The Life (28 page)

“Yeah, but the bloodline can’t be disputed, and it needs to come from the father’s side.
My child doesn’t have a lick of Italian from me.” Anton grinned smugly, catching the freshly cut cigar Boris tossed over the desk. “He gets just enough from his mother to color him up. Even with that, Demyan’s perfect.”

“So says the father he came from,” Erik said with a snort. “You wait till he turns into you. Wrecking every vehicle you could get your hands on, getting kicked off the baseball team for handing out ecstasy in the locker room, and running with girls whose daddies were one step
away from putting a bullet in your ass. You might not think he’s so perfect, then, boy. God knows Daniil was ready to lay a well-deserved licking down on you more than once for the stunts you pulled growing up.”

Anton’s arm ached at the reminder. No, he had managed not to take a bullet in his backside, but the one that all but lodged in his shoulder had been a wakeup call of sorts. A few months later he was in Barbados with Viviana. The rest was history.

“Ah, you old fool,” Boris mumbled around his cigar. “Erik, you ran those women just as hard. We overlooked Anton’s issues because he eventually grew up. When did you manage to? How many wives now? Three?”

“Four.” Anton had to point out the correct number just to poke the bear.

“
Mne vse ravno
,” Erik said with a wink. “I’m only in it for the
pizda
.”

Ivan shook his head in disbelief. “Oh! The pussy, he says.
Because you need to be married to get that.”

Anton guffawed. “Don’t let your wife hear you say that. You won’t be getting any more
pizda
for a while, you perverted fucker.”

“Anyway.”
Ivan whistled low, bringing their attention and laughter to him. “Back to the call from Conrad. It didn’t last too long, but it was enough.”

Erik grumbled under his breath, looking more disgusted by the second. “Ugh.
Fucking Italians, man. Can we just be done with that family and move on? I’ve had enough. Wasn’t getting rid of their good for nothing boss a huge red flag that we don’t want their friendship? We’ve got our own issues with New Jersey. We don’t need to be slumming it with Cosa Nostra, too.”

“I agree,” Anton said. “What’d you tell him, Ivan?”

It wasn’t that Anton didn’t appreciate the call, he just wondered if there was more behind Conrad’s motives. Hadn’t the Don been the one to say each boss should keep to their own territories? The last thing he wanted, or needed, was to have issues with the Italians. Anton mulled it all over as he found his favorite Zippo and worked on lighting up his cigar.

Things were finally starting to smooth out a little in his life. Couldn’t it stay that way?

Fuck, Anton hoped so.

“Didn’t tell him
nothing he might have wanted to hear,” the lawyer responded. “Gave him a thank you on your behalf, as I should.”

“And as my
Sovietnik?”

Ivan smirked wickedly.
“Told him to keep his distance.”

“Good.” Anton sighed, relived that was one less thing he’d have to handle. “We don’t need that trouble.”

Both Boris and Erik agreed.

“What else?” Anton flicked his Zippo between his forefinger and thumb, hearing the clink, clack of metal as the top popped open and then closed again. No one spoke. “You’re telling me there’s nothing?”

“Nothing hugely important that needs attention,” Ivan said, sounding bored. “It’s been quiet. That’s not a bad thing.”

“Vegas
is finally saying yes to my proposition with the last gun shipment,” Boris said.

There was something Anton could talk about. He’d been working for years to get his guns leaking into certain parts of the States. Vegas
was just one of them, but it was a big fucking one. Getting his weapons out of the States was an easy feat, but working into an already booming illegal marketplace was tough.

“Just like that?
No dividends for them?”

“There’s always something,” the brigadier replied. “Give it time. This is the first deal you’ve worked with a Vegas guy, so give him what he wants. It’ll pay off in the long run, I promise you that.”

“Well, shit,” Anton mused, leaning back in his chair as smoke curled high to the ceiling.

“And the shipment coming in at the end of the month …”

Anton flicked Boris with a sharp look. That shipment was over five-point-two million in illegal substance they couldn’t afford to lose. It would be even worse if the authorities picked up on it and trailed to back to him. “What about it?”

