Page 42 of The Arrangement

Out of the corner of her eye, Viviana noticed a very mousey looking nurse standing with a clipboard in her hand and staring wide-eyed at the sudden influx of men in the small waiting room. With a nod in the woman’s direction, Anton coughed to gain her attention.

The woman startled at his simple look. Viviana guessed then that the last name on the clipboard probably spoke volumes as to who the woman thought she was dealing with, and everything she thought, well, it’d probably be right.

“Immediate family for a Mr. Daniil Avdonin?”

Every Bratva man who wasn’t already standing did. Viviana couldn’t help but snort under her breath at the sight. More than once she’d spent nights like this in the hospital when she was younger, watching her father’s men rush in with wives and children bundled up. The Bratva was not the Cosa Nostra, but they were still a family in every way that counted for them.

Sasha was back at her son’s side in a flash, her hand resting atop his on Viviana’s knee. “I’m his wife. This is his son.”

“Could you come with me for a moment, ma’am? A more private area—”

Anton spoke up, tone gruff and low when he interrupted with, “Here is just fine. Whatever you have to say, they’ll be told regardless.”

The nurse was once again looking like she wanted to bolt. Viviana was left wondering where in the hell the doctor was. “Yes, okay then. Uh, so a viral infection has settled in his lungs. There’s a lot of fluid that they’re attempting to remove, but we had a collapse. By the looks of the x-rays, there is a good chance pneumonia has started in as well. He can go home …”

“Go home?” Anton growled.

“In a few days,” the nurse finished quietly. “If everything goes fine with removing the fluid and getting rid of the infection. Otherwise, he’ll probably be here for at least the next few months.”

Two sets of hands squeezed painfully tight on Viviana’s leg.

“A few months.”

“That is the best time frame the doctor could give, considering his current state. He has a good appetite, has gained weight since coming off the chemo, and besides this, health-wise Mr. Avdonin has done considerably well. But yes, a few months, and at the most if his health remains somewhat well, a year. The cancer is beginning to spread through his blood if the latest blood work is any indication. We think it is best that he does go home, and repeatedly, he’s voiced that very wish.”

Sasha’s broken laugh hurt Viviana to hear. “I would like to see him, please.”

The nurse nodded. “Absolutely, they’re just moving him into a private room now.”

When Anton didn’t immediately move, his arms still locked tight around Viviana while his mother followed behind the nurse, she turned in his grasp. In his eyes, she could see the pain, all the things he didn’t want to say or admit, but she also knew he didn’t have a choice.

Sometimes, those strong men needed an even stronger woman to make them see it.

“I can’t—”

Viviana shook her head, steeling her emotions and frowning. “Go. Right now.”

• • •

“You should tell her.”

Daniil’s voice was so low that Anton strained to hear his father above the beeping monitors. The tube in his lung had been removed two hours before, and after a brief nap induced by something a little stronger than morphine, the sick man was once again awake. Anton’s mother, on the other hand, had finally fallen asleep in the lounging chair in the corner of the room.

Anton had spent the last bit of daylight moving back and forth between his father’s room and the waiting room, allowing the few visitors the hospital agreed could go in. No one who was sick, had been sick, or had come in contact with someone else who might have been sick was allowed in. That cut out well over half of the men.

“Dad …”

“You should,” the older man insisted, before he fell into yet another coughing fit.

Knowing his father wouldn’t want him to fuss over the cough, Anton settled back into his chair with blurred vision and stared at the wall. “Is this Daniil, my father speaking, or Daniil, the man raised by Nicoli and the Bratva?”

“I am one and the same, Ant.”

No, he disagreed. Too many times he’d seen his father’s personality flip a switch when it needed to. Just like his did. Just like Nicoli’s had. There were separate men who lived inside them from the time they walked out of their homes with a gun in their waistband, to the time they walked back in it. The men who handled money made from laundering, drugs, prostitution, trafficking, and anything else illegal were not the same men who laid their wives and children down at night. At least, not in their hearts.

“That’s bullshit.”

“Right now,” Daniil said softly, “I am the same. Dying, yes. Hurting for you, yes. Thinking of the difference it may make to the Bratva, yes. And I do not think telling Viviana the truth will hurt them a bit. The Cosa Nostra are a different story. It may make her reconsider a few things—”