Chapter Three

Viviana couldn’t shake the feeling of a heavy pressure holding her down. Blinking rapidly, she breathed and attempted to see, move, or just do anything.

Nothing happened.

An ache had settled in the creases of her arms and legs. Bending them only served to settle the throbbing pressure deeper into her muscles. Pain radiated from the right side of her jaw as she opened her mouth to call out. With dry lips, a soreness that wouldn’t seem to disappear, and grogginess saturating her senses, she couldn’t focus long enough to remember where she was. Never mind what had happened that got her … here.

Where in the hell was she?

Breathing in, she could taste something familiar in the dark air. Like city air, gunpowder, cigars, and a woodsy cologne that reminded Viviana of home. Her fingers tightened in the blankets.

Hadn’t she been at the university dorms with Sam last night? Hadn’t she been drunk, and hadn’t Sam taken her home? Didn’t she go to that lecture in the morning?

“Sam?” Her voice was hoarse, words mumbled and barely intelligible. Her throat felt sore like she’d been screaming her lungs out for hours. “Sam, wake up.”

It wasn’t a second later that she heard shouts from somewhere outside her dark confines. A voice that resonated deep in her confused mind yelled angrily in a language Viviana couldn’t understand. A woman dressed in a grey-and-white uniform, her hair tied back, looked about as frightened as Viviana felt as she scurried past the opened doorway.

The shouts continued before something shattered, the sounds of tinkling glass spreading over the floors echoing down the hallway. The familiar voice grew scarily quiet as he spit his words out with sheer venom.

Viviana didn’t have to understand the words to know the man was livid; just barely hanging on the ledge of control. More than once growing up, she had heard that kind of anger while she stayed hidden in the safety of her bedroom. Her father’s voice carried through the house as he handled misbehaving men in the basement, or office, whichever served his purpose, depending on the soldier who’d done him wrong.

Forcing herself from the confines of the blankets, Viviana managed to get caught up in all the fabric and tumbled off the bed. Landing on the hard floor with a loud thump, she was surprised no one outside the room heard the noise. Crawling until standing was possible, she swayed on the spot, her legs feeling like a mixture of brittle sticks inside a bag of jelly. Nausea rolled through her insides like a tidal wave of sickness ready to drown and destroy.

Hangovers didn’t feel like that. Nothing felt like that. Unless death did. She wasn’t sure.

“Sam,” Viviana called out again, heading toward the lighted hallway.

Had he checked the hallway before leaving?

Just as she reached the door, something on a small stand caught her eye. The light from the hallway illuminated the framed photograph enough that she could discern the people being pictured. Finally, she remembered.

The face of Nicoli—a former boss of the Bratva, and an ally to her father—stared back at Viviana. Her shaky hand reached out to touch the photograph, snapping back almost at the exact instant she realized what she was doing.

There would be no photo of Nicoli in her dorm, nor would there be a picture of him in any house she visited. It was only then Viviana remembered the sounds of a silenced gun firing off three deadly shots. Sam hanging limp and dead off the edge of a bed. A man hitting her face and spitting words in Russian.

Pop.

Viviana shuddered.

Pop.

Blood bled red in her memories, but the too big T-shirt she now wore hung loose around her bare legs, unstained and pristine white.

Pop.

She was in a car with a Russian … Boris … terrified and trying not to cry.

“Anton.”

The name was thick on her tongue and heavy in her thrashing, thundering heart. Stumbling, she moved from the room and braced her hands on the wall, needing that solid ground to steady her swaying as she moved closer to the shouting.

“Anton!”

Looking at her hands, Viviana noticed the blood that once stained her skin was now clean. Fingernails had been buffed, chips filed down, and the natural white crescents at the tips shined brightly under the light. Confused, she reached up to run fingers through her black hair. Instead of the tangled waves from this morning—or was it yesterday now?—she was met with no resistance. The locks felt clean and soft, brushed all the way through and hanging loose down her back.

Someone had washed her. They took meticulous care in cleaning any evidence from her hands and body, changing the clothes she wore and leaving her somewhere they thought was safe for Viviana to wake up in.

Was it him, she wondered. Was it Anton who did that for me?

Beyond the fear and nerves, something that scared Viviana even worse resided in the pit of her stomach: want. She wanted that. Wanted to know he had touched her. Cared for her. Worried over her. But she shouldn’t have wanted that at all.

Finally releasing her hold on the wall, she felt stable enough to walk on her own. Moving at a speed that was too fast for her still upset insides, Viviana made it to the partially opened French doors at the end of the hallway. With dark blinds covering the glass, no one on the inside noticed her approach, and the woman who had previously passed the doorway had long disappeared. The men’s voices became louder again, fury hissing with a burn between every word she couldn’t comprehend. Looking through a crack in the door, the sight staring back was shocking.

At least five men were inside the room, and while four stood upright, the one who had hit Viviana in her dorm—Viktor—was lying prone on the floor. With his head bent at an awkward angle, the barrel of a gun pressing to his right temple, Viktor gritted his teeth and continued to say the same phrase over and over in Russian.

“Boss, let it go,” one man said quietly. “He’s apologized, he’s never skimmed off his boys or done you wrong in the past. Your grandfather would have done the same.”

It wasn’t his face Viviana’s eyes were drawn to, or even the man that spoke in a language she could finally understand. Instead it was the hand holding the gun with a painful force. That hand didn’t shake; there was no hesitation in the action. She had the distinct feeling if those fingers that had once touched her skin so softly pulled the trigger, they wouldn’t find regret in that choice.