Erik made a noise under his breath. “Take a pill, Anton. Calm your nerves.”

“There’s a crapload of money we’re going to make on that boat,” Ivan muttered.

Anton jerked his thumb in his lawyer’s direction.
“Truth.”

“Viktor let me know they had a little issue a week ago,” Boris started to explain.

“Oh, yeah? What kind now?”

Fucking Viktor
, Anton thought. That goddamned brigadier was causing him more issues than he wanted to admit. If Viktor wasn’t causing some kind of shit, he was starting it somewhere else.

“Guess the load isn’t going to be as big as they thought. Viktor said the guys screwed up on the weigh in, but we paid just as much for the original. What
was he supposed to do about it, he asked. I didn’t know what to tell him. I’m not the boss, you know?”

The room went silent for a good minute. Anton inhaled a burning drag from his cigar, letting the harsh smoke tumble around in his lungs before he exhaled it to the air. He needed to seriously think about what he’d just been told before he reacted to it.

Runners didn’t screw up a weigh in on shipments. That was the crux of the matter. Sure, they’d skim a little here and there to make a couple of thousand in profit above their original price, but that wasn’t anything to the grand scheme of things. It was expected, really. Runners wanted their money to come in clean, just like the traffickers did. Striking bad deals, or making mistakes that would cost them future ones, wasn’t in the repertoire.

The only plausible explanation was that someone else had skimmed off quite a bit of the drug shipment for
themselves, or they were planning to. Quick money, even if the product still needed to be checked for quality and control. It didn’t matter to the thief who took it, they’d sell it just as easy and wouldn’t give a shit about the rest.

“That’s going to be an issue,” Anton said quietly. “One he’s going to have to answer for, somehow. I don’t care how, Boris, but it better be fucking good or I’ll see him in a grave. Mark my words, I’ll do it.”

Boris kept his face a mask of calm, but Anton could see the war fighting in the older man’s eyes. The two brigadiers had been friends for many years and tended to stick together. However, when Viktor fell out of Anton’s favor the year before because he smacked around Viviana, Boris had started to create a little distance from his friend.

You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, after all.

“Do what you gotta do, Boss,” Boris stated. “He knows how this goes.”

“If I find out he did something and make the call to cull him, are you going to give him warning?” Anton asked.

“It’s not my call to make.”

“Good answer.” Anton wasn’t quite finished, though. He wanted to make sure exactly what side his brigadier was on. “And what if I make the call to you?”

Boris cringed. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

“But?”
Anton asked.

“I’d do it. Business as usual,” Boris said dully. “What else?”

Exactly
, Anton thought. The life wasn’t easy, but they lived it nonetheless.
What else?

Anton leaned back in his chair, propping his boots up on the desk once more.
“Anything else?”

Looks were shared between the men in the room, but nothing was amiss. Apparently it truly had been quiet, for the most part. Damn, Anton didn’t want to get his hopes up for things settling down but it was sure seeming like that was going to be the case. There were such things as miracles, after all.

“Just that prince of yours,” Ivan said with a smile. “I’ve got to get over there soon.”

“Want to see a picture?”

Three grown men might as well have turned into children right before Anton’s eyes. Laughing, he pulled out his cell phone and brought up the picture files. It wasn’t long before he found the one he’d taken early that morning. It had automatically become his favorite in the bunch, and damn, he’d taken quite a few of his son in just the short span of five days. Regarding the photo before he turned the phone to show the guys, Anton was reminded of that odd feeling he started out the morning with.

The one that told him to go back home for a little while longer.

Sunlight had just started to filter in through the bedroom windows, illuminating the photo with natural light. Viviana was rolled to her side on their bed, sleeping with one arm laying up along her son’s back to hold him close. Demyan was curled in the sheets with his mother, that tiny fist of his up against his mouth while his other hand was grasping tight to a lock of his mother’s hair. He wasn’t sleeping, though. Those blue eyes of his were wide open, staring up into his mother’s face with an awestruck amazement only a baby could have.

