The Score (7 page)

“Not for me,” Viviana whispered. “It’s not.”

“You’re so quiet, sometimes. You won’t even look at me, and it’s killing me. All I want to do is hug you, hold you, care for you …
anything
. I need to and I can’t because you won’t let me. I’m dying here. Tell me what you need from me and I’ll do it. Just fucking
tell
me
.”

Without even thinking about it, Viviana blurted, “I need you here.”

Anton waved his hands at the hall and shrugged. “I’m here. I’ve been here every day, no matter what.”

Viviana nodded because she knew it was true. “I need you closer.”

Three short steps later and Viviana was staring into teary blue eyes. “What else, Vine?”

“I need you to want me, Anton. To talk to me, to touch me, and to be here when I wake up, and when I go to sleep. I don’t want to feel like this is my fault, but I do. I don’t want to think you blame me, but I can’t help it. I need to not be strong right now and for that to be okay with you. I’m so sick of trying not to cry and of being alone. I don’t want to be alone. I need you.”

“I can do that,” Anton murmured. “Anything you want.”

“Come home. Stay with me, please. Love me.”

Because he was the only one who could do that so fiercely, so wholly. Viviana felt lost without Anton.

Viviana didn’t need to say another thing. The coat was forgotten, hung up with the rest. Anton kicked both shoes off and tossed his Mercedes keys into the glass bowl on the stand. Then, he turned back to his wife with an opened palm, waiting. Viviana met his hand instantly, feeling the calming heat of his flesh siphoning into hers.

She let him lead her through their home, up to their room. It had been so long since they had been together, alone, in that space. Without a word, Anton began tugging at the sweater Viviana wore, pulling the heavy fabric off her frame to expose that she wore nothing underneath.

“Anton, we can’t,” Viviana said, remembering the doctor’s orders about waiting until the bleeding had stopped.

Anton shook his head, fingering the hem of the yoga shorts she wore. “Shush, baby. I don’t need that and neither do you. Just … let me hold you, huh? That’s what you need.”

So, she did just that. Anton pulled off his own clothes until he stood in nothing but boxer-briefs. Slowly, like he was making sure she still wanted his touch, he reached out for her hands, weaving their fingers tightly together. Then, he was stepping closer, pulling Viviana into his naked chest until every inch of their exposed skin was touching.

Warm—he was so warm. Like a blanket that covered, hid, and protected every bare nerve she had left. It ached, but it was so good, too.

Viviana listened to the shuddering exhale Anton released as he hugged her tighter.

“I’m sorry, Vine,” he said into her hair.

Strangely, she needed to hear that more than anything else.

***

Anton was never more relieved than when the feds finally took the tape off Seven Lights. They wouldn’t be able to do any Bratva business there for a while, but Anton still felt like he was missing his left hand without his club and office.

“Good to be back,” Ivan noted, kicking his feet up over the arm of the couch.

Anton agreed with a grunt, still surveying the damage the bastards had caused his office. “Where are Boris and Erik today?”

“Laying low. Keeping their noses clean and making sure everyone else is doing the same.”

“Fucking bastards. This whole doorjamb needs to be replaced,” Anton said.

“That’s nothing, Anton. All of this can be fixed quick enough. Sit down and relax for a minute, would you?”

That was the last goddamn thing Anton wanted to do. Even though he was enjoying having his club back to himself, he really just wanted to be home with his wife and son. Viviana was doing better a month after losing their second child in some aspects, and in others, she seemed to be moving backwards.

It felt like a losing battle.

“How’s Vine?” Ivan asked softly.

Anton flinched internally. Ivan was with him the day Demyan called and followed him to the bookstore when Anton rushed over there. They couldn’t exactly hide what had happened from their good friend, not that he would have, of course. Most others didn’t know, except for Anton’s mother.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Ivan. Just leave it alone, it’s private. That’s how we want to handle it.”

