Chapter 31 - Mira
Mira was too angry to speak as she glared at her father’s prone form.
He’d fallen unconscious after he hit the pavement, and Mikhail had tied him up and bundled him into their vehicle. When they arrived at the villa, there were excited mutterings among Mikhail’s men, high fives and shouts of laughter when they saw who their boss had brought home as his captor.
It was a feat of mighty proportions that Mikhail had managed to grab Dostoevsky all on his own and bring him home. Mira’s father had been a mafia boss longer than Mikhail had been alive, which made him a dangerous enemy. But it was a measure of how capable Mikhail was that he’d managed to capture her mother’s killer and had now bound him up at her feet.
Mira watched Vlad toss some water in her father’s face, forcing him back to wakefulness.
Dostoevsky glared at Vlad but said nothing.
Mikhail came and squatted in front of him, bringing himself to eye level with him. “You weasel. This meeting has been a long time coming.”
Dostoevsky looked down his nose at Mikhail. “I’ll say. Untie my hands and feet and we’ll have a proper conversation. I need my hands to be able to teach you the manners your stupid father never taught you.”
“Father!” Mira gasped.
Mikhail grabbed him by the collar. “Mention my father one more time, you bastard, and I’ll hand you all of your teeth in your palm.”
Strained silence reigned as both men glared at each other. Then Mira came and touched Mikhail’s arm, silently asking him to release her father.
He let Dostoevsky go at once, flinging the older man off as though he couldn’t bear to touch him. He rose to his feet and shoved a hand through his hair as he stalked away to pour himself a drink.
“I could use a shot too, son,” Dostoevsky called in a mocking tone. “I mean, if I’m gonna be your unwilling guest, you might as well make it worth my while.”
His cavalier attitude was starting to grate on Mira’s nerves. She turned away, fighting tears as she listened to her father release taunt after taunt, all targeted at Mikhail. And all the while her emotions were in a mess as she listened to this man who had killed her mother and wasn’t the least bit repentant.
Suddenly she couldn’t bear it any longer and she yelled, “Stop!”
Everyone froze, including Vlad. All three men looked at her in surprise, as though they’d forgotten she was in the room. And maybe they had. They were all macho men. In their world—or at least in her father’s world—women would never interrupt conversations as she had.
She turned and glared at her father. “Just stop! Stop this charade, and answer this question for me, Oleg Dostoevsky.”
When she pronounced his full name, she saw shocked surprise leap into his eyes. But he stayed quiet, watching her carefully.
Mira dropped to her haunches before him. Since he was seated on the floor with his knees drawn up and his back against the wall, her position brought her eye level with him.
“Why did you kill Mother? What did she do that was so wrong you had to kill her?” she asked.
Her father’s eyes went wide with shock. “Why would you think such a thing? Why would I kill your mother? Mira, I loved her. What are you saying?”
Mira lifted a hand to stop the torrent of lies. “Please. Don’t lie, not about this. Just don’t. You told me yourself that you killed her.”
He frowned, his eyes going up and to the right as though he were trying to recall such a conversation. “Mira, I don’t know where you heard that from, but I would never—”
“Stop with the lies,” she screamed, leaping to her feet and cupping her hands over her ears to shut out his lies. “You told me in a fit of rage when I didn’t want to get married that she got what was coming to her because she ‘couldn’t keep it in her pants.’ Those were your exact words.”
She burst into tears, turning away from him, but not before she saw her father’s face turn red with anger as he began struggling to free his hands from the rope that bound them behind his back.
He looked at Mikhail. “I need you to free my hands, Nikolai. My daughter—look at her, dammit. She needs me.”
“If you think I’m going to let you touch her with those bloodied hands of yours, you’re mistaken,” Mikhail growled.
“Mira, baby, look at me!” her father yelled.
His words should have endeared her to him, but instead, they made her recoil. He had never called her baby, to her recollection. Mira looked up at him in confusion.
“Read my lips, sweetie, I swear I didn’t kill your mother. I didn’t,” he enunciated. “I have done a lot of wrong things in my life and I don’t deny them. But, Mira, killing your mother was not one of them.”
