Page 115 of Ivory Oath

The FBI took him.

And I don’t know when he’s coming back.

Slowly, my fight drains away. I don’t realize I’m crying until Anatoly drops my wrists and pulls me in for a hug.

“Don’t cry, Viv. He’ll be back.”

“When?” I sob into his shoulder. “And what’ll happen when he does?”

Anatoly doesn’t answer either question.

The mansion becomes Free Mikhail HQ within the hour.

Anatoly calls Raoul and he races here. He got the heads up that Mikhail was being arrested thirty seconds before the FBI knocked on the door. There wouldn’t have been enough time to warn Mikhail even if he tried.

They pace around the kitchen, circling each other and tossing out ideas, and the two of them have never looked more like brothers. They are opposites in every conceivable way except for the most important one: they love Mikhail.

“This is about Cerberus,” Raoul says when he hangs up with one of a dozen phone calls he has made to contacts all around the city. “He’s being brought in for financial fraud. They think he started the fire to get the insurance and hide evidence.”

“He wasn’t even there!” I argue. My skin flushes when I remember where Mikhail was instead.

He was on the private balcony with me. It was the night he told me he loved me. The night he bought me a star and apologized. The night we had makeup sex so good that I had no choice but to bare my soul and tell him I was pregnant.

Fuck… maybe I should stop telling him I’m pregnant. Bad things happen when I make pregnancy announcements.

“Mikhail wasn’t at Cerberus Industries, but you were,” Anatoly jabs a finger at Raoul. “If anyone in our family is responsible, it would be you.”

Raoul narrows his eyes. “Unless you want me to go turn myself in, that isn’t helpful.”

Anatoly holds up both hands. “I’m just saying. These feds don’t even have their facts straight.”

“They also don’t have any evidence. If they did, there would be formal charges.”

I sit up. “Does that mean he’s coming home?”

Anatoly grimaces. “They can hold him for three days without charges.”

Three days. It doesn’t sound like a long time. Then again, the last hour has felt like a century.

I bolt out of my chair and run across the kitchen. I barely make it to the trash can before every measly thing I managed to eat in the last hour comes back up.

Anatoly is there, rubbing my back, when I stand up. “It’s going to be okay, Viv.”

I spit and rinse my mouth out with water from the sink. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. The stress can’t be good for the baby.” Raoul is watching me carefully.

I want to ask him how he knows about the baby, but there’s no point. Raoul knows everything. And as soon as he found out, he told Mikhail.

I’m not even mad at him. He did what I should have done.

Anatoly leads me back to a chair and pushes a plate of crackers towards me. “You need to eat something, Viv. Mikhail will kill me if he gets home and you’re a wreck.”

Deep down, I know Mikhail didn’t really think Anatoly was the father. From the moment Anatoly and I met, he has been a friend. More than that, he’s loyal to Mikhail. The only reason Mikhail accused me of sleeping with Anatoly is because he was surprised and angry. I don’t even blame him.

“You were right, Nat. I should have told Mikhail about the baby as soon as I found out. I should have told him when we got to his office. I should have?—”

“None of that would have changed this,” Raoul interrupts. “The feds were going to arrest him either way.”

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