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“Fine!” He jerks his hand out of my hold, his steady calm cracking under the pressure. “You want me to say it? Fine! Yes, I was beyond fucking terrified when I heard that explosion go off. I could barely see straight. It’s a wonder I managed to get myself down to you in one piece. But—fuck—but…” A shadow passes over his face as he forces his eyes to level at mine. “But letting myself care about you was a mistake. Nearly losing you blinded me to everything else. I can’t afford to let that happen again.”
What he’s saying, what he’s admitting to me… It should be a special moment.He cares about me.I want to wave that fact in the air and celebrate. I want to scream it from the damn rooftops, actually.
But there’s nothing celebratory about the look on his face. The fear. The fury. Two things that he just can’t get over, no matter how hard he tries.
“Misha, love doesn’t have to be a weakness. It can make you stronger.”
“We’re staying married, Paige,” he says firmly. “We’re having those babies. But we’re going to do what you originally wanted. We’re going to live our separate lives, you in your wing of the house and me in mine.”
My heart sinks at the determination on his face. “I don’t want that anymore. That doesn’t make any sense, Misha. We can have more.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” he says softly. “It is what it is.”
16
MISHA
The council meeting lasts all of fifteen minutes before I cut it short and send everyone home.
The senior members don’t seem pleased as they say their terse goodbyes and file out of the conference room. Only Konstantin stays behind, swiveling his chair back and forth with an air of relief.
“That was quick,” he observes.
“Felt like a fucking lifetime.”
When Maksim was don, I skipped these meetings as often as I could. Sitting in a chair, making a presentation, talking facts and fucking figures… It was never my strong suit.
I preferred simple things. Violence. Fire. Pain.
Things I knew well.
Things that don’t talk back.
“Did you notice the faces?” Konstantin asks. “Klim, Vasily, Danil… All those fuckers looked like they swallowed a raw egg on their way in.”
“I noticed.” I sit down in my chair and recline back. “They’re not happy with how I’m handling things. Obviously.”
So many of the older Bratva members are too conservative. They want me to handle things the old way. But the old way got my brother killed. If they don’t understand that, then there is no amount of time in the world that will change their minds.. I’ll just have to show them.
“We have the Ivanovs by the fucking balls,” Konstantin says. “No one has heard or seen from Petyr in weeks. He’s running scared.”
“He’s lying in wait. There’s a difference.”
Konstantin snorts and waves the idea away. “No don worth his salt ‘lies in wait.’ If that rat bastard had a card to play, he would be playing it right now.”
I shake my head. “He threatened retaliation.”
“In a fuckingnote, Misha. Words on a piece of paper, like he’s a middle schooler asking you to ‘check the Yes box if you’re still mad at me.’ Nothing but a desperate taunt from a desperate man.”
I want to believe my cousin, but I know better. “Petyr Ivanov is shrewd. He’s not one to make a hollow taunt. He was goading me, trying to provoke some kind of reaction. He has disappeared because he’s planning something.”
“Which has given you plenty of time to get the Babai on your side. He’s got nowhere left to hide.”
I nod, but I’m restless. I won’t feel confident again until Petyr is in the ground. “I’m not willing to put all my faith in the Babai.”
I pull out a thin file and pass it to Konstantin. I didn’t even consider presenting this off-the-cuff idea in the meeting, but I have a feeling my cousin will be more amenable to it.
“Well, fuck,” Konstantin breathes after a minute of perusing. “You want to smoke him out. Literally, by the looks of it.” He flips the page and glances at the aerial photo of the plot of land where the Ivanov mansion has stood since my grandfather was don. “Quiteliterally.”