“Then why did you—why did you say she got what was coming to her?” Mira asked, coming back toward him.
Mikhail pulled up a chair in front of her father this time and gently guided her into it. She knew he didn’t want her on her haunches. Mentally, Mira had to admire the man’s tenacity. Right now, even in the midst of a tense and emotionally wringing situation, he still remembered that she was pregnant. She could see her father watching their actions in confusion.
She sank gratefully into the seat and looked at her father. “Well?”
“I was mad at her. I’ve been mad at her since she died,” he said simply.
“You mean since she was killed,” Mikhail corrected.
Dostoevsky glared at him. “My wife had an affair with your father. Did you know that? Mira was only a little over eighteen months when her mother started up an affair simply because your idiot father seduced her into his fucking bed to get at me.”
The words fell into the room, ringing with truth and sincerity.
Mira’s voice shook as she said, “What?”
Her father looked back at her. “It’s the truth. I—I’m a proud man, Mira. Your mother shattered my pride and tossed my love back in my face. She forgot she had a husband and a little girl and she slept with my business partner, Nikolai, multiple times.”
“This was why you killed my father, too, wasn’t it?” Mikhail demanded.
Dostoevsky didn’t deny it. “I strung the bastard up by his dick, which was no less than he deserved. When I locked him in my dungeon at first, I told her what I’d done and threw her out because I couldn’t bear the sight of her. But she wouldn’t have it; she kept trying to creep back in to see him. I couldn’t have that again so I killed him and she went berserk. Then when she tried to take Mira with her, I killed her too..”
Mikhail swore furiously, stalking off to the windows to glare at the fields below. Mira could understand his sentiments. She wanted to rail and scream at the cretin that was her father. She wanted to hurt him even as much as he had hurt her mother, but something in her wouldn’t let her get blood on her hands. She curled her fingers into fists so tightly that her nails dug painfully into the soft skin of her palms.
“We should call the cops and get him arrested,” Mira decided.
Mikhail snorted. “It’s no use. He’ll probably hold the record for the quickest jailbreak in history.”
“Then what?” Mira asked. “We can’t kill him.”
Mikhail’s eyes glinted at her, “Speak for yourself. I can.”
She felt a cold shiver go through her at the expression in his eyes. He wasn’t bluffing either; he meant every word.
Dostoevsky glared at them both, “If you really think I’m going to let either of you get the joy of killing me, guess again.”
Mikhail turned to Vlad, “Take him to the dungeons.”
Vlad immediately yanked Dostoevsky to his feet and practically dragged him off in the direction of the dungeon.
“What are we going to do with him?” she demanded as soon as the door shut behind Vlad.
Mikhail’s angry stance loosened some as his dark gaze flicked to her face. He crossed the room to hug her close to him. “Would you truly be able to forgive me if I killed your own father?”
She shrugged, “You would be avenging my mother and your father.”
“He seems to think he was justified in killing my father,” Mikhail pointed out. He had a faraway look on his face as though he were thinking of something else. Then he said, “In a way, I understand. Dmitri slept with Alena when I was still dating her and I had to kill him. I get why he killed my dad, but going ahead to kill your mother...? That’s just sick. He deprived a little girl of her mother.”
The expression on his face was so tender that Mira felt her heart turn over in her chest. She really did love this man. He understood a lot of things about her without her having to offer explanations.
He drew her close and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead before turning and leaving.
She was head over heels in love with him whether she wanted to be or not.
Now, if only Mikhail could fall in love with her too, everything would be perfect.
What if he never does? she wondered. What if Alena had scarred him so badly that he was now incapable of love? Well, she knew he loved their baby, but what if he couldn’t love any woman again, including her? Sometimes she could have sworn he loved her because of his actions; he was always so protective and attentive. But what if she was reading more into his actions than he meant?
She was a hopeless romantic. She needed to hear that Mikhail Nikolai loved her.
Gently, she caressed her flat stomach as she whispered to her baby, “Maybe when you get here, he’ll finally confess his feelings. Come soon, baby.”