by Bethany-Kris
Viviana chanced a look away from Anton, seeking out Ivan who smiled. “And you,” she added quietly.
“Yes.” Anton nodded at Ivan who was pulling out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of the jacket lying across her legs. “He is my Sovietnik.” At her befuddled expression, he clarified with, “My Councilor, Viviana.”
It was clear she still didn’t understand. “I’m a lawyer. His, to be specific,” Ivan said before lighting up a cigarette.
“Like a Consigliere.”
Anton felt his anger flare slightly. “Similar, but we are not Cosa Nostra.”
“I’m aware,” she mumbled dryly.
“There are rules that need to be followed in this house for your safety. My office is off limits unless Ivan, or Erik …” he waved at the much older gentleman behind him sitting on a leather couch, “… or I accompany you inside. Whatever doors are locked are meant to remain that way. The attic and basement are barricaded with alarms and passcodes. They are not for you to enter, ever. If doors are closed, you knock and wait to be permitted inside.”
“The doors weren’t closed completely,” she muttered, refusing to meet his stare.
Anton sighed. “Don’t play word games or bother with the semantics. These rules are not vastly different from the ones you had growing up.”
“I’m not a child, Anton.”
“Then you know to knock before entering an office where my associates and I are residing.”
“You were going to shoot him!” Viviana shouted.
His jaw gritted. “Another rule—you’re not to step in when I am handing an issue.”
“I want to leave.”
“Then go back to my bedroom, and I will have the maid bring you whatever you need,” Anton dismissed her and turned back to Viktor.
“No,” she snapped. “Here. I want to leave here.”
His unaffected, hard stare turned back on her. Those words hurt, but Anton wouldn’t let her see how damned much. “Viktor,” he said, nudging the man on the floor with his foot once more. “Up with you. I believe you have something to say to Viviana.”
“I want—”
“Be quiet!” he snarled.
Shrinking back into the chair, she swallowed, her shaking hands clasped in her lap. “He doesn’t need to apologize.”
Anton was disgusted. “He absolutely does. Up, Viktor.”
Viktor rose from the floor, brushed down his pant legs, and then regarded Viviana with a blank expression. “My apologies, Miss Carducci, for treating you less than you deserved. You are not my property to do with as I wish, and my disrespect goes beyond just you. Anton has every right to be angry with me for disobeying his orders; please accept my apology.”
Was that a ghost of a smile that played on her pretty, full lips?
“You also called me a bitch.”
Anton growled from behind Viktor, who cringed at the sound. The brigadier was worried. The boss was even less happy now. “I’d forgotten about that. I’m sorry.”
Flattening her hands against the jacket and steeling her gaze beyond Viktor to stare at Anton, she finally nodded her assent. He was a little bit proud, then, given others wouldn’t have been so elegant about it.
“I’m sure you will be. Apology accepted.”
Anton clicked the safety on his weapon and placed it into the waistband of his jeans. Turning to Ivan, he spoke in Russian, asking his lawyer to handle Viktor when they were gone. All the while, he kept a close watch on Viviana. “Is that clear?” he asked. Ivan only grunted in response. “Good, now leave.”
The men exited the room quickly, closing the doors to the office as they went. When the panel on the wall beeped to indicate they were leaving the house, Anton sighed.
“Jesus, Vine ...”
“Oh, I’m not your Viviana anymore?”
Surprised at her question, Anton froze. “What?”
“Never mind,” she mumbled.
No, he had heard her fine, so there was no forgetting it.
“That was a decade ago,” Anton said quietly. “Back when I had some sense of privacy to my personal life and the girl I wanted to share it with. Over the last few years, I’ve become accustomed to calling you Vine in the presence of others. Maybe it helped to differentiate between the girl I wanted others to know and the one I knew. I’ve become fond of it, really. That’s what they know you as, and they don’t know the girl I do. They don’t know you, Viviana. Not like I do.”
“Maybe you don’t know Vine.”
