Chapter 19 Mikhail
MIKHAIL
Claire glanced back at the closed door to the guest room, hesitant to leave. Seeing her so committed to helping my daughter relaxed me. Anya was in good hands with Claire. I knew that. But it was rare for me to trust anyone this much. Least of all, trusting a woman. Someone still so new to me.
“Why are you wet?” Her long brown hair wasn’t silky and soft. It was damp, clinging to her shoulders. While her jeans were dry, the T-shirt was sticking to her like a second skin.
“Anya needed my assistance.” She resumed walking with me down the hall and cleared her throat. “She almost fell in the shower and I got in to help her.”
I raised my brows, impressed and touched that she’d sacrifice her own comfort to do such a thing.
“Would you like to change before we talk?”
She nodded, glancing up at me. “Yeah. Where should I meet you?”
I told her to find me in my study. Andre was there, waiting for me, and I strode there now.
I didn’t get far before my phone rang. Sergei was updating me with news about the Popovs’ capture of Anya.
Niko was already ranting and pissed that I’d killed so many of his men.
If he wanted to spare their lives, he should’ve thought twice about fucking with my family.
As soon as I got off the phone with him, the device rang again.
“For fuck’s sake.” As if this day hadn’t been hard enough already.
I answered Roman this time.
“Giovanni’s got assholes pressuring our dealers again.”
I growled, shaking my head as I listened to the report of more trouble from our other biggest enemy. His call was more in-depth, and I couldn’t end it without hearing him out, collecting the biggest picture of the threat, and sending the right amount of force in response.
I got to my study, finding Claire already there with Andre.
“Hold on,” I told my nephew on the phone.
I hated to be pulled in different directions. I wanted to know what Anya’s recovery would look like, if she was wounded and needing more help. But I had Andre to help. He was loyal and dedicated to step in for me whenever I needed him.
“I need to handle this,” I told them, looking at Claire and noticing she’d left her long hair down to dry. “Andre can get all that we need to know from you.”
Rolling with the changes, Andre dipped his chin once in acknowledgment and grabbed his phone. He didn’t need instructions. He’d question Claire. And I bet he’d record it all, too. Thorough as always.
Back on the phone with Roman, I listened to the latest threats and attacks. Roberto was messing up our drug shipments, again, but he was taking this too far.
“Too many of our men are getting killed because he wants to get ahead in the game,” I growled.
“It’s not as bad as Popov taking Anya, though.”
I narrowed my eyes, absently scowling at the garden as I walked through the back patio area. It was all bad. Any threat or strike against any of us was a sin I wouldn’t ignore.
Finished with the call, I went to find Claire and Andre. She was gone, but my son had a recording for me, just as I suspected.
“She just left. She wanted to check on how she is doing.”
I sat and heaved out a sigh.
“What was that about?” he asked, handing me his phone.
“Roman. More bullshit with the Giovannis.”
He smirked. “Some days, it never stops.”
I set the phone down and sighed. “Just tell me what she said.” I didn’t have the patience to listen to it all.
“Anya couldn’t identify the Popovs. She’s never met them before. They didn’t touch her, not like that. She’s pure.”
Thank fuck.
I wasn’t concerned about her being a virgin to marry her off as one. I just wanted to spare her being raped.
He went on, relaying what Anya had told Claire.
I was impressed, again, that Claire got her to talk at all.
She was a shrunken, shivering mess, stuck in shock.
Yet, Anya trusted this doctor I couldn't resist. She opened up to her, telling her all that she heard, where she was moved, what the Popovs threatened, and how she felt that I didn’t care about her enough to save her.
I blinked, overwhelmed with all that he shared.
“Of course I fucking care,” I growled.
“You shouldn’t have to spell it out for her,” he said, standing. “You never did with me.” He set his hand on my shoulder. “I know you care. Obviously.”
“But she’s nothing like you.” I sat forward and put my face in my hands.
“Nope. Not at all.” He moved to the door.
“Claire seems like a good start, though. She’s proving to be very instrumental in getting her to talk at all.
” Pausing at the door and rubbing his chin, he shrugged.
“And maybe Anya and I aren’t so different after all.
Neither of us had a mother growing up. Neither of us has a clue how to connect like other siblings might.
That doesn’t mean that can’t change, though. ”
I sighed, sitting back and watching him go.
It stung that Anya would assume I didn’t care whether she lived or died.
Her welcome had been a testy one, but I didn’t deprive her of anything.
I’d be the first to admit I didn’t know how to be a father to a daughter, one I never knew all her life.
But I was willing to meet her in the middle.
It had been a battle of her not even wanting to be near me at all, though.
Later, Claire knocked on the door to my study.
“Come in,” I said, setting down the drink I’d poured a few minutes ago.
“She’s resting again. And she ate a decent amount.” She entered the room and closed the door behind her. “I’m guessing Andre filled you in?”
