The Score (9 page)

“If you enjoyed the sport so much, why not?”

“Responsibility, baby. I did wrong, so something I enjoyed was taken from me. For every cause, there is an effect. I needed to deal with that. At the time, I didn’t see it that way, but I understand now.”

Viviana mulled over her thoughts for a moment. “You weren’t drunk that night.”

“Not to a blackout point,” Anton agreed. “I probably wouldn’t have driven myself home, but I asked Jen, and she confirmed I only had maybe five orders brought for me.”

Then, Viviana had another sobering thought. Sometimes with Anton you had to ask the right questions to get the right answers. It was likely she didn’t ask the right one earlier to get what she needed to know from him.

“You haven’t gone looking for answers from Natalie, but has anyone else?”

Tension thickened in the room. “Yes.”

“And?” she pressed.

“No one could find her. Word was put out, but nothing has come back. Her uncle says the family hasn’t heard from her, either.”

That didn’t bode well. Viviana had been made aware a little over a year ago that there was a serious investigation going on around her husband and his possible involvement in the death of her uncle, as well as the Belovs. When she asked Anton about it, he’d been honest about what he knew they had, and what he knew they didn’t.

More evidence, that’s what they need and don’t have
, he’d said.

“Do you remember talking to her?” Viviana dared to ask.

“I remember being confused,” Anton replied, repeating his earlier words. “She touched me, my body liked it, wanted it, but my head and heart didn’t. I wanted more, and I wanted her to stop. She didn’t look like you, or feel like you, but I was still physically reacting, like I couldn’t help it. There’s a difference between knowing the reaction a certain drug will give you, recognizing that you’re experiencing it because you took it, and having it surprise you because you didn’t do it willingly. Mixed with alcohol, some things have a worse effect the morning after. Memories get mixed up or forgotten. The hangover is doubled, and so on.”

Viviana forced herself to breathe. “I was under the impression the feds had yet to be able to infiltrate your family.”

“They’ve tried. Once or twice, but we always got wind of who, or what, was happening. Women would have been useless for me, because they couldn’t get close enough to gain my attention or respect. Certainly not enough to have me talk about Bratva business. I never would have suspected a woman in my club unless it was confirmed by someone else.”

“You told me the feds needed more,” Viviana said, fisting her hand and hitting her knuckles against his chest, frustrated. Tears welled in her eyes, the same tears that reflected in her husband’s above. “You said we didn’t have to worry!”

“The morning after that night, they had more, Vine.”

“Would they really do that? Take it so far as to drug you to get what they needed for the investigation?”

“They need something,” Anton said as if that explained it all. “Without some substance for their work, they’re stuck paying for the protection of another person for the rest of their life, no matter if they got information or not. It’s a lot of waste if they end up getting nothing. And she would need protection, because they know I will kill her if I find her, Vine.”

Viviana sucked in air like it was a drug. She couldn’t seem to take in oxygen fast enough to satisfy her lungs. She’d spent so long blaming Anton, when she didn’t really understand or know all of the circumstances. What had she done?

“Don’t, Viviana,” Anton whispered. “I know that look, so just don’t.”

“But—”

“Do not use that as the reason why you forgive me. Do you hear me? Don’t use that. It’s not an excuse. What happened was not acceptable. I put myself in a position—trusted someone I didn’t know—when I was raised better. You were right, I allowed that woman to somehow get close to me. She touched me, she was on me—”

“Stop it,” Viviana snapped, wiping away the tears on her cheeks. “Jesus, stop.”

Anton’s grip on her waist tightened, shutting Viviana up. “Look at me, baby. I need you to hear this and understand. My body reacted to that woman, but I didn’t want her. I’m sorry I don’t have more answers. Forgive me because you love me. Because you trust me. Not because she tricked or cornered me. I need to know when I walk out of this house, you’re not worried I’m running around on you and that you know I love and want only you. You are the only woman who has
me
. Just you.”

Viviana forced the tears to stop so she could look at her husband. She would only ask him one more time. “Did you have sex with her, Anton?”

“I don’t know. I washed every bit of her off me that morning. I didn’t want to believe that I did that to you. Is that your breaking point, Vine? Is this where you have to draw your line for us? Because if it is, if not knowing and understanding the possibility that you may never know is something you can’t handle, I need for you to be honest with me.”

Was it?

“And if it was?” she asked, trembling.

