Page 137 of Ivory Oath

He doesn’t need a refresher the way the waitress did. He recognizes me immediately.

His face falls and he drops back into his chair. The metal legs squeal under his weight. “This area is for employees only.”

“That’s perfect. Because I’ve got a job for you.” I gesture for Raoul to close the door and it clicks shut a second later. The music from the club is even more muted. No one will hear him scream. “You tell me everything I want to know. In return, I won’t kill you.”

His eyelids twitch. “If you want money, I can open the safe. The bar has cash. I can clear it out for you, if you want.”

I pull the gun out of my pocket and aim it at his forehead. “I’m not interested in cash. I want to know where Christos Drakos is tonight.”

Sweat drips down his forehead. His collar turns a darker shade of gray as panic soaks through his shirt. The room smells stale and bitter.

I hope Dante isn’t in a room like this. I hope he isn’t with a man like this.

“Mr. Drakos owns the club, but I don’t know anything about?—”

His lie is lost to a yelp as I press the barrel of the gun to kiss his forehead. “You have no fucking clue what I know, apparently. Because I know for a fact that you have at least one useful piece of information for me in that block head of yours.”

He’s shaking from head to toe. “I swear I don’t know anything! I don’t know where your son is.”

There it is.

I feel Raoul stiffen behind me so I know he heard it, too. A confession. As good as, anyway.

I cock the gun, ignoring the man’s sob of terror. “Explain to me how a random mudak like you, sitting in the back of a dingy club with low-rent dancers, knows my son is missing before almost anyone in the world?”

His eyes widen as he realizes what he did. What he said.

“You’ve already betrayed your boss’s trust,” I explain, tracing the round line of his face down to his fleshy jaw with my gun. I wedge the barrel there against his neck. “So you might as well save your own worthless life in the meantime.”

He licks his lips and blows out a shaky breath. “What do you want to know?”

57

VIVIANA

The second Mikhail touches the door to leave, my insides twist. It’s a searing pain that drops me to my knees.

“Viviana?” Anatoly is there, grabbing my arm and trying to pick me up. But the pain is so intense I can’t get my feet under me. All I can do is fold myself forward and press my head between my knees.

Dante is missing.

My son is gone.

I know it’s true, but I can’t make sense of it. I can’t wrap my head around a world where the little boy I’ve devoted every minute of my life to for over six years isn’t healthy and whole and well and here.

“It’s going to be okay, Viv.” Anatoly pats my back. It’s the same way I used to soothe Dante when he was sick. Long, slow circles between his tiny shoulder blades. “Mikhail is going to take care of everything.”

But I’m the one who takes care of Dante. It’s always been me.

When he was a baby, I handled every middle-of-the-night nursing session because there was no one else. He had me and I had him and that was enough. I worked to buy the mountain of diapers he needed. I bought him clothes and, when he outgrew them in two months, I bought him more. I held heating pads to ear infections and I sang away the nightmares.

Anything Dante has ever needed, I’ve been there.

Now, when he needs his mama more than he’s ever needed me, I’m not there.

“He’s gone.” My voice is broken. It comes out in a strangled whisper. “He’s gone.”

“You have to get up, Viv.” Anatoly scoops me up and places me on the barstool. “Mikhail is taking care of it. Everything is going to be?—”

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