Chapter 6 Ivan
IVAN
Through the chatter of dinner, bath time, some compulsory wrestling once the girls are in their pajamas, and five bedtime stories that nearly put me to sleep, I find myself grappling with my inner thoughts.
The pros and cons of the arranged marriage I’m expecting Milana to enter into, and the fact she’s been overwrought since coming back from Russia to New York.
I get it—so much has changed, but she hasn’t been here for most of it, and our position isn’t secure. Not by a long shot. I hate, loathe, despise that I’m going to do this to her, because hasn’t her welfare been my top priority from the day she was born?
Even worse, I hate that I’ve come to the point where I need to use my sister to cement a weak alliance. I’m not even convinced her union with Boryslav Petrenko will serve us well. We don’t have other options, though, not from where I’m standing.
I press a soft kiss to Katya’s and then Irisha’s cheek, chubby and perfectly framed by the angelic blond curls tumbling loose around their faces.
For one last minute, I enjoy the moment of having them right here, fast asleep and safe.
Then I scoot down the middle of my bed to not wake them and head to the walk-in closet and adjacent bathroom.
I need to wash off this day before I talk to Milana, clear my mind in some way.
With a fresh T-shirt and sleep shorts in hand, I pad into the bathroom and lock the door. I toss the clothes onto the vanity and strip, hanging my suit over the valet stand for Kostya, our do-it-all runner when he isn’t dealing with other shit, to send for dry cleaning in the morning.
As I unbutton my shirt, my skin reveals how I’m not the same man I was a year ago, either. Where my pecs and sides only sported a few insignificant cutting scars from knife fights I got while training, I now have two bullet wound scars glaring at me like devil’s eyes.
I finger them softly where they ripped into my flesh below my collarbone, so fucking close, half an inch down and I would have bled out.
Weird how the scarred skin feels dead, but emotions zap through me like a live wire.
The horror of the moment and what followed, what I had to do to survive.
The relief of having clung to life but mixed with foreboding.
These scars are a daily reminder of my mortality.
I should have bled out, but I desperately hung on because fuck knows, I couldn’t afford to die.
Who knows what would have become of my girls.
Until I’m dead, I’m just a mere mortal, and I have two precious daughters to protect.
I turn my back to the mirrored wall, not wanting to flex and ape away at myself like some self-obsessed gym bro, as I would have ten years ago.
At thirty-seven, and as the old Pakhan’s only son, life has shown me its jaws full of teeth, row upon row of sharp shark’s blades ready to shred.
Being in shape turned the tables in my favor, but I’m not out of the woods yet.
With a futile attempt to shrug off my morbid thoughts, I get into the shower and turn on the cold water.
I soap down, fist my cock languidly to see where the fuck it’s at.
It’s nowhere lately, but it’s going to have to arrive in full force once I have a woman back in my bed, and it will. I am, after all, a man in his prime.
I stroke it just enough to make sure I’m still alive then let go, edging myself, building up to a true fucking release and not just a half-assed consolation prize that comes with jerking off solo for too long.
Maybe tomorrow morning. Or tomorrow evening.
Maybe in two days’ time. Who the fuck cares.
I need the fucking tension to keep me pumped.
By the time I’m done and dressed, it’s past nine o’clock, and Milana should have called it a night. If I gauge correctly, she’ll be in the kitchen now, eating the dinner she avoided having with us, thinking I’m back in my office or have gone to bed.
I give my girls a last glance, making sure they’re fine, then head toward the kitchen. I circle past my office to pick up the photos that got delivered today. No waybill, no courier company. Just an old-fashioned hand delivery nobody noticed because we’re short-staffed.
Milana is sitting at the kitchen island, on her phone, fork in hand, but not eating. She should eat. She’s literally withering away in front of me.
Shit. What is marriage to Boryslav going to do to her? He’s our fucking cousin of all people.
“Milana.”
She startles and drops her fork, clutching her phone to her chest. “Blyad’, Ivan! Stop sneaking up on me like that.”
I wasn’t sneaking. She’s just so distracted lately.
“How’s the chicken bake?”
I eye her plate. She’s only poked at it. I know it’s tasteless, ready-made bulk from the supermarket’s freezer department and processed to hell and back. I should do better for my girls, but this is where we’re at. More reason to lock in a wife. Someone I can trust around food in this house.
Milana shrugs. “I didn’t slave away cooking it, so it’s fine.”
I wish she would wake up out of this haze and come back to us.
It breaks me to see her like this. We’re both hurting with heartache we share but can’t find a safe space to talk about because it would only hurt more.