Anton finally let the tears he’d been holding at bay release. They weren’t easy tears. Just watching him shaking from the force of his weighted sobs nearly broke her. His fingers dug into her sides, holding her tighter and closer to his own body. Anton bowed his head and buried his face into Viviana’s chest. Silently, she let him cry and held him all the while.

For the first time, Viviana finally heard him. All that guilt and regret he talked about, the things he didn’t know but wished he did for her, and that love she felt radiating off him every moment of the day … Viviana heard Anton.

She so needed to hear him.

“I would let you go, baby. I would give you everything of mine you wanted, let you take my son, and I would say nothing. I’ve hurt you, I know. It’s the one thing I never wanted to do, so the least I could do for you is say goodbye and give you the promise I wouldn’t hurt you more. If that’s what you need from me, tell me now.”

“No,” Viviana said, strong and sure. “That’s not what I want.”

All of the sadness, hurt, and anger Viviana had felt washed through her again. Instead of fighting the feelings off, she allowed herself to experience them. She deserved to be angry with Anton if she wanted, to be hurt over his bad choices, and sad for what it cost them.

Above all else, she trusted her husband and forgiveness sometimes came in different forms than the obvious ones. She would continue to give him that faith, because she believed in the life they built for themselves surrounded in their devoted, smothering love that no one else could possibly ever understand.

Viviana dug her fists into Anton’s shoulders. His hands at her sides slid underneath her back, slipping up under the camisole to lay flat to her skin. Anton still rested between her thighs and despite how studiously she’d been ignoring her body’s response to his position and closeness before, she couldn’t any longer.

Tender kisses dotted her chest, trailing up to her throat. Every so often Anton’s tongue stuck out against her flesh, causing Viviana to shiver. The thin fabric of Viviana’s sleep shorts and Anton’s boxer-briefs did nothing to hide the hard length of his erection pressing to her sex. Just the feeling alone had her stomach clenching with need and every nerve in her body lighting up with sparks of want.

“Vine, Vine, Vine,” Anton chanted, his mouth dancing dangerously close to hers. “I love you.”

“Just me.”

“Just you,” he echoed.

Instinctively, Viviana legs tightened around Anton’s waist as he moved up higher on her body. Leaning down, he caught her mouth with his own. The kisses that were shared between them since Viviana asked him home had been sweet, practiced, or gentle. They didn’t speak of desire or wake up the raging flood of lust that currently electrified Viviana’s insides. They were careful, and filled with hesitance. Nothing like the dominating, consuming battle Anton’s kiss waged on her now.

The sensation of his cock grinding along her core as he grabbed her face, kissed her harder, deeper, had Viviana gasping into his mouth. Wide-eyed, she watched him pour everything he felt, wanted, and needed into his kiss.

I love you
, it said.

I need you
, it promised.

Forever.

“Only ever you,” Anton said, nipping her bottom lip. “Let me show you, Vine. Let me love you like I do.”

A whimper left Viviana’s lungs before she could stop it. “
Please
.”

In quick movements, Anton had lifted Viviana up to the mountain of pillows behind them so quickly that she barely had time to register the change. The strength in the actions left her breathless and dizzy. With his hands on either side of her jaw, Anton rolled his thumbs along her cheeks, and Viviana sank into the affectionate touch with a sigh.

“Kiss me again,” she demanded.

He did, bruising her lips with his own. The stubble on his jaw scratched against her smooth skin, surely leaving behind a redness she would see in the morning. The wetness still edging along his lashes from his earlier tears smeared to hers. She could feel his body, from the strong muscles in his back, to the hands he used to yank her shorts down to her knees, trembling.

“Too long,” Anton growled into Viviana’s mouth. It had been so damned long, she knew. “I want you so fucking bad, baby. Tomorrow I’ll love you slow, with my mouth and my fingers. Over and over. I’ll taste you hot and heavy on my tongue, get me smelling like you all over, but tonight I just want
you
.”

“Take me, then.”

Anton didn’t waste time pulling the shorts away from her legs, or getting the camisole off, either. The boxer-briefs he wore were tugged down and kicked off, giving Viviana the best view of his thick cock, hard and ready for only her. Like it always had, her body responded to the rough and frantic nature of the lead up. Anton’s two fingers sliding between her thighs to feel the warm wetness smearing along the seam of her pussy had her moaning.

Skillfully, he spread the arousal from her sex, sinking his digits in knuckle deep before pulling them out just as fast. “Soaked already, baby. Fucking
beautifully
.”

