The Life (11 page)

“Viviana?”
Anton asked, cocking a brow down at his pup. That worked. All attention was back on his master, a lazy tail sweeping the floor with gentle thumps. “Go get your pillow.”

When the pup disappeared in search for his portable bed, Ivan laughed. “I’m surprised he’s responding to you in English, now.”

“Viviana refuses to talk to him in Italian and she won’t learn Russian. Rocco’s a quick study when he wants something—and he really wants her to talk to him whenever she’s near.”

“Amazing animal.
Odd, though,” Erik said, his fingers drumming to the table.

Anton grinned in the direction Rocco had gone. “He keeps me amused.”

That was about as much as anyone got when it came to his pup and his feelings. There were some things Anton wanted to keep locked up as tight as he could get them. Someday—maybe sooner than he’d like—the pup would have to be put down. Especially if a surgery didn’t go well, or his bladder let go because of stress. The variables were still up in the air when it came to Rocco.

Out of the corners of his eyes, Anton watched his two spies chat quietly. The private joke they shared had both Erik and Ivan laughing, their amusement echoing above the music pumping through the club. It bothered Anton that while he sat there, watching them, he had to consider things—consider
them
. If what Conrad had told him at their meeting had any merit about changes in leadership, maybe it was his closest guys who were causing the Russian boss problems. Whenever changes happened, that was almost always the case. Maybe it was them creating the personal attacks on Viviana because they knew how much that would bother Anton—they knew how much he loved her, unlike so many others.

He hated even thinking about it. It literally made him sick to his stomach.

Frustrated at his own thoughts, Anton settled in his seat as Rocco made his way back. The pup dropped the pillow beside Anton’s feet and popped onto the cushion with big brown eyes looking up at his master pleadingly.

“Just a little while longer, buddy,” Anton promised the pup.

“Vine isn’t going to like you hanging out here for too long,” Ivan said, bringing Anton’s attention back to his two spies.

Erik snorted under his breath.
“The way you spoil that wife of yours, man.”

Anton swallowed his irritation. There was no doubt Viviana would have a right fit about him being at the strip joint, even if it was for business, but he wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. He’d had a difficult enough
week as it was.

“I’m not here for pleasure. Besides, if I fucked around on her, it’s the only time you’d have permission to knock my teeth down my throat.”

Ivan smirked. “Good to know.”

“Me, too?”
Erik asked, winking.

Anton cocked a brow challengingly. “You’d have to lose those twenty pounds before I even considered you worthy to raise your fist.”

Erik shook his head. “Christ, listen to you. I wish Daniil was here; bet he’d smack that attitude right out of you, prince.”

“And he’d somehow make you feel like he was doing it for your mother, too,” Boris said, clearly having heard the end of the conversation as he made his way over to the table. The brigadier pulled up a seat and sat down, picking up his glass without having missed a beat. “
Daniil was fucking golden for pulling that nonsense on you when you were younger. Guilt tripped you like nothing else about how disappointed your Ma would be. Worked every time.”

They snickered at their boss’s expense. Anton let the men have their moment. It was one of their ways of grieving for his father.
Remembering the good times just as much as the bad were all a part of the Bratva way. There would be a lot more of that to be spread before it was over and Daniil was gone.

“Yeah, ha fucking ha,” Anton said. “Deny you all loved your mothers like nothing else, too.”

None of the men would.

Eventually, Ivan glanced down at his watch.
“Opening in ten, boys.”

“Best get it done before the clients get in, then,” Erik agreed.

Anton went about explaining his theory regarding the unknown photographer from last month, and the suspicions that followed. At the mention of Tatiana, all the men wore equal expressions doused with a heavy layer of disgust. He also tacked on the slashed tires incident for Erik and Boris, seeing as how they didn’t know about that or the sit down with the Cosa Nostra boss that followed.

There were a few things Anton kept quiet about. Things like how word had been passed that maybe there would be new leadership.
Because he didn’t know where those words had come from, except that they’d made their way to the Italians. Anton didn’t know who to trust, and he hated that it might have come from one of his closest guys.

When Anton was finished, Erik scowled. “I hate that my informants on the federal side have suddenly clammed up like they have. Something’s going on there, I’m sure of it.”

“Nobody’s contacted me,” Ivan added, giving Anton a pointed look.

There hadn’t been a single backlash from the Sonny episode. Not one. It was odd considering Viviana was Anton’s wife, and there had been some obvious tension between the
Avdonin Bratva and Carducci Cosa Nostra families before Sonny’s murder. At the very least, he should have been questioned by an agent with his lawyer present.