“I’m not asking about the miscarriage, I’m asking about her for you. My friend. It’s been a month, man. Is the depression any better?”

Anton’s snort was derisive. “Depends on what you mean, I guess.”

“Well, you’re home,” Ivan noted.

Thank fucking God for that
, Anton thought. “She needs me. I need her. It works.”

“So why do you look like somebody just kicked your puppy?”

“I don’t know what else to do to help her, that’s all. She’s hurting, but she talks. She’s depressed, but she gets up, works, takes care of Demyan and does all she needs to do.” Anton shrugged, feeling a heavy weight on his shoulders. “I mean, it sucks. You don’t even get the time to enjoy having something before it’s taken away. The doctors can be so fucking callous, too. Telling her she can try for another when her cycle comes back, because it will help with the loss. Really? That’s kind of fucking ridiculous, I think. Just here, keep trying for another and everything will be better. But what do I know? It wasn’t me who lost the baby.”

“But you did, in a way,” Ivan added gently. “It was your child, too. One you wanted.”

Anton didn’t like to think of it that way. It wasn’t so black and white. “I didn’t bleed for weeks after, Ivan. I didn’t lay in our bed blaming and hating my body for betraying me. I didn’t cry like she did, or grieve. Does that make me awful, that even though I understand why she feels like she does, I can’t hurt over it like she did?”

“No, it makes you human. Everyone feels things differently. You’re the kind of man who handles your own emotional pain by taking care of those around you that you love. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Anton stayed silent, absorbing his friend’s words.

“Are you two … you know, sharing a bed, or just sharing a home?”

“Way to be vague,” Anton muttered under his breath.

“Did you want me to ask if you’re fuck—”

“Don’t be an idiot, Ivan. And no, we’re not. She had to wait a while, anyway. That time has passed, but I don’t think Vine’s quite ready for anything physical.”

Or maybe she was. Anton didn’t know. They shared a bed, sure, and he held her every chance he got, but he was terrified to make a move beyond that. What if doing so scared Viviana, or worse, pushed her away? He didn’t want her to feel as if he was pressuring her, or like sex was all he needed.

Though Anton did need it, in some ways. The best way he could love his wife, the one way he always knew how to let her feel it, was to physically show her.

“Maybe it’s me that’s not ready,” Anton confessed, letting the words slip out of the side of his mouth like they hadn’t existed in the first place. Ivan stayed quiet and let him continue. “I mean I am. I always want Vine like that, of course I do. I don’t have any indication she’s okay or ready for that. There’s no definite yes or no. I haven’t pushed her for it, or even asked. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Ivan said. “Perhaps you should, Anton. You said it. You need her. She needs you. It works. Maybe the physical side of it is what’s been missing because you haven’t been looking for it, hmm?”

Damn it. Now, Anton really just wanted to go home.

“Go, man.”

Anton turned on his heel. “What?”

“Go home. I’ll make a couple of calls to get this shit fixed. Go see your wife.”

Ivan didn’t have to tell Anton a second time.

***

“Are you sad, Ma?” Anton heard Demyan ask in his tired, groggy voice.

“Hmm, no, I’m not sad, baby. Why would you think I’m sad?”

Anton rested his shoulder against the hallway wall and waited out the conversation, though he knew he should probably leave. He couldn’t. He desperately wanted to hear what Viviana might tell their son, especially if it was something she hadn’t told him.

“You cry,” Demyan said.

Viviana breathed deeply. “Sometimes you have to.”

“Boys don’t cry. Uncle Erik said so. Only if you has a bad booboo.”

“Have, Demyan. And Uncle Erik doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Viviana muttered. “Boys can cry.”

“Papa doesn’t cry.”

The silence following Demyan’s statement was heartbreaking. Was that was Viviana needed from Anton? Emotion, honesty? To know the anguish he felt but didn’t understand what he was supposed to correlate it to? Anton wasn’t sure he knew how to do that.