“Maybe not. I’d like to, though.”
She seemed to ignore that. “You’re still going to punish him, aren’t you?”
He frowned, rubbing a hand over his face in exasperation. “You can’t do that again.”
“Do what?”
“That!” He waved at the door and then pointed at her. “Come in here like that without even thinking about what you were doing. Do you know how ridiculous that makes me look to them? I’m nearly twenty-seven, a good fifteen or twenty years younger than most of the men I handle. I can’t have a woman affecting how my men view me. It’s about the respect, Vine, you know that!”
She cringed away. “You were going to—”
“I was going to break his fingers for touching you, and then shatter his jaw for hurting yours. Instead, Ivan gets to take that pleasure now.”
Shoot and break were kind of the same thing, Anton thought wirily.
“Do you expect me to apologize?”
The aggravation he felt showed when he huffed out a breath of air. “No, what I want is for you to tell me that you won’t do it again.” She stared back, still silent. His anger overflowed as he slammed an opened palm down to the table where glasses sat. Viviana jumped, surprise and shock flitting through her wide eyes. “Say it!”
Color drained from her face and she looked as if she were going to be physically sick. Instantly, he regretted raising his voice. Quickly, Anton crossed the room and kneeled down before Viviana, his hands instinctively finding their way up under the jacket still covering her legs. The heat of her thighs had him aching in a whole new way. The pads of his thumbs rubbed soothing little circles on her bare flesh.
Her eyes swam with unknown emotions; Anton felt his own battle warring.
“Something is wrong with me,” she mumbled.
“The sedative was mixed with an anti-anxiety drug. You were out the night before, yeah? The alcohol would have reacted badly with the tranquilizer. Boris should have considered that.”
“How did you know that I was drinking?”
Anton looked away. “The Cosa Nostra have their eyes, and I have mine, Viviana.”
“You’ve been watching me? Why?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he admitted softly. “There’s a lot of things I can’t tell you, but I had good reason to keep watch.”
“Why can’t you just be honest and tell me?”
Swallowing thickly, he muttered, “You’re not my wife; it wouldn’t be safe for me to do so.”
“You have to let me go, Anton.”
His gaze snapped back to hers at the statement. “This was already arranged years ago. We agreed when we were old enough to want it, too.” A pained look crossed her beautiful face. He grabbed Viviana’s thighs once more and said, “You know what Sonny did to the rest of your family just for organizing our betrothal. You know you’re not safe. You have to know these things, Viviana. Your family will not protect you, but I will.”
“He handed over my inheritance; let me go to Toronto when I wanted. You’re lying.”
“I am not. I may omit things for your safety, but I have no reason to lie to you.”
The sneer she sported stabbed him with a bitter force. “You’re a criminal.”
“So was your father.”
“Yes, but he was mine.”
Anton’s fingers dug into her thighs harshly. She responded to the roughness by biting her lip and tightening her legs. “And you’re mine, Vine.”
“Stop touching m
e,” she demanded weakly. “I don’t want to marry you. I just want to go home.”
“Where is home?” He scoffed under his breath, face growing dark as his eyes narrowed. “With your uncle who is just days away from putting a cheap mark on your head? Perhaps it’s the villa in Italy that your parents owned and left for you in their will? Or maybe it’s Toronto, with a bull who can’t do his job properly.” With those words, Anton tilted Viviana’s neck up to expose the bright, splotchy hickey. “Look at this, and with your guard. You know better than that!”
“You have no right to tell me what I can or can’t do.” Her hands slapped his away before she bit out, “And who the hell are you to judge me, Anton? How many women do you have climbing into your bed at night? Who I share mine with is not your business to pick apart and chide me about.”
Raking his hands through wet hair, he shook his head. God, he wished he had been given a few more minutes to relax before Viktor and the other men showed up. After cleaning Viviana and getting her settled, he’d jumped in the shower. Those bruises on her body just pissed him off something terrible, and it explained the reason why his other brigadier had tried to avoid showing his face when Boris delivered Viviana. He barely had time to get the dried blood off himself before Viktor arrived.
