Page 6 of Ivory Oath

Before I can even finish, Dante launches himself at the bag.

He’s small, but he flies. He’s a blur of movement as he circles the bag, punching and kicking and wailing. It’s a heavy bag made for taking what I can throw at it, but Dante actually gets the thing swinging a bit.

“Slow down. You aren’t being timed,” I tell him.

But he can’t hear me. His breath is coming in uneven huffs and he’s gasping as he slams his fists into the punching bag again and again. His chest starts to heave and when he circles around the bag the last time, I see why.

“Dante, that’s enough.” I grab him by the shoulders and pull him back, but he lunges for the bag again. He’s really crying now, big, heavy sobs tearing out of him. “Dante, stop.”

“Don’t touch me!” He flings the words at me like a punch. “You’re a liar!”

I frown. “I never lied to you.”

“You promised you’d take care of Mama! You told me you would, but she’s gone!” He scrapes the tape off of his hands and tosses the scraps to the floor. “She’s gone and today is—” His little mouth pinches together until his lips are white.

“What’s today?” I ask him.

He swipes clumsily at his damp cheeks. “I’m six now. It’s my birthday.”

Oh, fucking hell.

“I had no idea, bud.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know they’re the wrong thing to say. Everything I do with Dante is wrong. Vivian would know what to do.

“We can still get a cake,” I say. “Maybe Stel—someone can go to the store.”

Dante flinches. He caught my mistake, too. His mom is gone. Stella is gone. The list of people who were there one day and gone the next is growing longer all the time.

“I don’t want cake!” he screams. “I want my mom!”

I reach for him, but he twists away and sprints for the door. As soon as the door swings open, Anatoly is there waiting.

Our eyes meet through the open door. There are questions written on my brother’s face that I don’t have the words to answer.

I’m not sure I ever will.

3

MIKHAIL

I’m still drenched in sweat when I drop down behind my desk and pour myself a drink. It doesn’t stop there.

When Anatoly takes Dante upstairs and puts him to bed, I drink.

When Raoul peeks through the door to check on me, I ignore him and drink.

As the rest of the house goes dark one room at a time and silence fills every corner, I drink and drink and drink.

It’s hours of sitting in the dark, looking for answers I’m never going to find at the bottom of a bottle that ends way too fucking soon.

When it does, I shatter it against the wall, grab my keys, and stumble my way to the garage.

Last week, I would have done the responsible thing and asked Pyotr to drive. Except now, I know that having Pyotr in the house at all wasn’t responsible.

Pyotr was a spy and now, he’s dead. Viviana is a murderer and now, she’s gone. And I don’t have the control I thought I did over any of it.

It started raining at some point in the last few hours. The road is soaked and the tires barely manage to cling onto the asphalt as I tear down the driveway and squeal onto the main road. Thankfully, it’s late and no one else is out.

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