Under his urging, Viviana spread her thighs wider until her legs ached and her muscles were an inch away from protest. The pain only added to her excitement. She wanted more, so much more of that, and him. Abruptly, Viviana found her chin pinched between Anton’s forefinger and thumb, forcing her to stare at him. She couldn’t fucking think to look anywhere else.

Then, his hand between their bodies was grazing her pussy again, and so was his cock.

Viviana didn’t have the time to react before he took her. Three hard, sharp thrusts found his cock seated inside her core to the hilt. The surprise of the sudden intrusion made Viviana cry out in a mixture of pleasure and pain. Breathing or thinking became impossible. Heat saturated her skin from the inside out, and it only seemed to get hotter.

She was so impossibly filled with Anton. The sensitive tissues of her sex stretched, flexing around his length to accommodate what had been so long in the making. Viviana shifted her hips, tilting her neck back, and gasping in a lungful of air into burning lungs. Every nerve in her body that craved Anton had awakened with a vengeance.

There was a very thin precipice of sanity that Viviana was dancing on, and she couldn’t quite bear it.

“I
can’t
… Oh, God …”

“Shhh,” Anton whispered, kissing at the corner of her mouth. “Just a moment, Viviana. Feel me. Relax and take me.”

Slowly, the muscles clenching fist tight around his cock impaling her started to release. Pleasure licked through her blood like fire as Anton began to withdraw. When his fingers dug into the inside of her thighs, squeezing tight enough to leave marks, Viviana was lost. She found her own purchase against his back, her fingernails scoring lines along the tattoo of her he revered so privately.

Anton’s restraint finally broke. The chain holding him back snapped. Their rhythm was punishing. The only sounds echoing in the darkened bedroom were the slaps of skin of skin, the drag of her teeth on his jaw, and the heady groans that built with every powerful stroke of Anton’s body into hers.

Viviana would like to say their first intimate encounter after everything was slow and loving. She would like to say the touches were sweet and soft. That would be a lie. They never had been that way, not when they needed more than they wanted.

Instead, it was wild and unforgiving. His fingers fisted into her hair, exposing her neck for him to kiss and bite while she clawed lines along his arms and shoulders in her release—deep enough to draw blood. There’d be marks on both their bodies that would stay for days.

Dirty. Beautiful.

She fucking ached like this.

Anton made her so goddamned crazy.

Viviana wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Chapter Eight

“Has Ivan ever had an affair?”

Even with the large framed, dark sunglasses shielding her eyes from the brightness of the day, Viviana knew Eva was watching her like a hawk all of the sudden. Eva, Ivan’s wife, was one of Viviana’s few female friends. When she needed a day off, or just a woman’s company, Eva was who Viviana usually called on. The woman was also the wife of a Bratva man, like Viviana was, so their conversations weren’t as stilted or stunted as they were with women who sported husbands that weren’t affiliated.

“Why?” Eva asked. “Do you think Anton is fucking around on you?”

“Beautifully asked,” Viviana said with a quiet laugh. “The tact you have, I can only dream of.”

“No need to beat around the bush, right?”

“No, I guess not.”

“So, is he?” Eva questioned, lifting her glasses from her eyes.

“No,” Viviana replied. Of that, she was most sure.

“Women who believe in the fidelity of their husbands don’t usually question other women about the fidelity of theirs, Vine.”

Viviana swallowed her pride and decided to tell Eva about the situation with Anton and Natalie. She didn’t leave details out, even including the situation regarding Natalie’s disappearance, the likelihood of Anton being drugged, and how it all possibly related to his recent arrest. Her friend stayed quiet as she spoke, watching their children play in the indoor play park.

“Did you know there was a time when Bratva men didn’t believe in marriage?” Eva asked when Viviana finished.

“Sasha mentioned it once, but she didn’t go into any depth about it.”

Eva hummed low, nodding. “Men like Anton’s grandfather’s father, the generation before him, and so on. They were strict on that. Women held the man back. She was his weakness, especially if he loved her. Children were another thing they didn’t make an attempt to have, either. Whores, however, were something entirely different. They could have many women, but they couldn’t attach themselves to them. If a child was a product of one of those relationships, it was the woman’s responsibility to raise it. A man couldn’t claim the child as his.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point, is that Anton’s grandfather, or even Ivan’s father, probably grew up watching their father’s fuck around on their mothers, if their fathers were around to take care of them in any real way. It was commonplace for a man to have mistresses. Why wouldn’t it be assumed the next generation of men who had been taught that was okay, think it was acceptable for them, too?”

