Page 30 of My Ex’s Dad

“Oh, sure. How? I can’t even trust you to be around when I happen to need some help.” He grunts. “When all this came down on me, you weren’t even in the city⁠—”

“When you happen to need help? I clean up your fucking messes all the time. Don’t act like this is a rare occasion. And no one is to blame for this incident but you. Nothing came down on you. You caused this problem.”

“But—”

I disconnect the call, physically unable to stand hearing his voice for another second. His excuses grate on my nerves.

Viktor gets up to head out of the office for a moment, and I let my head fall back against the rest on my chair. All the good feelings of being with Liliana seem so far away. So long ago.

But when Viktor comes back into my office with Elena striding in behind him, I wince and wish I could leave and find my sweet Liliana again.

“Where were you?”

No hello. No greeting. Just a demand, like she has any right to issue it. She crosses her arms over her coat so jerkily that her stiff blonde bob swings wildly over her shoulders.

“Where were you, Anton?” She huffs, flinging her arms out like she’s exasperated. “Where were you when your family needed you?”

I clench my jaw, wishing I could banish her from my life for good. It’s only because of Roman I haven’t cut all ties with her yet. But now, cutting all ties with both of them sounds like heaven.

“I don’t answer to you,” I say coolly.

She almost smiles, as if she’s handling a stubborn child and not her powerful ex. “Anton, it just doesn’t make sense. You were nowhere to be found when your fam⁠—”

“You are not family,” I remind her.

“When your son needed you,” she amends.

I don’t want to get into this. It peeves me that my son needs me instead of how I should be needing him and his servitude.

“Roman is a grown man.” I stand. “When is he going to act like one?”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re too harsh on him.”

I stride past her, out of patience for her plastic face and her wheedling, whiny tone.

“Wait. What—Where are you going? Anton, I just got here.”

“I didn’t invite you to come speak with me, about Roman or anything else. I have a meeting to get to.”

She growls behind me, clearly frustrated. “That’s all you ever do! Work and work and—Anton. Can’t we talk? For a minute?”

I blank my expression as I stride through the hallway. Catching the eye of one of the guards, I give him a look. That’s all it takes. An order without a word.

He gets it, stepping in to intervene and steer Elena away from me as I walk in the other direction.

Her protests fall on deaf ears.

Viktor is at my side again, handing me a file with documents about the deal I’ll be talking to some city councilmen about in a matter of minutes.

I let out a heavy exhale, shifting gears to be on and working.

Putting distance between Elena and me is a start to quell my anger, but only thoughts of Liliana truly appease me as I resume my full duties of pakhan once again.

13

LILIANA

That new-year feeling wore off fast. Snowstorms and medical woes have taken up most of the time around here, so I’m surprised we’re already coming up on the end of February.