People could s
ay newborns didn’t have in-depth understanding of emotions all they wanted, Anton knew they were wrong. Demyan had love already. He just did. And like his father, all that love he felt revolved around Viviana.

When
Demyan had started up his fussing that morning, Anton knew the baby couldn’t be hungry or dirty. Viviana just fed, cleaned, and laid him down in his bed not thirty minutes before. She had just managed to fall back asleep, too. Anton wanted her to get some more sleep. Getting up six times a night for thirty to forty minutes each time with their son was tiresome; she needed the extra rest.

So, when even Anton couldn’t get the baby to fall back to sleep, he thought maybe … maybe his son was just like him even straight from the womb. Perhaps all he wanted was the thing he loved the very most.
The touch, closeness, smell, and sight of all that love. When he placed Demyan beside his sleeping mother, and a tiny little fist shot out to snag Viviana’s lock of hair, Anton wasn’t surprised to find out he was right.

“What do you want to do today, Boss?” Boris asked, bringing Anton from his musings.

Anton glanced around the room. Things were good. Great, even. He didn’t need to be here.

“I owe my wife twenty bucks.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Anton stared at the grave.

It was standard size, but the hole in the ground seemed larger than normal. Like maybe it was ready to suck him up and swallow him whole, too. The black marble headstone was meticulous in detail and design, the inscriptions clean and clear. Everything had gone along perfectly without a single bump in the plans of the funeral.

The day was sunny, warm, and summer hung thick in the air.

Just as his father would have wanted.

Slowly, every progression and battle won in Daniil’s fight against cancer had been lost. In a short two week span, Anton’s father had slowly slipped away a little more. If it wasn’t his organs failing, his lungs wouldn’t catch air. The hospital wanted to keep people out to preserve what time Daniil might have had left, but the man didn’t want that at all.

He wanted everybody.

Anton had to respect his father for that.

Goodbyes weren’t easy. But he’d said each one with a smile.

Anton missed him already.

Demyan
had been born early on the morning of July third. Daniil said his final goodbye exactly two weeks later, thirty minutes before the time when Demyan had entered the world. It wasn’t nearly enough time. It
wasn’t
.

He said his hello
, Anton reminded himself silently.

Anton’s throat ached from holding back the sobs threatening to rise. He’d long since clenched his teeth shut like a goddamned steel trap to keep
himself from crying. His fists shoved firmly in his pockets kept the shaking of his hands contained. The slow, rhythmic breathing he’d somehow managed to find helped to stop his breaths from turning ragged with anxiety and sorrow.

The tears were a losing battle. They leaked from his eyes freely, rolling down his cheeks in streaks of shining wetness, and dropping to the lapels of his suit jacket. The fedora tilted low to hide his face kept others from seeing the emotion.

It didn’t matter, though, because Anton could still feel it.

Good God, the grief was painful. Something awful that left him feeling raw, broken, and lost from the inside out. His soul was being ripped apart for his mother’s sadness, his family’s loss, and his own heartache. Anton wasn’t accustomed to being so emotionally disabled like he currently was.

Nothing had ever had quite the effect on him like the death of his father had.

Once more, Anton stared down into the grave. The casket resting deep into the freshly dug earth still shined with newness. Nothing had soiled it, yet. No dirt was blockading his father in for the rest of eternity. Anton could still see the peace on
Daniil’s face as he lay in his silk lined resting place, peace overtaking the sickness that had plagued him for too long.

There was no pain for
Daniil now.

There was no cancer, no more hospitals, treatments, and worry.

Just peace.

Somehow, Anton needed to keep reminding himself of that.

His father was better, now. Finding comfort in a new place. Receiving health in a healed soul. Looking down, watching them. Because even the bad guys had souls. Surely Daniil’s hadn’t been so tainted that he would be denied heaven. He might not have lived his life according to the law, or the way the temple would have told him to, but he lived it how he wanted and needed. He’d been a good father and husband, taught love, respect, and honor to his only child, and left Anton with a legacy to carry on.

No, he hadn’t been that bad of a man.