Eva had a point. People were a product of their raising.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Viviana pointed out.

“I didn’t.” Eva leaned back in her chair with a frown, the tabletop suddenly gaining most of her attention. “If it had been a onetime thing, some girl he just met, screwed, and was done with, it might have been easier for me. Instead, it was a woman he’d known for years—one he loved. If she was a stronger woman, Ivan would have married her, but that was why they didn’t work out in the first place. He didn’t simply have sex with another woman, he had an entire relationship built with her. Around our marriage, of course.”

Viviana stared at her friend, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry.”

Eva waved the apology off. “Don’t be. We were young and stupid. Our first daughter was just a baby. The marriage we built wasn’t a partnership, but a game of sorts. He hurt me, so I hurt him. Enemies sharing a bed. I hated him as much as I worshiped him. We fucked, we fought. That was it, really. It wasn’t healthy.”

The couple Eva spoke about wasn’t the one Viviana knew. Ivan adored his wife and their three daughters. The respect he showed her, many men could learn from. At times, his devotion could rival Anton’s, and that was saying something.

“I understood why it was her, though,” Eva continued. “She was his past—the woman he had intended to marry long before he met me. Someone who had gotten under his skin in the best and worst way. Essentially, she was to him what Ivan was to me.”

“That’s not an excuse, Eva. He married you.”

“I can assure you, as much as it tore Ivan apart, it is possible to love more than one person at a time in a romantic way.” Eva shrugged, picking up her to-go cup of coffee and taking a sip. “Things that appear simple rarely are.”

“You said she was a weak woman,” Viviana said, wondering what that meant exactly.

“In her head, she was unhealthy. Mentally unstable and had been for years. From what I understood, she battled depression her entire life.”

Viviana didn’t like where this was going at all, but she stayed silent, anyway.

“That doesn’t make a person weak,” Eva added with a pointed look, “…don’t get me wrong, that’s not what I mean. What made her weak was that she used it to her benefit. Threatening to hurt herself, or worse, to bring him back, even when she knew he had a child, and a wife he loved. She wouldn’t let him go, and Ivan felt responsible. I was just … lost.”

“What changed?” Viviana wondered.

“One day the threats weren’t threats anymore, Vine.”

Oh.

“And Ivan?”

Eva blinked away the shininess from her gaze, dropping the sunglasses back down in place. “He grieved. I let him. What else could I do?”

Viviana watched the four children make another round on the rubber floor surrounding the play park. Ivan and Eva’s oldest daughters towered over little Demyan and Gia. The two girls were only a year apart in age, which meant to Viviana that while Ivan and Eva had been struggling with the consequences of an affair, they somehow managed to have another child in the process.

“That must have been hard,” Viviana murmured, staring at the second oldest girl.

“Hmm, what?”

“To have another child while struggling with the possibility of your marriage breaking down, and things. A different woman would have walked away and cut her losses. Hell, I would have walked away, Eva.”

“Chrissy is not my biological daughter, Vine.”

Shock poured over Viviana like a bucket of cold ice water. Frantically, she tried to catch up to speed without seeming like an idiot. “Ivan’s and the other woman?”

Eva nodded once. “I didn’t know until after, of course. It was the one thing Ivan kept from me the whole time. Ivan brought her home that day, Vine. He brought her home to where she belonged so that she could be loved and cared for, not used as a bartering chip between her parents. And I love her just the same as my other two because she needs and deserves a mother—a good mother. People know. Anton does, for example. It’s not something you can hide, suddenly having a six month old daughter in your arms.”

“Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“Why would they?” Eva asked back, but she didn’t sound harsh. “I adopted her the moment I was able. I share her last name. I love her and her father. She doesn’t know, either, and I don’t want her to.”

“Why did you forgive him?”

“Because I love him, so I chose to trust him.”

“Doesn’t that make us weak, though?”

Eva smiled. “No, it makes us strong enough to see the truth and fight for it.”

***

“Your music is garbage.”

The Seether song whining through the speakers was turned down.

“It is not,” Anton argued, flipping Ivan the bird behind his back.

Ivan snorted. “I hope you don’t let Demyan listen to this.”

“Actually, I do. It’s not my fault my child has taste, Ivan.”

Demyan could listen to whatever in the hell he wanted for music, as long as it was music and not The Wiggles, or some other vomit-worthy kid crap. Three Days Grace was a particular favorite of his son’s, but the kid also shared Anton’s love of Metallica. Demyan would crawl into a corner, play with his toys while his father worked out, and simply listen. The boy liked music. There was nothing wrong with that.

