Chapter 34: Mikhail

I tear down the road like a madman on my motorcycle.

I’m going way past the speed limit and taking the corners too sharp, but I need to feel something other than mind-fucked.

I miss her.

I miss Adriana and everything about her.

I miss being buried deep inside her, touching her, being around her.

But I keep telling myself what I’m doing is for the best.

I keep telling myself staying away from her is for the best.

This way, I can focus on my work and what needs to be done.

This way, I can stop myself from falling for her and our marriage can be exactly what it was supposed to be. Business.

However, at no point has it been better for me because all I’m doing is driving myself crazy.

Like now.

Weeks ago, I never thought the princess had it in her to talk back to me with such defiance, much less speak to my staff the way she put Irena in her place.

She was right to.

I wasn’t lying when I told her I didn’t want an environment where the staff could socialize, but she was right to point out that I was doing exactly that.

Irena is a maid who was a friend to my sister. I gave her a job five years ago when she needed it after Talia split her work between Europe and the States.

Talia didn’t need a maid anymore, so I helped out when she asked. I tend to forget Irena works for me because of the length of time I’ve known her. I’m probably more easy-going with her, which sends the wrong message to everyone else. Including her. I’m certain she would have thought my interest ran deeper than professional on several occasions, and the looks of interest have not escaped me.

Unlike Ivan, who would fuck every nubile woman willing to ride his cock, I don’t. Contrary to what my wife believes, I have no interest in Irena.

I just wasn’t thinking I’d piss off my already pissed-off wife when Irena came up to talk to me.

The whole time she spoke to me, I struggled to concentrate because all I wanted to do was reach for the woman next to me I gave my name to and reacquaint myself with her body.

I have a wife.

Me.

A wife who smart-mouthed me in a way that would have warranted a spanking a few weeks back. There’s only one problem with punishment like that. It no longer works on those who have submitted, and worse, it doesn’t work if it turns into fun.

Then it becomes the prelude to fucking. I was on the verge of taking Adriana right there on the table and had to hold back.

The message from Eric snapped me back into focus.

We’ve been watching Ivan’s movements like hawks. Nothing has come up so far. My brother is a sneaky fucker. It’s hard to pin down what he’s up to.

Eric wants me to meet him because he found some figures and business transactions in the system that don’t look right.

He wants me to verify them because they look off.

It’s easier if I help with these finds because Ivan had to do my job when I was in the hospital.

It doesn’t take me long to get to get the hotel Eric is staying at.

One look at the transactions he’s found tells me something’s off. There’s a host of transactions going to an offshore account in Russia listed under the name of a recipient I don’t know. The only assumption there is Ivan’s stealing from the company or paying somebody for something. I’m inclined to believe the latter because a billionaire has no reason to steal from his own family business.

I spend a few hours going over the transactions and adding what I can to my compilation I want to take to my father.

He’ll be choosing the new leader in two weeks, so the clock is ticking. If I don’t find solid evidence against my brother to link him to my mother and sister’s murders, I want to find what I can to back up my suspicion.

I get home just before midnight, and instead of heading to the room I’ve been using attached to my office, I decide to check on the princess.

She’s sleeping, but she fell asleep on the floor by the window. Her head is resting on the wall, and she’s curled up against it at an awkward angle. I’d leave her to sleep, but I’d feel guilty for leaving her like that. So, I find myself picking her up off the floor and laying her on our bed.

Our bed.

It’s the first time I’ve thought of the bed as ours.

I expect her to stir, but she doesn’t. She barely even moves when I set her down on the stack of pillows. The dark circles under her eyes suggest she hasn’t slept properly in days.

That was the first thing I thought when I saw her earlier, right after I marveled at how beautiful she is.

The lack of sleep, bad temper, and confliction are because of me.

I’ve been going through the same thing. I torture myself further by lying next to her, and I think of what I should have done differently on the day I married her.

I should have taken her away on an actual honeymoon. Maybe flown her somewhere exotic. Or since she’s probably used to exotic from living in Mexico, I could have taken her to Russia, or somewhere else, like the Seychelles or Bora Bora.

I can imagine her walking across the white sandy beach in Bora Bora.

I think she would have liked to go there, even if she is used to exotic.

I should have done anything more than the nothing I did.

I run my gaze over her body and think of her as a work of art again. She’s the kind of woman you paint to preserve the memories of feelings and emotions.

The way my father used to paint my mother.

Christ.

Listen to me.

I lie there for a while, just for a little longer, to satisfy my need to be near her before I leave.

The next day, my father is the first person on my agenda to meet before I head out to Dmitriyev Ltd.