For this, I should cut her some slack, but I can’t. Our situation is just too tenuous.
“What’s that?” she asks, eyeing the brown envelope in my hand.
Her pale skin loses the little color it had. Fuck. Now I can’t do it.
“Just a report I need to go through. Bed-time reading.” I toss the envelope onto the counter behind me and watch how her eyes track my movement, my feigned disregard, gauging if I might be lying. Fuck. We’re rebuilding trust. Now isn’t the time to ask hard questions. “Do you want some wine?”
“No, thank you.”
With a sigh, I settle on one of the other barstools and watch as she takes a bite. Yes, my love, eat, so you don’t have to talk.
“Boryslav has been here for two months, Milana. He wants to close the deal, and—”
“Well, I’ve only been back a week, getting used to this new status quo.
” She waves at the kitchen in general, encompassing the lack of staff, the general mayhem behind the gilded pretense I’ve clung to and managed to uphold.
“I’m not marrying Boryslav Petrenko. I want to go back to St Peterburg, tomorrow if I ca—”
“We don’t have a choice. And you can’t go back to Russia. Not until things have settled.”
She glares at me, swallows compulsively, then spears a broccoli floret as if it’s me, splitting it right in half. I refuse to wince.
“We need this. Papa isn’t going to get better. Our stepmother is exactly where I need her to be—”
“Out of your fucking hair and in rehab?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
I should have parked her there years ago. It’s rehab but comes with the option of being a long-stay facility for people with our stepmother’s profile, if you pay the right price. They keep her just high enough to not cause trouble. Yep, I’m that fucker.
The problem is, Milana doesn’t know half the shit that went down during her absence and what it took from me—from us Petrovs—to keep our position as the rulers of the New York and New Jersey Bratva, to once again have uncontested rule of our territory and for me to be deemed the rightful Pakhan to rule this area.
And that’s without this fucker trying to encroach on us.
“Boryslav was our darling stepmother’s suggestion two years ago, when things were still hunky dory,” she says as she pushes her half-eaten plate away.
“Since you now have her contained, I don’t see why I need to comply to any of her idiotic ideas anymore.
I came home, as you demanded, Ivan, but I can’t live here.
I can’t perform, I can’t have images of me on albums I’ve recorded, this incognito existence of a ghost—”
“Malyshka,” I cut in, understanding every last gripe she has with this life we were born into. Ever since she was two years old and our mom swept her back and forth between the Motherland and America, Milana hasn’t known her place.
It crushed me, too, having her and our mom ripped repeatedly from home from a young age.
I only realized much later it was the Pakhan’s way of preparing me for leadership and this life of emotional disconnect.
Yep, from early on, I was trained to be a cold motherfucker. And in our world, I need to be.
Now something else isn’t adding up. Our mom did the to-ing and fro-ing with Milana for a long time, until she died of cancer when we were too young for it. When Milana was younger, she loathed going to Russia. Now all she wants is to go back?
No. This makes zero sense.
“I need you. Katya and Irisha need you. You have to help out. Be present here, in mind and not just a body.” I steel myself—this has to be done. “I forbid you to go back to Russia.”
She blinks at me. In our world, my word is law. I can see rebellion stirring in her mind as she purses her lips, on the verge of challenging me. Or else what, Ivan? What exactly are you going to do to me if I disobey your orders and get on a flight?
She has no clue what I’m capable of.
“For all of that,” she bites out, “you don’t need me married to Boryslav Petrenko.”
“It’s an alliance,” I spell out, trying to keep my patience. “We need the manpower, here and in Russia.” I drop my gaze, not able to look her in the eye as I determine her fate. I’ve been in an arranged marriage once. It didn’t end well. “Was he here today?”
Rolling her eyes at me, she gets up. “No. And thank fuck for that.”
She scrapes the leftovers into the trash then puts her plate and silverware in the dishwasher. She’s giving me her back, fuming, and apparently, our conversation is over.
As she walks off with a barely whispered “Good night,” I quietly take measure.
It’s been four days since my sister’s fiancé has been here to check in with his betrothed.
One half of me is relieved I didn’t have to talk shop with the dickhead; the other half fists tight with dread.
There are many ways to skin a cat, and getting rid of this last lifeline for the Petrov Bratva would be an easy hit.
I speed-dial Yuri’s number as I stand to collect the brown envelope where I left it. Someone needs to find Boryslav and bring him here so he can explain why he hasn’t been paying my sister her due respects.
For all I know, Boryslav could have been bought, jumped ship, or even worse: gotten himself into trouble I need to go dig him out of.
Let’s face it, the fucker isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.