Page 132 of Ivory Oath

There will always be more enemies. Another war. An ever-growing list of things to be scared of. The enormity of what exactly I’ve signed up for hits me all at once.

“Maybe that would have been a good idea,” I hiss. “Maybe our original arrangement was smart all along: we’re business partners. I handle the house and you handle the Bratva.”

“You never wanted that.” He snorts and turns towards the bathroom. “These pregnancy hormones are making you crazy.”

Without thinking, I grab the book from the end of the bed and fling it at him. My throw goes wide and the book clatters against the wall.

He turns towards me slowly, his jaw clenched. “Not tonight.”

But it’s too late to walk away now. The space in my heart where I’ve tucked every fear and doubt and concern for the last few months is overflowing. There’s no more room to stuff it down. It has to come out.

“This life—the one with us and Dante and our baby—isn’t less important than the Bratva.”

“I never said it was!” he bellows. There’s blood drying on his neck. It shifts as he swallows, as tension radiates through him.

“You don’t have to say it, Mikhail. You show it every single day. Every day that you aren’t here. Every day that Dante isn’t here.”

His eyes flare, a warning written on his face. “I didn’t make that decision alone.”

“No, but you’ve done everything else alone!” I cry out. “I thought sending Dante away was for the best at the time, but now… Now, I wonder if you weren’t trying to get him out of the way.”

He’s across the room between one blink and the next. He leans in close enough that my nose fills with the copper tang of someone else’s blood.

“Look at me, Viviana,” he snarls. “If I wanted to get rid of you and Dante, I could. I would have done it already. Months ago. Years ago.”

My heart is racing and I flash back to the night all of this started. To Mikhail storming into my bridal suite, this dark, vengeful presence. I didn’t know anything about him then. As grateful as I was that he’d saved me from a lifetime married to Trofim, I was terrified. I had no idea what he would do or what he was capable of.

I’m just as terrified of him now.

I swallow past the fear. “Why don’t you? You clearly aren’t interested in having a family. If you were, you’d bother to show up when?—”

He wraps his sticky hands around my throat and drives me back against the wall. I’m so shocked, I don’t even scream. I could. His hold on my neck is loose enough. But his hand is shaking. He’s working hard not to hurt me, and I have no clue when that control will snap. I don’t want to push him.

We stare at each other for a few seconds or minutes. I’m not sure. Time slips and morphs and I see too many emotions to count shutter across Mikhail’s face.

Then, just as fast as he crossed the room, he’s gone.

I can still feel the warmth of his hand around my throat when the bathroom door clicks closed and the shower starts.

55

VIVIANA

I try to ignore the noises coming from the kitchen—shuffling feet, plates rattling together. If Mikhail doesn’t want to see me, that’s fine. I’m not going to force myself on him again. It didn’t exactly go well the last time.

When he got out of the shower a couple nights ago, he walked straight past the bed and out of the room. I haven’t seen him since.

So, no, I’m not going to bombard him in the kitchen and start another fight.

But there’s no reason I can’t peek in and see if it’s really him, right? This is my house, too. I’m allowed to walk around freely.

I tiptoe down the hall and ease around the corner. I’ll just catch a glimpse of him and then be on my way.

“It’s me.” Anatoly waves from behind the refrigerator door. “You aren’t as sneaky as you think you are.”

Hope curdles into disappointment in my chest. “I wasn’t trying to be sneaky.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Sure. You aren’t trying to be sneaky, just like Mikhail isn’t trying to avoid you.”

---