Chapter 22
Liev
The pier runs like a vein into the ocean, steady and functional, built for movement rather than beauty.
My boots hit the worn planks in a slow rhythm as I walk the length of it.
I scan my surroundings out of habit: the cranes, the dockhands, the containers stacked in precise rows waiting to be loaded or stripped.
Three vessels sit in my control now.
Not rented. Not negotiated. Mine.
Each one runs a different route from South America on staggered schedules designed to avoid patterns.
Cargo manifests that read clean on paper, while the real product moves beneath false floors and sealed compartments.
From here, it goes north to Savannah, Charleston, New York, Bar Harbor, and eventually Canada, threading up the coast like arteries feeding an empire.
It’s efficient, quiet, and profitable. Exactly how Kazimir and I planned.
I pause near the edge of the dock, watching as a crew secures one of the ships. Voices carry across the water, a mix of English and Spanish, orders barked and answered without hesitation. They work fast. They know who signs their paychecks now.
Respect is already settling into place.
Good.
A flicker of movement catches my eye, bright and out of place on a working pier.
My gaze shifts automatically, irritation already forming at the idea of some tourist wandering too close to operations that don’t concern them. This stretch of pier is controlled, even if it doesn’t look it. People are allowed here, but only within limits.
I turn, arms crossed, ready to tell some frat boy or teenage girls to head back to the beach across the way and nearly choke.
Vivienne Baranov moves toward me like she stepped out of a different world entirely.
A long, flowing skirt that twists and winds around her thighs with every step. A fitted magenta one-piece beneath it. Oversized sunglasses. A wide-brimmed hat that shadows her face just enough to make her look like she belongs on a magazine cover instead of anywhere near my business.
She doesn’t slow when she reaches me, just lifts one hand, adjusts her sunglasses, and gives me a smirk that is entirely too knowing.
“Well,” she says lightly, voice smooth as glass, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I draw a breath through my nose, jaw tightening. “You’re supposed to be invisible.”
“I am invisible,” she replies without missing a beat, gesturing vaguely around us. “To men like them.”
A few dockworkers glance our way. Not because they recognize her, but because she stands out. She’s gorgeous and distracting, and I’m thoroughly ticked off.
But it’s exactly the kind of distraction that keeps people from looking too closely at anything else.
Vivienne tilts her head. “I have to blend in, Liev. This is Miami. If I walked around in black slacks and a blazer, I’d look more suspicious than anything else.”
My eyes narrow. “You’re following my wife, not attending a fashion show.”
“And your wife,” she says sweetly, “does not move through the city like a woman being watched. Which means I can’t look like someone doing the watching.”
She’s right.
That doesn’t mean I like it.
My gaze hardens as I study her, then shifts past her, scanning the pier again out of instinct. Nothing out of place. No immediate threats. Still, something in my chest feels off, a tension that hasn’t eased in days—even with Ryder safely at home and healing.
“Where has she been?” I ask, voice lower now.
Vivienne’s smirk fades.
There’s a shift in her posture, subtle but real, like she’s stepping out of a performance and into her true nature. She removes her sunglasses slowly, folding them in one hand.
“Busy,” she says.
That’s not an answer.
My jaw tightens. “Doing what?”
Her eyes meet mine, sharp and assessing. “Not what you think.”
That irritates me more than it should. I haven’t said it aloud, but part of me has been wondering if that brief jolt of jealousy has driven her into someone else’s arms. Into some past one-night-stand that she’s sought out again, though none of my previous intelligence on her ever identified a lover.
“She’s been acting differently,” I say, each word controlled. “Since the injury. Since you arrived.”
Vivienne watches me for a moment, then glances toward the workers again. Two of them are openly looking now, interest barely disguised.
“We should not be having this conversation here,” she murmurs.
“I asked you a question.”
“And I’m going to answer it,” she says, stepping closer, lowering her voice just enough that only I can hear. “But not with half your operation listening in.”
My patience is wearing thin.
She gestures down the pier with a tilt of her head. “There’s a bar further along. Seaside. Loud enough for privacy, quiet enough for a real conversation.”
I follow her gaze. I know the place. Casual, busy, filled with tourists and locals enjoying themselves too much to notice anything around them. A good place to disappear in plain sight.
Vivienne slips her sunglasses back on, already turning as if the decision has been made.
“Unless,” she adds over her shoulder, “you’d prefer I discuss your wife’s behavior in front of your employees.”
“Fine,” I snap.
She smiles again, satisfied, and starts walking without waiting for me.
I fall into step beside her, my presence enough to part the foot traffic as we move down the pier. The crowd thickens as we get closer to the bar. The sidewalk is filled with workers and people in beachy casual clothes, while laughter, chatter, and music fill the air.
It’s louder here. Messier. Public.
Vivienne fits into it seamlessly.
I don’t. Not in my work pants and boots, and grease smudge on my neck from helping move a container earlier. I check the contents against the manifest, the real one, not the doctored version the state will get.
My focus stays on the tension beneath her carefully constructed ease, on the fact that she hasn’t given me a straight answer yet.
Ryder has been different lately.
Quieter in some ways. Sharper in others. Like she’s moving toward something I can’t see yet.
I don’t like that.
As the bar comes into view, open-air and crowded, I slow slightly, forcing Vivienne to match my pace.
“Start talking,” I say under my breath.
She glances at me, lips curving faintly.
“Buy me a drink first,” she replies. “Then I’ll tell you where your wife has really been.”
* * *
She sits at a small table near the edge of the bar that has a clear line of sight to both the entrance and the water.
It’s smart to always be aware of the exits, even if she’s dressed like she belongs in a travel advertisement.
I take the seat across from her, back angled just enough to keep the room in my peripheral.
A server appears. Vivienne asks for something cold and citrus without looking at the menu. I order whiskey.
