Page 100 of Ivory Oath

“You don’t see because you’ve never seen it,” he growls. He paces away from me before he spins back, eyes pleading with me to listen. “You’ve never walked into your own house to find your family butchered.”

The oxygen in the room is sucked out in an instant. Suddenly, I want one hundred more layers to hide in. I want to look like Joey in that one episode of Friends. “Could I have any more clothes on?!” Because the next-to-nothing I’m wearing is a slap in the face to the trauma Mikhail has been through.

Trauma I should have thought about before I spent all day sexting him when he was trying to protect me.

“I’ve lost my family before, Viviana. I know what my enemies are capable of. They don’t want to kill me; they want to destroy me.” His voice breaks at the same time my heart does. “Killing you would be a surefire way to make that happen.”

I lunge across the room just like I did eight hours ago. But this time, I throw my arms around Mikhail’s neck. “I’m sorry.”

His hand slips under my shirt and spreads across the bare skin of my back. It’s warm and firm and comfortable. “I need to know that you understand what’s at stake.”

I nod against his chest and take deep breaths of the woodsy citrus scent of him. “I understand.”

“I’m not going to lose you,” he mutters into my hair. His voice is so soft I’m not even sure he’s talking to me.

But I hear him loud and clear.

I hold him tighter.

Mikhail and Dante and the family we’re building are enough for me. They’re more than enough.

They’re all I need.

42

VIVIANA

“You should invite someone over.”

I roll over in bed, my head pillowed on my arm while I watch Mikhail do the entire world a disservice by buttoning a shirt to hide his bare chest. I’m distracted by the valleys and ridges of him and only manage a weak, “Huh?”

“You can’t leave, but that doesn’t mean someone can’t come here to see you.” He shrugs. “A friend or… whoever.”

“Anatoly is my only friend.”

Mikhail looks mildly horrified. “That can’t be true.”

If I wasn’t so tired, I probably would have kept that confession to myself. But it’s early and I’m not thinking clearly. “It’s hard to make friends when you’re on the run for six years. And it’s not like there are a lot of options around here. Anatoly makes friends everywhere he goes, but Raoul keeps things strictly professional.”

He bobs his head back and forth, reluctantly agreeing. “Fair enough.”

“Mrs. Steinman is a hit with the under-seven crowd, but she thinks lingering before and after Dante’s tutoring sessions makes for a ‘confusing power structure’ for Dante. As soon as his session is over, she bolts.”

I can’t even blame her for that. She’s being paid to teach Dante, not socialize with his grown adult mother. And I’m not desperate enough to pay her to be my friend…

Yet.

“There was Stella, but…” My voice trails off. Mikhail doesn’t react, but I know he hasn’t forgiven himself for not suspecting Pyotr was a spy. Anatoly still flinches any time there’s even a passing reference to Stella. It’s a tender subject and it’s easiest not to talk about her.

Mikhail glances up at me while fixing his shirt cuffs. “I would stay, but there’s still a lot of organizing to do at the new offices.”

“And you called in sick yesterday.”

“I didn’t call in sick. I don’t need to call in sick at my own company. I told them I was busy.”

It wasn’t a lie. Mikhail was busy…. ordering in lunch from my favorite cafe, playing with Dante in the pool, and thoroughly distracting me from whichever movie it was I convinced him to watch with me. We didn’t even make it through the opening credits, so I’m really not sure.

It was a nice day and a very nice night, but it felt loaded. As the day went on, I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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