Finally, Viviana whispered, “Yeah, I know. Okay, it’s nap time, little man. Papa will be home when you wake up, and you can ask him about boys and crying. All right?”

“Boys don’t cry, Ma,” Demyan repeated in all his two-and-a-half-year-old wisdom.

“Sure, sure. Sleep, baby.”

Anton could have slipped down the hall in lots of time for his wife to not notice his eavesdropping, but he didn’t. Viviana didn’t seem all too surprised to find him standing with arms crossed and staring at the floor either. The tired sadness roaming in her gaze as she passed him in the hall, saying nothing, tugged deep down in Anton’s soul. He followed her to their bedroom two doors down.

When the door shut behind him, Viviana sighed. “Boys don’t cry, Anton.”

Anton swallowed the immediate emotions that lodged in his throat like a stopped. “They do.”

“Funny, your son doesn’t seem to think so. I don’t know how I feel about that right now.”

“Boys cry,” Anton insisted quietly. “Sometimes they just do it in a different way, over different things. Not everything is black and white. There are shades of grey, too.”

Viviana tossed him a look over her shoulder as she began straightening the mess that had become the sheets on their bed. “Do you cry, then?”

Straight to the point, as always.

“More inside than out, I think.”

“That’s not the same,” Viviana said, a little too hotly for Anton’s liking.

“And you don’t get to tell me how to grieve.”

Viviana froze, the sheet in her hand falling to the bed. “I—”

“Let’s be clear on one thing, baby. I cry. I hurt. I’m so concerned about you that I’m stuck in my own goddamn head, and I can’t get out of it most days. Funny thing, though, I’m okay with that. Because when I hurt, and when I cry, it’s always for you.”

“Anton …” she said, taking a step forward.

Anton raised a hand to stop her. “I cry when the woman I love thinks that she’s failed me. Or that her body is somehow wrong. I cried when she hurt for losing something because it wasn’t just hers, but a part of me, too, even though she was so mad at me. I cried at night. I cried alone. You didn’t want to be strong, and I didn’t want you to see me weak. You needed to cry, to talk, to be angry, and to hurt. I let you. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the way you grieve over this, so why is it wrong for me to do it the way I need, Vine?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be. Just try to understand everything given at face isn’t always the value.”

Blowing out a harsh sound, Viviana shook her head. “I’m so fucking selfish.”

Well, Anton certainly wasn’t expecting that and he didn’t necessarily agree, either. “I don’t think you are.”

“No, of course you don’t. You love me.”

“You love me, too,” Anton shot back. “Are you saying the way you love me isn’t worth the same as mine? That it’s not as good?”

“No!” Viviana gasped. “God, you know how much I love you.”

Anton hummed his agreement, stepping close enough that he could reach out to snag her wrist in his palm. “You’re not a selfish woman. You never have been. I won’t be the one to call you that, or allow you to do it.”

“But I haven’t even been paying attention to you. I asked you home, to be with me, and I don’t even know what you’re thinking about half of the time. I haven’t bothered to ask.”

“Yes you do,” Anton insisted firmly, drawing Viviana closer into his embrace. With her face buried against his neck, and her soft lips pressing to his skin, he felt a million times better. “Maybe not with words, but in other ways. You let Demyan call me throughout the day. Not once have you fought with me about the charges, or the shit storm we’re facing with that. Even though I know you just want to lay in bed, you get up with me in the morning and talk. And when you talk, I don’t have to, Vine. Sometimes that’s just what I need.”

Anton tilted Viviana’s face up under his urging hands, swiping away the wetness on her cheeks with his thumbs. “You supported me, stood by me, even after you asked me to leave. With the feds, you didn’t let them bully you, and you still acted as my wife. Our son is kept happy—spoiled, if anything. You allowed me back into our home, you let me close to you. Those are the things I need.”

“And they helped, you know, with this,” Viviana said with a wave at her midsection.