Sighing heavily, Anton peered under the rim of his fedora. The crowd of mourners had all but gone, now. Even Sasha had said her final goodbyes a while ago, coming to stand beside her son for his support and comfort while she did so. She was holding a dinner at her home later to celebrate her husband’s life.

Not his death
, Anton thought, again needing the reminder.
Don’t mourn his death. Remember his life.

It was starting to become a mantra of sorts.

Anton wished to all hell it would start to help.

It wasn’t.

Viviana hadn’t been able to make it through all of the readings at the gravesite before Demyan began to stir with his fussiness and desire to feed. With a soft kiss to his cheek, a squeeze of her hand around his, and an apology, she’d left his side for the first and only time that day to return to their SUV and take care of their son.

Not surprisingly, Anton felt alone.

That sensation didn’t last for long when a form saddled up beside his. The well-dressed man wasn’t familiar to the Russian boss. Anton had been fortunate enough to recognize every face that stared back at him and gave their apologies and sentiments for his father’s passing. Giving the man a second glance, Anton noticed the shining badge down at his hip where his hands were tossed into his pockets.

A federal agent had made face at
Daniil’s funeral.

A federal fucking agent.

Could they get any lower?

What business, or right, did they have to intrude on his family’s grief and pain?

Indignant anger burrowed hard and fast into Anton’s heart, pumping through his veins with every beat. His teeth clenched harder for a whole different reason. He needed to force his hands deeper into his pockets just to keep from throttling the man in his sudden flare of rage and disbelief.

“Leave,” Anton said under his breath. The agent said nothing, simply tipped his head up to the sun and blinked in the brightness. “I said—”

“November sixth and into the early morning hours of the seventh of last year, where were you, Mr. Avdonin?”

Anton felt his spine crack as he stood a little straighter. That date was one he wouldn’t ever forget. It was the day Viviana had nearly been killed by a bomb that was placed by her Uncle Sonny.
Those early morning hours of the seventh was when Anton killed Sonny for that goddamned bomb. That day had been filled with nothing but pain, but there had also been a little joy, too. They’d found out about Demyan.

“In the hospital with my wife.
A bomb nearly killed her. Check her records.”

“I don’t doubt
she
was there,” the agent replied. “Three weeks ago, the car trailing you lost your vehicle, where were you then?”

“With my
wife
.”

“Where with your wife?”

Anton growled low, grinding his teeth to stop from cutting out at the agent with a verbal attack. That wasn’t something he wanted to do at his father’s funeral. “None of your business.”

The agent gave a condescending smile from the side. “You’ve always been so careful, Anton. Your business and your boys have been one of the hardest for our team to infiltrate. Very little evidence, if any at
all, and what is left surely wouldn’t be enough to take us back to you.”

Anton scowled under his fedora. What was the man’s point?

“So? You decided to impose your unwanted, and uninvited, presence at my father’s funeral just to say I’ve got the upper hand on you? Thanks, but I didn’t need that memo. Feel free to get the fuck out of this cemetery before I have someone remove you.”

“Had,” the agent responded dully.

“Excuse me?”

“Had.
As in the upper hand is gone, Boss. Somewhere along the lines, you started to fuck up. Messy isn’t like you. I was almost disappointed.”

Anton stared at the man, his brain running a million miles a minute to try and figure out when, if it had happened at all, that he had managed to miss something in his disputes and issues over the last year. Nothing came to his mind.
Nothing that would be a cause for concern.

Of course, Anton knew they would suspect him in the death of Sonny, never mind the recent deaths of the
Belovs. But suspecting and having hard evidence were two very diverse things. It meant the difference between a life sentence and his freedom, after all. Anton wasn’t about to make those kinds of errors.

Staring at the agent, Anton was quick to notice the man seemed young.
Maybe around his age. Was this some new agent trying to get his name in the papers and bigger in his boss’s eye by taking a swing at a mob boss?

Anton wasn’t standing for that shit. “Listen, I’ve got a lawyer. Feel free to—”

“Oh, we will,” the agent interrupted calmly. “Soon, probably. Did you know there was a single bullet shell found in the ruins of the Primo Delight restaurant that burned down three weeks ago? I heard you got along quite well with the owner. The Belovs, you were good friends with them, too, right? There wasn’t a single body in the restaurant that showed a gunshot wound, and there was no weapon recovered. I noticed your lawyer seemed to be in a little pain today. How’s he fairing in life?”