“I don’t think it is Tatiana
Belov, Boss,” Boris said as he tipped up his straight vodka and downed the rest of the glass. “The tracer checked up on her records, watched her cards for a while. Burner phones, like us, so there’s nothing coming from that end. Maybe Tati is just trying to make a point with you for something different, like a crazy woman does, but it doesn’t look like she’s related to the photographer. That was about all she got, so she went a little deeper elsewhere, you know … with Sergei.”

“And?”
Anton asked.

Boris set his glass to the table.
“Seems like he had to get his daughter out of a pinch a couple of months ago. Drank herself stupid and caused a ruckus in some club over in Jersey. Surprise, surprise,” he muttered dully. “If that were my daughter, I’d want her out of town getting her shit straight.”

“That’s likely what he did,” Ivan said.

Erik rolled his eyes. “If she were my daughter, I’d beat her ass black and blue and then ship her off to rehab.”

“She’s twenty-seven,” Anton said. “If he hasn’t gotten her under control yet, it isn’t going to happen.”

Despite his outwardly calm appearance, Anton was infuriated. This wasn’t how he wanted the conversation to go. If Tatiana was seemingly staying away from Anton’s business on the mafia side of things, and his wife on a personal level, then it left him more confused than ever and still wondering who in the hell was behind the tires and pictures. That led Anton straight to a worried place that he didn’t want to be.

Now, he didn’t even want to be here. His wife was at home—with two bulls outside, sure—without him. Anxiety was eating away at his insides.

“I have got to get home. Thanks, Boris.”

“Wait, Boss,” the brigadier said, looking a little bothered. “I may have made a few calls myself, also.” Anton’s attention wasn’t on the conversation any more, but he waited for the man to continue, anyway. “That trouble she was in …”

“What about it?” Anton asked.

“Russian, apparently.
A boy, specifically. Nobody wanted to name names, or they simply didn’t know who it was. Sergei might have found out I was asking around, too. Sorry about that.”

Anton beat back his irritation. Was that the friend Tatiana mentioned during their first encounter? “Ivan, call that bastard and set up one more fucking sit down.
If he doesn’t show … No forgiveness this time. We take him out.”

Chapter Eight

Anton’s fist slammed into the dead weight.

Fucking hell, it felt good to hit something.

Stepping back to adjust his stance, his knuckles slammed out and cracked into the red bag again. He’d been working out his aggression and frustrations for a little over an hour. Sweat had dampened his hair and slicked his skin. The T-shirt he previously wore had long been tossed off, the fabric only serving to make him feel restricted.

With a grunt, he stepped back and struck out again, feeling a faint sting radiate through his muscles with a burn that said his body was finally starting to tire. After his meeting earlier in the day with his guys, Anton really needed a moment to decompress and relax.

Hitting things made him relax.

So did shooting shit, but beating the hell out of the punching bag in his basement and running himself dead on the treadmill seemed like a less illegal option. At least he wouldn’t get locked up for a night in jail for shooting off a gun.

It was a win all the way around.

So, he hit the fucking bag with untapped, unprotected knuckles. Anton let the pain register instead of allowing the feelings to roll off his body like it usually would. Letting the natural adrenaline pump through his blood, he was revving and ready to go, but he was finally starting to calm, too. His teeth clenched, and his gaze narrowed in on the swinging bag as he fought back against the stress running his life.

Fuck, Anton wished he knew what in the hell was going on around him. He hated not knowing things. Between the photographer, the slashed tires, and his wife’s diabetes … add in a sick father, the changes in his life, and everything else surrounding those issues, it was just …

Too damned much.

Anton didn’t know who to trust. The meeting with the
Cosa Nostra boss had only served to make him think about the people around
him
. It took his mind off the people he thought had been involved, and make him look at his own. People he was close to, who would have never been a thought in his mind before. Was it possible that one of his guys were planning to make a move on him?

Something tasting a fuck lot like betrayal stung on his tongue.

Viviana’s quiet sigh barely broke through his concentration. “Rocco has been whining at the top of the stairs for the last hour. He wants to be down here with you.”

Another punch landed to the hard, red fabric. “He needs to get down the stairs by himself. That physical therapy I pay for twice a week isn’t for nothing, Vine. The pup knows he can do
it, he just doesn’t like the pain that comes with it. You know he needs to learn to work through it.”

“Or you could just go up
there, pick him up, and carry him down the fucking stairs like you usually would,” she argued.