He wanted to talk to me first thing in the morning at nine sharp, at the lake house.

Situated on the bank of Lamoka Lake and built of wood, the house looks more like a cottage than the other neighboring homes and has always reminded me of something from a fairytale.

It wasn’t somewhere I went often because my parents wanted to keep it for themselves and away from everyone else.

No one would guess that a multi-billionaire owned it for its quaintness and simplicity, but my father opted for such to remind himself of the people he’d come from. Back in Russia in the old, old days of my great-great-grandfather, it would have been a cottage like this they would have lived in back in Saratov.

Saratov is one of the poorest cities in Russia, and they would have had to travel for days to get to western Siberia to work in the mines we now own.

My father’s guards’ car is parked out front on the drive. They aren’t inside it, a sign he probably spent the night here.

The front door of the house is open, waiting for me to walk in.

I park my bike beside the car and make my way into the house.

I find my father sitting on a wooden chair on the porch at the back gazing at the shimmering lake.

He doesn’t look away from the scenic view when I step out, but a smile dips the corners of his mouth.

“Good morning, my son.”

“Morning.”

“Everything okay at home?”

“It is.”

“And your wife?” He looks at me now, but I don’t know what to say.

He’s been different since the wedding. I think he might take pity on Adriana. I sense it.

“She’s fine.”

“That’s all good, son.” He returns his focus to the lake and smiles again. “What do you see when you look out at the lake?” he asks.

I know what he wants me to say, but I haven’t had that artistic vision in a long time, and I don’t want it now because I don’t want it to make me look like I’ve gone soft.

“Water.” I smirk.

“Smartass. Of course, there’s fucking water in the lake.” He laughs, then the seriousness returns to his face. “You and I don’t see things like that, though, do we?”

“No, Father.”

“Then tell me what you really see. Humor an old dying man.”

Old dying man.

I don’t want him to be dying. It’s okay for him to get old, but I don’t want him to go to the other side ever. But that is to come. We don’t have long left.

When that time comes, I’ll never have days like this again. There will just be me until Sophia goes, too. She’s not that much younger than my father.

I decide to humor him and look out to the lake again. Of course, I never just saw water in the first place. So, I choose to tell him what I see.

“In the shimmer of the sunlight touching the surface, I see a fire-breathing dragon rising from the chasm of hell. It has great black wings and long, sharp teeth and eyes as red and blazing hot like the infernal fire raging from its mouth.”

He nods and smiles again. “That’s better. Now sit.”

I sit in the chair in front of him, and his eyes meet mine.

“You shouldn’t have allowed your brother to stop you from doing something you loved. Painting was as much a part of you as it was for me.”

The mention of my brother has me seething, and I wish I could tell my father what I fear about Ivan.

“It seemed like a necessary thing to do at the time,” I say.

“That’s nonsense, boy. Complete nonsense. I hope you’ll find your muse again someday, because no matter what I decide for the company and leadership of the brotherhood, you’re going to need little things like that.”

“It’s just art, Father.”

“You want to know the secret to being a great Pakhan?” he asks, and I nod. “You need balance. Little things like art help you escape reality. We are the Baranov. There is always going to be a threat to us. That is the life we have chosen to live in the Bratva. Little things like art help keep you sharp.” He pauses for a beat. “You can’t always take, divide, and conquer. You have to know when to do certain things and when not to. That’s what makes you sensitive to different situations. That’s how you outsmart others when they come to take you down and how you come out on top.” He balls his hands into fists.

“What if the thing that balances you makes you weak?”

He shakes his head. “It can never make you weak. Something else is to blame for that.”

“Like what?”

“Fear. In the Bratva, we spend so much time trying to not look weak, we’re all afraid of someone discovering our weaknesses. We fear looking soft when we love, or we indulge in what we love. I have been Pakhan for over twenty years, and the things that balanced me never weakened me. I built an empire based on it and took what I already had and turned it into something legendary.”

He’s right. No other Pakhan has done what he has for both the company and the Brotherhood.

He gazes back out to the lake. I wonder what he sees when he looks out there. He’s looking like he can see something, so I ask.

“What can you see, Father?”

He returns his gaze to me. “Her. Your mother. I always see her in everything. Now more than ever that she’s gone. She balanced me, too. I’ve been avoiding coming out here since her death.”

“How come you wanted to meet here then?”

“Because of the things I want to discuss with you. I have things to tell you I feel you should know. Things to do with your brother and his past.”

My interest piques. “What sort of things?”

“Secrets and lies, my secrets and lies he’s never forgiven me for.”