When we’re alone again, the noise of the bar settles around us. It’s loud, upbeat music and small groups of people in their early twenties laugh and harass one another. Out on the water, jet skis spray spouts of water into the air.
“Talk.”
Vivienne rests her elbows lightly on the table, fingers laced. For a moment she studies me, like she’s deciding how much information to give.
Then, she simply says, “She’s been at the clinic.”
The tension in my chest loosens.
A clinic?
Not a rival, not out actively betraying me. Just…a clinic.
“For what?”
Vivienne lifts one shoulder in an easy shrug. “Follow-up, I assume.”
I watch her carefully.
“She was injured,” she adds, as if that explains everything. “Knife wound to the leg, remember? She’s likely just visiting the clinic for a final check.”
That tracks.
It’s logical. Clean. The kind of explanation I prefer.
Still, there’s something in the way she says it that makes me question her answer. It’s too smooth and too quick.
“You’re sure that’s all it is.”
She waves a hand dismissively, already leaning back as the drinks arrive. “Liev. Not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes a woman goes to a clinic because she was knifed.”
I don’t like being dismissed.
But I take the glass anyway, letting the burn of the whiskey ground me as I consider it. Despite all her protesting, maybe Ryder really did understand how serious her wound was, and maybe it scared her a little.
Which means she hasn’t been avoiding me.
Vivienne takes a sip of her drink, then glances at me quickly. Just once.
It’s subtle, but I catch it and file it away.
We don’t speak for a while after that.
The silence isn’t uncomfortable. It stretches between us easily, filled by the noise of the bar and the steady rhythm of the coast. For a few minutes, I allow myself to sit and take in the scenery.
I watch the way people drift in and out, the way sunlight catches on the water beyond the railing, and the constant motion of a place that never fully slows.
Vivienne exhales softly.
“I can see why people come here,” she says.
She’s looking out toward the water, expression less guarded than usual. Thoughtful.
“The States,” she continues. “It’s different. Lighter.” Her lips curve faintly. “I don’t miss Russia…not anymore.”
There’s no bitterness in it. Just a statement.
I nod once. “You weren’t meant to stay there.”
“No,” she agrees quietly. “I don’t think I was.
” We don’t talk about what her youth was like, but I know the rumors.
She was only twelve when she was assigned her first kill on her father’s orders.
He died shortly after, targeted by a rival who took over for a few months until he was killed.
Vivienne got used to all the gore and death as much as a child could have.
She was raised in it, so she made herself indispensable to survive.
She turns back to me, tapping a finger lightly against her glass. “I’ve been considering staying.”
That gets my attention. “With the Bratva,” she clarifies. “As you expand.”
The implication is clear: not temporary or passing through, not visiting a cousin. Permanent.
“That would be useful,” I say carefully.
Vivienne smiles, amused. “You mean valuable.”
“Yes.”
She leans forward slightly, lowering her voice. “You’re not the only one building something here, Liev. Kazimir has Savannah. You have Miami. But if this continues, and the Bratva spreads the way we intend, there will need to be more structure.”
“More leaders,” I agree.
“More Pakhans,” she says. “More alliances. More wives to create legacies.” The last thing Vivienne wants is to be a wife, but more Pakhans means more work for her.
My jaw tightens slightly. She notices.
Vivienne tilts her head, studying me with open curiosity now. “Which brings me to something I’ve been wondering.”
I take another sip of my drink. “Careful.”
She ignores the warning.
“Alyona doesn’t count,” she says plainly. “She’s Kazimir’s. She’s building his legacy. Those children will inherit Savannah.”
My grip on the glass tightens a fraction.
Vivienne doesn’t stop.
“So what about yours?”
There it is.
Direct. Unflinching.
Uncomfortable.
“I have a city,” I say flatly.
“And no one to inherit it,” she counters quickly. “But… you were given a wife.”
“Not given. She agreed to it.” I don’t like the insinuation that Ryder is a pawn or forced into this.
Silence stretches between us again, heavier this time.
“It is if I’m considering staying,” Vivienne continues calmly. “I don’t attach myself to unstable structures.”
My patience thins. “Miami is not unstable.”
“No,” she agrees. “You are.” Vivienne doesn’t look away.
“You’ve spent your life building power,” she continues, voice quieter now but still sharp. “Power without succession is temporary. You know that.”
I do.
Of course I do.
I just haven’t—
My phone vibrates against the table.
The interruption is abrupt enough that I seize it without hesitation, grateful for the shift. The screen lights up with a message.
Nika. He’s now Kazimir’s right-hand man in Savannah, taking over my place. Young, but capable.
I open the message.
He’s coming a day early. Be ready.
Vivienne watches the shift in my expression, reading it instantly. “What is it?”
I don’t answer right away. But eventually I murmur, “A change of plans. Timeline moving up.”
“Does Ryder know?”
I shake my head once.
“No.”
Vivienne exhales slowly, leaning back in her chair. For the first time since she arrived, there’s no humor in her expression.
“That’s a mistake,” she says.
“I’ll handle it.”
“No,” she replies, firm now. “You’ll tell her.”
My eyes snap to hers.
“She’s your wife,” Vivienne continues evenly. “Not a subordinate. If you want her to stand beside you, if you want this marriage to function as anything other than a leash, don’t keep things like this from her.”
My jaw tightens.
“She’ll find out anyway,” Vivienne adds. “And when she does, and didn’t come from you, think about how that plays out.”
I don’t need to. I already know. I’ve seen what my little wife does when she feels blindsided.
Vivienne holds my gaze a moment longer, then softens just slightly. “Treat her like a partner,” she says. “Or she’ll become your enemy.”
I look back down at my phone, at the words that just shifted the board again.
Hinto Moreno will be in Miami. Tomorrow.