Page 147 of Ivory Oath

The anger is back in a second. It was buried under relief for a few hours, but it has clawed its way back. My hands shake on the straps of the bag. “Sounds like you already know.”

“No, I don’t.” He steps into the room. “Because there’s no way you would be stupid enough to be packing a bag after the night we just had.”

“You’re right. Let’s just pretend I’m getting ready for bed,” I snap. “I can’t wait to wake up alone tomorrow and wonder who is coming after my family next. Why don’t you disappear to take care of something again so I can get back to it?”

His eyes narrow. “I saved Dante.”

“After you put him at risk in the first place!”

It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. The first time I’ve admitted to myself how much I blame Mikhail for what happened today.

Pain ricochets across his face before it hardens into the mask I know so well. It has slipped a few times—when he took us to Costa Rica, to the cabin—but it took me a while to realize that I wasn’t slowly softening him. I wasn’t going to swoop in and change the big, bad pakhan.

He wasn’t opening up to me gradually until, one day, there would be no secrets. The sweet, tender, vulnerable moments we had were exceptions to the rule. Once we got home, it was always right back to the status quo.

I.

Can’t.

Fix.

Him.

“Do you want me to tell you I fucked up?” His shoulders rise and fall in an angry shrug. “Because I know I fucked up. It’s why Dante is back here with you instead of back at that school.”

“He’s here because Raoul drove him home.”

“I gave the order.”

“There! That.” I snap my fingers and point. “That is the problem, Mikhail. Our son was kidnapped and you gave the order for him to be driven home by someone else. He was kidnapped and?—”

“I know he was kidnapped!” he roars. “I realized that when bullets were whizzing past my head as I rescued him.”

I almost lost them both.

Tears burn in the backs of my eyes, but I hold my chin high. “He was kidnapped and you still couldn’t come home to us.”

“Because Christos is coming after you.” He flings his arm towards the door like our enemies are waiting their turn in the hall. “I had to make sure they couldn’t get to you. I’m going to keep you all safe.”

I sigh. “That’s great, Mikhail. But it doesn’t mean anything if you are never here.”

“How can you say it doesn’t mean anything?”

“Because Dante may be safe in this mansion, but he’s going to grow up terrified of the outside world. He’s going to feel like his father cares more about the Bratva than him. I can’t let him live like that.” I lay a hand over my stomach. “I can’t let either of our kids live like that.”

Mikhail’s blue eyes are wild. He looks like a caged animal, scanning the bars of this conversation, looking for the way out. “If you have it your way, our kids won’t live at all. You all would be killed out there.”

“Only because you won’t make a choice.”

“What choice?” He moves closer. He looks down the end of his nose at me and it’s crazy how much I want to fall against his chest. It would be so easy to push this fight aside, to push it to the backburner once again and let him hold me.

But I can’t do that.

Not anymore.

“The choice you need to make between me and the Bratva. Between the family we’re building and the one you were born into.” I meet his eyes and I hope he can see how serious I am. This isn’t my pregnancy hormones or stress. This isn’t some heat-of-the-moment ultimatum.

This is real.

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