“Eta ruka?”

Anton’s voice sounded darker than she had ever heard it. Hardened and cold, like shards of ice to her soul. Wearing only dark wash jeans that sat low around his hips, the waistband of his boxer-briefs were visible. The black hair, now kept a little longer than when she had last seen him, was wet and hanging over blue eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if those eyes blazed a dark blue in his rage like they did when he fucked and loved.

Every muscle tensed and shuddered as anger rolled over his broad shoulders, the six-pack of abs clenching like the white teeth he bared when he growled out once more, “Eta ruka?”

Viktor nodded, raising the hand his boss had tapped with a boot. The chiseled line of Anton’s jaw grew impossibly harder as he breathed heavily through his nose. Something unknown washed through Viviana’s insides, sending her desire ramped up while fear prickled elsewhere.

“Do you think it is appropriate I let this go, Viktor?” he asked, warningly. The slight Russian accent in his dialect wasn’t nearly as thick as some of the men around him, but the more irritated his voice became, the more prominent it sounded. “Do you agree with your brothers that your actions should simply be overlooked because of your lack of past transgressions? Would that be to your liking?”

“I—”

“It is a yes or no question!” The barrel of the gun pressed harder against the older man’s temple. Viviana’s heart stuttered. “I don’t wish to hear your excuses, or apologies. I want a fucking answer!”

Viviana’s fingers tightened around the doorknob as Viktor’s voice turned quieter and he said, “Yes, I was wrong.”

Anton gripped the gun, and he tapped the piece three short times to the man’s head. “This hand,” he stated, his foot tapping against Viktor’s clenched fingers once more. “You hit her with this one, so open it up against the floor. Now.”

“Boss!”

“Would you like to be next, Boris? I should take a pound from you, too, considering you didn’t step in until after he’d smacked her around a little. I was very clear with my instructions. Neither of you idiots managed to follow them properly.”

Anton stood straight, turning to face Boris, and giving Viviana a view of the wide plains of his back and shoulders. Stretched with bands of muscles, his shoulders were strong, wide, and shuddering with barely contained fury. Black ink crisscrossed his skin in a tribal design and a black star resided on both of his shoulders between the inky licks of color.

“The orders were clear, and you allowed him to break my protocol. At the very least, you could have used that sedative before you took her from the dorm, and he did not have to end that bull inside the complex. Those are issues I have to fix now. Too sloppy for a brigadier of your age and knowledge. Both of you are losing the thirty percent share from your boy’s tributes this month, and maybe next, too. I haven’t decided, yet.”

“Yes, Boss,” Boris replied quietly.

Anton turned back to Viktor, the gun in his grip aimed and ready. Viviana choked knowing what he was about to do, but still unable to turn away from the sight. “Hand out,” he ordered again. With a shaky exhale, Viktor unclenched his fingers and laid his palm flat to the floor.

Closing his eyes, he apologized once more in his mother tongue. Anton kneeled down to thrust the gun against the back of the man’s hand. “You will apologize to her. You are not to speak to her directly, or indirectly, without my immediate presence and permission. I do not want to see your face before I request it, and I suggest you stay away from my clubs and homes until this has blown over. Are we clear?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Anton barked.

“Yes, Boss.”

Without a second of indecision, Anton pulled back the hammer on his gun. Viktor flinched, and she felt suffocated by the realization that a man was about to be shot for hitting her. Bile rose in Viviana’s throat as she pushed open the door and stumbled through. With it came the attention of every man in the room, and the appearance of their guns pointed directly at her.

• • •

Goddamn she looked good standing there—like she didn’t care about them or their weapons. Anton’s throat thickened at the sight of Viviana in only his shirt, her brown eyes drawn to his. The hardest thing he had to do was check his emotions out of the equation, reminding himself of just who was there besides her, and what they would see. Guarding his expression, he felt his jaw tick.

“Please, don’t,” Viviana whispered, pressing her hand into her midsection. Her frame swayed and that only served to piss him off more. The medication hadn’t worn off and Boris used too much. Someone’s fingers needed breaking for that. “It’s unnecessary, Anton. Don’t do that, not for me.”

When she swayed on her feet again, his expression softened, his heart rate picking up and shoulders temporarily relaxing. “Get her a chair.” When no one moved, his hand jerked to the side, pulling the trigger of his gun. It went off with an echoing bang into the floorboards. Everyone jumped. “Why am I needing to repeat myself tonight?”

The man closest to Viviana—Ivan—shoved his weapon into the waistband of his dress pants before directing her to sit on the chair beside him. Her unease with five pairs of eyes watching her was obvious. With her shapely legs pressed tightly together and her hands tugging at the hem of his T-shirt to hide her thighs, she was practically naked in front of strangers.

Her cheeks were pink with embarrassment. Possessiveness flooded Anton’s veins.

“Your coat, Ivan,” Anton demanded with a nod at his lawyer. “Cover her.”

When Ivan’s suit jacket was spread across her legs, Anton watched silently as she fisted the fabric and thanked him softly. “It’s no problem, Vine, but perhaps next time you could just knock instead of making a grand entrance like that, huh? Nearly got yourself shot,” Ivan joked with a wink.

“Enough,” Anton muttered. Did she know just by looking at him that he’d missed her so much? Immediately, her eyes dropped from his to find a spot on the floor. The rising rejection was hard to hide. “Viviana, you’ve met Boris …” She looked back up at the sound of his voice, “… and Viktor,” he added, nudging the prone man on the floor with the toe of his laced up boots.

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 me,” 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.”