“Vine, listen to me, please—”
“No, you listen to me. I want to go.”
Anton stood abruptly. “It was agreed. By twenty-five, you were to be married to me. You wanted that. I wanted that. If you back out of this arrangement, the consequences will not be pleasing to you, or your family. The Bratva in New York have wanted to merge with your family for years, and our match would have done it properly. We will not look kindly on this breach—much like how your father handled a traitor, we are the same.”
He was lying. She wouldn’t know it, but he did. It tasted like poison on his tongue. Every word was harder to speak than the last. Even so, Anton couldn’t tell her the entire truth. Not yet.
“Don’t threaten me.”
There was a weakness in her voice. Anton tempered his own.
“It’s not a threat, Viviana. Marry me.”
Chapter Four
“No.” Somehow, her voice had reclaimed its strength. Where had that been two minutes ago? Anton engaged her in a stare down until Viviana turned away from him and said, “You are lying to me. And you can’t use threats to keep me here, Anton. Tell me the truth, and then maybe we can talk.”
“I can’t.”
She was surprised that those were the words he chose to use. She expected another lie, maybe some crap excuse, but instead he gave her something Viviana could maybe understand in her own way. His fingers raked through his hair once more, showing his stress level was high. Again, she was sucked in by the way he moved, watching as black ink moved with skin she hadn’t seen in years, and how the bands of muscle flexed when he moved. Only then did she notice how high he towered over her as she sat there waiting for him to speak again.
“How tall are you?” she blurted out, feeling stupid for even asking. The medication running through her veins was clearly taking its toll. When he looked at her with a raised brow, she rushed to explain. “I’m just … you seem taller than you were, is all.”
“Well, I’m not,” he muttered. “But, if you really want to know, I’m six foot two inches.”
“You must have gotten that from Nicoli. Your father wasn’t that tall.”
Anton cringed, his voice growing quiet when he replied, “Probably not, Vine.”
“I’m sorry?” His response only served to confuse her further. “Your grandfather was—”
“Wasn’t my real grandfather, not by blood,” he interrupted shortly. “My grandmother was married once before. He was a useless excuse for a man who beat the hell out of her on a regular basis—well, whenever he managed to stumble home, that is. He was also a lower associate in the Bratva—an old school kind of mobster, I suppose.”
Viviana bit her lip, feeling saddened, knowing what that likely meant. “So she was stuck.”
Anton shrugged, crossing his arms and breathing heavily, clearly not liking the conversation in the least. “In a way, but he was stupid, too. Making too many mistakes, drinking too much, and leaving sloppy messes behind for others to clean and hide. Nicoli had already noticed his issues work-wise, and my grandmother took a risk by outing his abuse to his brigadier hoping it would help her.”
“Did it?”
The corners of his mouth lifted into a ghost of a smile, but the sight disappeared as quickly as it came. “What happened behind closed doors were meant to stay there, but Nicoli had a thing about husbands beating their wives when it wasn’t deserved.”
“So it was okay if she deserved it, then?”
“It was a different time with different rules,” he offered, sounding apologetic. “Nonetheless, he offered to help, if she agreed to his terms.”
“To get a divorce, you mean. Was that even allowed?”
Anton’s dark laughter surprised her again, given what the sound did to her rushing blood and twisting insides. “Oh, no. He killed him, poured cement in his pockets, cut his hands and feet off, and tossed him into the bay. Then he married my grandmother, who at the time had an eight-year-old son. My father.”
Something bothered Viviana. Maybe it was the tone in his voice, or how quiet his words had turned. Either way, his explanation didn’t sit well at all. “Why didn’t my parents explain your family’s history to me? I mean, we were supposed to be married, shouldn’t I have known about your family?”