Anton scowled, turning his head just enough to see his wife in the corners of his eyes. Her long, black hair had been pulled up in a high ponytail, the scar above her eyebrow more pronounced as she cocked a brow back at her husband. Wearing tiny shorts and one of his old high school baseball hoodies, she seemed smaller than normal.

“I had him with me all day, baby.”

“I know that,” Viviana said, rather shortly.

“No, clearly you don’t. I had him with me all day.” Frustration ran rampant as Anton stopped his workout with the punching bag. “I didn’t carry him once and he did just fine. Rocco can walk down those goddamned stairs without my help. Stop babying him—he needs this, Viviana. You’re not helping him, not like you think. That dog needs us to challenge him more or he’ll do nothing but lay around and wait for everyone else to do everything for him. We can’t keep relying on his meds to handle the pain. He’ll become
dependent
.”

Viviana gasped sharply. Where had all that come from, anyway? Hell, he never raised his voice to his wife, never mind reprimanding her like she was a child. The water blinking back in her gaze told him he’d crossed a line … or two. Damn, he might as well have just jumped over the whole invisible fence.

Confused and hurting, Anton rubbed his hands over his face, wiping away the sweat that had gathered above his brow. “Ivan and Erik said thank you for the pie, by the way.”

Viviana said nothing in response, instead staring back at him blankly.

“Did you do okay with your insulin to—”

“Hit the bag, Anton.”

“What?” he asked turning on her.

Viviana waved at the punching bag. “Hit it. Isn’t that what you want?”

Yes and no
, he thought. The adrenaline was beginning to ebb away. “I don’t know.”

While his body was working on overtime, his mind was starting to shut the fuck down. Anton could feel that familiar coldness seeping into his veins, the desire to shut off his emotions banging through like a drug. It was what the boss did whenever he couldn’t, or didn’t want to, deal. This was one of those times.

But, this was his wife, his life, and his home.

It wasn’t the same.

“Come here,” he demanded, jerking his head at his wife.

Viviana didn’t move. “No.”

“What?”

“I’m not a puppy, or one of your men. You can’t order me around like one, either. Hit your bag, Anton. I’m going to bed.”

It wasn’t a second later that his wife had disappeared, her soft footfalls echoing up the staircase to the first floor. Anton was left stunned and more befuddled than ever. Shit, why did being married have to be so difficult at times?

Anton made his way across the room before taking the stairs two at a time. Following the path Viviana would have taken to their bedroom, he had plenty of time to gather his thoughts about what had just occurred between them and where he went wrong. It probably started with the fact that he knew she had been standing in their basement watching him for over an hour and she didn’t say a thing. He also hadn’t spoken to her during that time. That, for the most part, had been their week in a nutshell.

Anton was still pissed about her hiding the need to start insulin, resulting in his self-imposed silent treatment to his wife. Sure, they spoke here and there, sharing the occasional good morning or kiss goodnight, but it hadn’t gone further than that. In fact, he hadn’t been truly close to his wife all week. Damn, he hadn’t loved her physically once all week, either. That was the longest time since Anton had gotten Viviana back that they hadn’t had some kind of physical intimacy.

Leaning in their bedroom doorway, he took note of the fact that a basket of baby clothes was sitting at the edge of their bed. Cleaned, folded, and waiting to be put away, it looked like Viviana had made
herself busy during his time away from the house, anyway.

“Listen, I’m sorry,” Anton said, flinching when the quiet whine of Rocco downstairs said the dog wanted to be brought up with his masters.

“Goodnight, Anton.”

“Viviana—”

“I said goodnight.”

The clipped bite in her words stung his skin like they were exposed nerve endings.

Swallowing his instant mean reply, he brushed off the anger at her rejection. “Why didn’t you tell me about the gestational diabetes the moment you found out? Why, huh? All you had to do was call me, baby. That was it. Just pick up your fucking phone and
dial
.”

“Is that what all of this is about?” Turning on her heel, Viviana pressed her fists into her hips and glared at him. “Are you still angry with me over that?”

“I’m not angry—” Anton stopped abruptly, because yeah, he was mad. If he considered it, even during their previous argument, he hadn’t once told Viviana he was angry with her for hiding it. He’d said a lot of things, but not that. “Yes. God, yes, I’m so angry with you over that. It’s not a real great thing, Vine. It worries the hell out of me. Do you realize the shit I’ve got going on right now? I blink all of that away when you come into the picture, but when you pull crap like this, I just … it only adds to it.”

“No!” Viviana barked.

Anton felt his spine crack as he stood ramrod straight. “Excuse me?”

“
No
. I haven’t a clue what you’ve got going on. You haven’t told me anything. You don’t tell me, so how can I?”

