by Bethany-Kris
Anton was grateful for that.
Well, grateful that was if his wife didn’t have gestational diabetes.
Viviana hadn’t been out of his office for twenty minutes last week before her doctor’s office had put in a call to his cell phone wanting confirmation that she filled her prescriptions. Apparently Viviana wasn’t answering their calls, so they assumed her husband would have the answer. If their fight about Vanessa when she showed up at his office had been bad, the one that ensued when he got home was something far worse.
Pissed off would be an understatement.
Anton didn’t get pissed off at Viviana. It had been just as much unexpected as it had been hard. It was the first time in their marriage that he felt like she was purposely hiding something from him—something important. She should have told him immediately. That was her body and his son and he goddamn well deserved to know the moment she did.
Anton loved his wife no matter what, even when she was being particularly difficult.
But sometimes she made it hard.
Anton had cut his meeting with Kalvin short, giving the brigadier his forgiveness without an explanation, and then made his way home before the day was officially done for work. He didn’t even care; he had more important things to handle at home. Like his wife and unborn son and her ridiculous need to pretend as if he wouldn’t find out that shit.
Bottom line, Viviana couldn’t eat what she cooked anymore.
So, when he arrived home earlier today after his sit down with Conrad, those familiar, lovely aromas were rolling through their house. He got a tad bit worried. Anton didn’t have to worry for long. Viviana snapped a Tupperware container at him and told him to get the fuck out of her house with it. Apparently those hormones of hers were making an appearance again.
The pie and all its sugary poison that Viviana couldn’t enjoy anymore had remained untouched in its container.
“Gonvo,” Erik muttered, the Russian curse coming off a whole hell of a lot like approval. “My God, Larisa is going to skin you alive if you keep feeding me this sugary crap, Anton. She’s convinced I’m going to be the next one with diabetes.”
“Well, no offence, but you’re looking a little pudgy,” Ivan said, side-eyeing his friend with a leer.
“Fuck you, you govnuik. I have the body of a God.”
Anton snorted as Ivan retorted with, “A well-worn one, maybe. Don’t call me a shit—”
“Stop it or no more pie.” Anton hid his smirk with a turn of his head. “Just like fucking children, I swear to God. The both of you could use a good gym membership and twenty less pounds. Clogging up your hearts like you do, honestly. Now, shut up.”
“The both of us.” Erik jeered, tipping his chin at his boss. “Listen to you, prince.”
“King,” Ivan corrected. “The little prince grew up and knocked up a half-blood, didn’t you hear?”
The oldest gentleman’s hands flew up in the air, his head nodding. “My apologies—King.”
Anton laughed deeply, rolling his eyes in amusement. These were probably the only two men on earth still alive that could tease him with all that junk and get away with it unscathed. Really, he fucking needed the lighthearted conversation and distraction anyway. There surely wouldn’t be a thing easy about the conversation he was going to have with his guys once Boris finished up his business with the girls on stage.
In all truth, Anton loved sitting there listening to the friendly banter between his two spies. Rarely did they all get to sit down and enjoy one another’s company privately without business or other people mucking it up with whatever nonsense. There would be business at this meeting to be sure, but it was private business he wanted to handle with them and them alone.
Viviana’s surprise pastry had simply given him a reason to have Erik and Ivan meet him—one they wouldn’t deny.
“Speaking of which, quit it with the prince comments around Viviana,” Anton said, his tone turning a little somber. “It’s making her edgy. Her being edgy makes me fucking twitchy. It’s like wading through a kiddie pool and trying not to get pissed on.”
“That’s pregnancy. The piss is unavoidable.”
“Truth.” Ivan’s agreement followed the jerk of his thumb at Erik who smirked.
Anton flipped them both off. “Just knock it off when she can hear, would you?”
“She does know, doesn’t she?” Ivan leaned back in his seat, eyes sweeping the strip club’s floor with boredom.
In another twenty minutes, it’d be opened for business, but as of then, it was just beginning to thrum with life. Anton owned the club, but his brigadier took all the responsibility of running the place.
“Because otherwise …” Ivan continued, turning to face his boss, “she’s going to be one pissed off woman when she’s got hordes of Bratva making rounds to her house after the baby is born to say hello.”
“She gets it,” Anton said, frowning. “That doesn’t mean she has to like it, though. Can we drop it?”
Both men nodded their agreement, settling into silence as the Tupperware container and forks were shoved off to the side. Anton looked down at the pup sniffing around his heels.
A good portion of Rocco’s coat had grown back, although he still had large patches that would never produce thick hair again, but instead thin, straggly peach fuzz. The tip of his left ear was gone no longer stood up straight and proud like it used to, only hanging limp. The pup couldn’t scent like he once had, never mind seeing and hearing with the sharpness canines were known for.
Poor old Rocco, Anton mused sadly.
It didn’t even matter about his issues, or the upcoming surgery to remove a bit of shrapnel still lodged in his aching hip, because Anton loved the fucking animal. Loved him to goddamn death and back. He always would. Rocco had given the boss more than anyone else ever had—next to Viviana, of course.
“Bored?” he asked the animal quietly.
A quiet chuff answered back. With what seemed like great effort, the pup rested back to its haunches and blinked at the flashing lights near the stage. The lupine cant of his head amused Anton as the pup watched the girl sway on stage with the music pumping at the floors. Even with the activity to distract him, Rocco wasn’t settled.
“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 plannin
g 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.”