Reaching for a grey T-shirt that had been tossed over his desk, he pulled it over his head, and answered with, “Bratva business, Vine, not family business. He raised my father no differently than he would have his own son. Given my grandmother was unable to have more children, and Nicoli loved her a great deal, he chose not to take a mistress on the side who could give him more. He made the best with what he had in my father.”
“He didn’t have any goomahs?”
Anton rolled his eyes. “Not every man needs a mistress. Sometimes one woman can equal ten with all her nonsense.”
“I know, I was just surprised, that’s all. It’s not uncommon. Dad had a few.”
“He had more than just a few. Roman liked his women, or so I was told.”
A lump formed in her throat, but that didn’t stop the words from forcing their way out. “And what about you?”
“What?” Anton turned to look over his shoulder. “What about me, Vine?”
“Never mind.” Rubbing at her eyes, she felt tired and unsettled. The ache in her sluggish limbs hadn’t gone away, but at least she’d forgotten about it for a short while. When she looked up again, Anton was kneeling down, his head tilted to the side, watching her with a guarded expression and searching eyes. “What—”
“Women,” he interjected softly. “That’s twice you’ve brought it up in regards to me. Do you want a number, or maybe where we met, and how we fucked? Would that suffice your curiosity, hmm? Faceless, nameless, unimportant women who I didn’t care for, but they still had their purpose. Is that what you want me to say?”
Before she could bark at him with a nasty comment, she watched as his strong, wandering hands moved the jacket off her legs. “You still have the nicest legs this side of New York, Viviana,” he murmured, an eyebrow lifted as he caressed her with the tips of his fingers. Goosebumps prickled up her ankles, crossing over her calves, and trailing up to her thighs. Grabbing tight, Anton moved close enough that she could smell the liquor he just downed, and he opened her legs to move his body in between. His hands came to rest on her hips. “And sweet Jesus, I swear if my men see you half naked like that again, I’ll cut their fucking eyes out and feed them to my dog.”
Something caught in her throat—air, words, and want—the muscles constricting around thick desire that waged a war at his honest, but frightening declaration. “Anton …”
“What, you want me to move, quit touching you, or just leave
you alone?” He bared his teeth, grinning playfully. “Tell me to stop, baby, and maybe I will.”
“You have a dog?” It was the only thing she could manage to think of to ask.
“A German shepherd,” he explained while his fingers danced along the hem of her shirt and slipped up underneath without hesitating. “His name is Rocco. We went through a rigorous training program together. He isn’t a house pet to be spoiled, but a guard of sorts who is on constant alert. He has a schedule he keeps—one I’d like for you to involve yourself with—and Rocco understands he has a job to do first. He responds to Russian and Italian commands only.”
His eyes traveled the length of her legs, appraising them as his palms lay flat on her stomach. Positive the panties she wore were damp just from his touch alone, she attempted to close her legs and hide the proof of how turned on he made her. Anton’s body between Viviana’s thighs stopped the half-hearted effort.
“Italian, too?”
He nodded slowly, hands rising under her shirt until the tips of his thumbs brushed against the curve of her breasts. The quick rise and fall of her chest betrayed the otherwise calm exterior. There wasn’t a thing she could think of to say to make him stop touching her like he was, not that she wanted him to. Instead, she wanted Anton’s hands grabbing tight again, with his lips on her skin.
Yeah, something was definitely wrong with her.
“I waited so long for you,” Anton whispered, his fingers digging into her ribcage. Viviana squirmed, needing his heat closer. “Three years ago when your father was killed, Nicoli made it clear we needed to step back for your safety, and I was lost, Vine. Enraged. Destroyed. Just … gone. Sonny was holding you like bait, waiting for us to make a move.
“He had to have known the only reason we weren’t declaring a war with the Cosa Nostra was because of you; he’d have killed you in a second, without regret or care. His niece? Nothing to him, a drop in the already full bucket. They would have found your body like they did the rest of your family’s, and then where would I have been?”