Anton swallowed the spiteful retort that wanted out. “Is that all you’ve got on me?
A shell with no gun to place it to, connections to a dead boss who probably deserved what he got, and my lawyer? Come on, that’s ridiculous. No judge would even look at the arrest warrant. Try again.”

“No, that’s not all. I haven’t seen you smoking cigarettes in a while, either.”

That was random. Anton frowned away from the man. “That’s a crime, now? Jesus, my wife considers that a battle won.”

“Does she?
Hmm.” The agent hummed disparagingly. “Well, I’m sure she won’t be pleased to know you were smoking the night Sonny Carducci was killed, will she? Tossed those butts straight to the ground, you did. When we did a standard angle test with lasers to find out where the shot had been taken from, guess what it led us to?”

Anton’s heart leaped into his throat. Had he tossed his cigarettes out the window? Having a felony conviction in his past for illegal weapons meant Anton’s DNA was in the system, as were his fingerprints.

“Again, that proves nothing.”

“I disagree.”

Anton refused to let his panic show. “Are you here to arrest me?”

Now it was the agent’s turn to scowl.
“No, unfortunately. You’re right, we’re not quite there, yet. But we will be, Anton. That’s what I’m here to tell you. I hope you’re ready, you have a lot to answer for.”

Anton allowed his calm, cool, and confident mask to take its rightful place. “And how long will that take?” he asked, cockily. “It’s already been nine months since the first crime you suggest I may have committed. You haven’t come for me yet, so what do you really have?
Suspicions, but no hard proof. Show me the reports. Show me the cigarettes. Show me the missing gun that wasn’t used in a crime that by all accounts, wasn’t even a crime to begin with, just an unfortunate event. Show me these things. Worry me. Go ahead.”

The agent’s jaw flexed angrily.

“You can’t,” Anton murmured, turning back to stare into the grave. “Or you’re waiting for something that’s not here, yet. It doesn’t matter either way. I’m not easily frightened. You need means and motive, and you don’t have it, do you? Again, how long will it take your investigation to come up with something a judge will consider worthy? Two years, maybe four? Long enough for my son to know my name, for my wife to see our anniversary a couple of times over. Too long for me to care.”

“You do.” The agent sighed. Anton hated that he did, but he wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction of seeing it. With a nod at the grave the agent said, “My sympathies for your loss.”

Anton nearly choked on his outraged anger at the man’s gall.

“Go to hell and rot there, asshole.”

*

Viviana was buckling a sleeping
Demyan into his car seat as a hand came to rest on her waist. She didn’t start in fright from the unexpected approach. She knew her husband’s woodsy scent anywhere. Finishing up her job of securing the baby’s harness, she sighed into the warm touch of Anton’s fingers trailing lightly up her side. Without turning her around, he leaned over her form and skimmed the side of her neck with his nose and mouth.

“He good?”
Anton asked.

“Yep.
For a little while, anyway. Are you?”

Anton sucked air through his teeth, the sound filled with stress. “I will be, eventually.”

The day had been hard for Anton. Viviana knew that for a fact. He hadn’t even wanted to get out of bed that morning, and that just wasn’t like him. She understood he was in pain and grieving, just the same as his mother, and even Viviana, in her own way. Things wouldn’t have quite the same feel without Daniil around.

Viviana just wanted to see the sadness leave her husband’s eyes.

“Did you say goodbye?”

She felt Anton shrug behind her as she placed the baby’s bag into the back seat. “I’m never going to say goodbye, Vine. Not like that. I can’t without feeling like I’m losing him all over again. Once was enough.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Finally, she felt his strong grip prodding her to turn. Sexy and dark in his black suit, Anton had kept her sadness and tears at bay for most of the day by keeping her mind distracted on him. Now, though, with the water in his blue eyes staring back, she found it near impossible to stop from letting the floodgates of tears open.