Speechless would be an understatement. Anton tried to speak but the words just wouldn’t form. Instead, they lodged in his clenching throat like the proverbial knife twisting in his heart. It certainly didn’t help that Anton suddenly felt like a giant hypocrite. He was frustrated with her for not telling him something important, but wasn’t he doing the exact same thing?

“Say something,” Viviana whispered. “My God, Anton, just talk to me. If you want to yell because I made a shitty choice, do it. Just please stop ignoring me. It
hurts
.”

Anton released the air he didn’t realize he was holding in. “
Daniil is dying.”

Viviana blinked and wet her lips. “That’s not news, babe.”

Her words weren’t meant to hurt, he knew, but they did nonetheless. “No, Vine. Dad—my
Papa
—is dying. Not my brigadier, or the Bratva’s man,
my
Papa. I’m going out of my mind over it. I don’t know how to comfort my mother. I want him to know my son and he
won’t
. I can’t seem to even cry. It aches.

“There’s people photographing you in our backyard and I don’t know who the fuck it is,” Anton continued, fisting his hands at his sides. The pain of his fingernails cutting into his flesh barely even registered. “I thought it was the feds, but it probably isn’t. There’s other crap happening, too, but I don’t want to worry you right now when you’re pregnant. Then, I thought
Tati was pulling a stunt, but that’s coming to a dead end, too.”

“That’s why my bulls have been sticking closer, huh?” she asked, frowning.

“Partially,” Anton said. It was a bit of a relief to get some of it off his chest. “I didn’t want to worry you, but it’s starting to worry me. I want you out of state next week. I’m hoping to have a sit down coming up with Sergei, and I don’t want you within a hundred miles of it.”

Viviana didn’t look pleased but she nodded. “Okay.” Then, she looked up at him, her brown eyes filled with tears and beginning to spill over.
“Anything else?”

“Yeah, I’m freaking out.”

Her laughter was a sweet balm to his hardened soul. “About what?”

“This,” he said with a wave between them. “I can handle you, being a husband, whatever, but this baby …”

“You’re going to be a great dad.” Viviana smiled to tell him she was being truthful. “I’m sorry Daniil isn’t going to see the payoff of his hard work with his own son, but you know everything is going to be fine, Anton. He raised an intelligent, charming, reliable man. You work loyalty, pride, and love like it’s a second job. He taught you that and Christ, there’s nothing wrong with feeling exposed sometimes. All you have to do is talk to me.”

“I don’t like being angry with you. I don’t get angry with you, Viviana, and now I know why. This week just sucked in a whole bunch of ways.”

She traced the silver comforter on their bed with a single finger, sighing softly. “For me, too.”

*

Letting his words and confessions sink in, Viviana felt an invisible weight fall from her shoulders. All week she’d been tied up in knots because she couldn’t get him past a simple hello, not without that fire in his gaze and heat in his tone. Now, she understood why.

“Where’d you meet up with Ivan and Erik?” she asked, wanting to cool their conversation from the difficult topics a bit.

Anton cleared his throat, shifting on his feet and looking guiltier than she expected. “Velvet Ropes.”

Jealousy raged through her emotions like a wrecking ball, but Viviana forced herself to stay calm. In all truth, her husband never gave her a reason to believe he strayed from their marriage. Anton loved her—she knew it. That didn’t mean she liked him in a place where women took off their clothes for a living.

“Your strip club in Brighton Beach?”

“Yeah, shit, I know you don’t—”

“Did you go there because you were pissed off at me, or what?” Viviana asked, letting the coolness seep into her tenor. She couldn’t hide the hurting shake in her words, either. “God, that’s fucking ridiculous, Anton.”

“No,” he stated, shaking his head. “I had to meet up with Boris about whatever he found out regarding Jersey. The club was closed, so no one was going to be stepping in on the discussion that didn’t need to overhead, okay?”

“But the girls were there?”

Anton’s confusion furrowed his brow. “It was close to opening time, so yeah, of course.”

“Of course,” she mocked. “What, a random restaurant wouldn’t have worked just as well?”

“I needed to speak with Boris. He was
working
.”

Viviana didn’t even want to hear it. “And I bet you got a nice show all the while huh?”

Anton choked on nothing, his eyes flying wide at her veiled accusation. “What? No, it’s not like that at all.”

When Anton moved forward, Viviana
stumbled a full step back. A pained grimace took hold of his features when she said, “I don’t even want to know, Anton. Don’t bother lying, I’d rather you didn’t say anything at all.”