“He did.”
She raised her brows. “All of it?”
“You mean did he include the part about her assuming I didn’t care whether she lived or died?” I grunted and drank more. “Yeah, he told me.”
She nodded, not making eye contact as she sat across from me.
“I’m not one to judge or offer parenting advice.
And I can tell this is a complicated situation.
” She held both hands up in a truce. “I don’t want to know.
I’m not someone who needs to know. The less I know, the better.
But… I’m sorry you had to hear a hard truth like that. ”
“That’s not the least of my fucking worries, either.
” I stood, pacing and ranting about all that was going to hell.
The Popovs taking Anya. The Giovannis messing with our businesses.
I couldn’t help how dark of a mood I was in.
With her as my audience of one—despite her admitting she was operating on the basis of the less she knew, the better—I couldn’t shut the hell up.
Venting to her felt safe. Like she would help me by hearing me out with all these vague grievances I aired.
I stopped to drop into the chair again, wishing I felt lighter with all I’d unloaded on her. I didn’t, though. Dark thoughts and angry emotions swirled like a cloud in my head and over it.
“Please, Mikhail. Just…”
“Just what?” I snapped, curious and annoyed that she would have the audacity to suggest how I clean up the current mess of my life.
“Please don’t rush to what seems to be your status quo. Don’t spill any more blood and go out to kill them all like you say you will and—”
“Stop.” I lifted my hand, hating how this chasm between our worlds widened even more. “Stop right there.”
“I’m only saying that more deaths and violence can’t always be the answer.”
“For you.” I narrowed my eyes, wishing she could see that I wasn’t a monster because I wanted to be.
It was because I had to be. I was made to be this ruthless, and if I wanted to play martyr or delude myself with sainthood, all my men and family members would be killed.
It was very much a hard game of kill or be killed.
I couldn’t vouch for her, but I knew damn well which side of that equation I wanted to end up on.
“This is the only life I know. The only way I know.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
I stood, pacing again. Shaking my head at her na?ve claim, I wished she could open her fucking eyes and give up this idea that she could change me. To make me more like someone she’d approve of. “I am powerful for a reason, Claire.”
“I’m not denying that.” She stood, frowning at me.
“And you shouldn’t forget that I’m keeping you safe, too.”
“I never asked you to.”
I bit back a growl. “So you would’ve rather I left you with that Giovanni so he could shoot you? Huh?”
“No, but there has to be another way—”
“What, to go to the cops? The Popovs have half of them on their fucking bankroll, Claire. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Not everything is as black and white as you want it to seem.”
“Oh, so that’s it. Born a mobster and that’s it. It’s fated.” She slapped her arms over each other, almost like a defensive, haughty self-hug.
“What’s your game here?”
She lowered her arms. “I have no game, dammit! You brought me here. You made me stay here.” She swallowed hard, looking off to the side for a second. Her faltering with her hard words meant something, but I was in too damn dark of a mood to lighten up and wonder what it was.
“That’s a funny way of thanking me for saving your fucking life.”
“I guess we’re even then, huh?” She snarled as she backed up. “I saved your life and you saved mine.”
Not really. She also helped me with Anya. She also sated me in that one forbidden night we’d shared. Marking a tally with her was bullshit and she knew it too.
“I want to leave, Mikhail.”
I glared at her, damning her inability to meet me in the middle.
“I should leave.”
Wording it so similarly yet differently showed a hell of a contrast, like maybe she wasn’t really interested in going but felt like she was obligated to.
“Oh, really?” I pulled my phone out of my pocket and found the video I’d been saving, unsure of when to share it with her. “Because it’s so safe out there, huh?”
I handed her my device so she could watch the footage of her apartment being ransacked by the Popovs.
She gaped at me, mad and stunned at once. “You… you had your men put cameras on my home to spy on me?”
“For fuck’s—” I turned away from her, growling. “That’s what you care about? That’s the detail you want to bring up? That I took it upon myself to order security installed there?”
She glowered at me, handing my phone back.
“There are men out there hunting you down.”
“Because of you.” She pointed at me. “Before I ever met you, I was fine. I wasn’t a target. I wasn’t an accomplice or anything like that!”
Fuck. Fuck this! She was correct and I hated it.
“Too late to hit fucking rewind now,” I growled. “It’s not like I was awake to pick which damn doctor worked on me that night.”
And it wasn’t fair of her to dismiss everything else. The intimacy. The desire. The pull to be near each other as enemies under the same roof.
“I can’t…” She held her hands up as she lowered her gaze. “I can’t do this anymore, Mikhail. I can’t be dragged in any further and… I just can’t.”
Watching her practically flee for the door, I fisted my hand and resisted the urge to punch the wall.
“I have never felt so lost and confused.” She lifted her tortured gaze to me as she opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “I can’t do this.”