Like father, like son.

“Don’t you worry he’s going to repeat some of this?” Ivan asked.

“So? Does letting my child listen to his choice in music make for bad parenting?”

“I’m not saying it does, man. But his daycare might think differently.”

Anton didn’t give a shit about the opinions coming out of Demyan’s daycare. Ever since Anton was arrested, the high-priced, hand-me-down-riches daycare wouldn’t even allow his child to return. It didn’t look good on them, they said. Other parents were concerned about how Demyan might affect their children.

Right
. The toddler with a mobster father was sure to be a bad influence, what with his preference for loud music, the occasional shot of apple juice, and matchbox cars. Whatever. Give Demyan a decade of growing up in the Bratva way, and Anton knew they’d know what a bad influence really was. Then, he might actually accept their bullshit. Right now, he was just a baby practically.

Anton refused to play into their high society games. He swallowed the tuition lost, having his son blacklisted from all the other daycares of the same standard, and said screw it. Everything Demyan learned was taught from his mother and father, anyway. That daycare had done little but introduce his son to some of the children of New York’s richest. That was it, really.

Eventually, Demyan would rub elbows with those same kids all on his own.

“The daycare kicked him out for being my son,” Anton finally said.

“Why didn’t you tell me? They’d have had a lawsuit shoved down their throats so fast they wouldn’t have known what was choking them.”

“It’s not important. Vine was pissed off, but she knows it’s better to leave it alone.”

Anton shrugged, stepping away from the punching bag. After un-taping his knuckles, he pulled off the T-shirt he wore and reached for the towel to wipe the sweat off his face and neck.

“Jesus, Anton,” Ivan exclaimed.

Anton looked over his shoulder at his friend with a furrowed brow. “What?”

“Did you fall on a cat, or what?”

A devilish smirk formed on Anton’s lips before he tossed the towel back to the bench. Seven Lights was still a no-go for Bratva business, and they hadn’t been able to open the place back up for regular business quite yet, so meetings were required to be held elsewhere. Anton decided to take a week and chill in an attempt to get some of the media and stress off his back, so his home seemed like the best place to do that.

“No, not a cat. Call her kitten, though, and the claws really come out.”

Fuck, there were a particular set of scratches along his neck that stung like nothing else every time he turned his head, but Anton loved it.

“Are you two …?” Ivan trailed off with a lift of his brow.

“Getting there.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Yep.”

That was a bit of an understatement, but Anton wasn’t in the mood to discuss his sex life with his friend. Over the last week, things with his wife were great. More than, even. They could talk, or be quiet if they needed. Neither held back if something was bothering them. Sexually, well …

Anton was exhausted from keeping his wife up at night the way he liked best or being woken up by her early in the morning, he was sore as hell in the best ways, and he was fucking
satisfied
with it all. It’d been far too long since he could say that and mean it. Yes, they were rough, like they were fighting to find the softness in sex again, but that was just fine, too.

Reviving the physical intimacy with Viviana seemed to help her, as well. The depression was starting to wane, Anton noticed. She wasn’t as quiet and she was actually starting to discuss the possibility of going back to the bookstore.

Anton sympathized with Viviana on that one, though. While the small amount of blood she had lost there was cleaned, and everything was back the way it was, it was the memory of knowing their baby was gone in that place she couldn’t get rid of. Anton wasn’t about to push his wife to go back to work if she wasn’t emotionally ready to do so.

“Do we have a trial date?” Anton asked.

“Not a definite one, but it’ll be within two or three months. That’s the best approximation I can give.”

Anton was starting to get nervous over his upcoming legal issues. This wasn’t some little case about him being involved with dealing drugs or guns. It wasn’t about him being suspect in something worthy of a few years’ probation. No, this was his life on the line.

“There is no way in hell I am looking at a ten by eight cell for the rest of my life, Ivan.”

“You’re panicking.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Anton snapped back.

Ivan shrugged and took a seat on the weight bench. “Sure, but we have a while to get our plan perfected. Besides that, you’ve been staying out of trouble and whatnot.”

“They did a fucking press conference yesterday. Talking about taking a stand on crime in New York and cleaning up the dirt in the city. All the while, we both know the mayor is sitting in his office having his cock sucked by a ten-thousand dollar a night whore and getting the blow I import delivered to him on the city’s key. This city is so damned corrupt, the last thing they have to worry about is
me
.”