, but we’re all he has.

I let them both slip through the cracks on the same day. I failed them.

I shove the thought away and march towards the coffee shop.

“What do you want me to do?” Anatoly calls.

“Leave. Take my car and get back to Dante.”

Pyotr is standing by the car, doing his best to blend in with the passenger door. “Go with Anatoly,” I spit at him. “I’ll drive my wife home myself.”

I don’t wait around to make sure they follow my orders. My sights are already set on a woman sitting just inside, her back to the window. Her hair is twisted into a clip, the honey blonde ends spilling over and brushing against her neck.

I distantly register the shape across from her. The vague outline of a man who might be dead within the next five minutes if he doesn’t play this right. Still, I can’t pull my eyes from Viviana.

My wife.

I approach her from behind and bend low, my lips against the shell of her ear. “Pick a body part.”

She goes rigid. Robotically, she places her coffee mug on the table in front of her. “Mikhail, what are you?—”

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