The Arrangement (35 page)

“Right there. One of his mistresses, I guess. Ivan’s been trying for days to find out where the bastard was staying, but I got it from his wife like it was nothing. Woman wants him gone; she just won’t outright say it. I think she’s screwing around with the cousin, actually. Sonny’s got his head shoved so far in the sand it’s crazy. Everything he touches turns to shit. He’s a walking, fucking disease.”

Bo cleared his throat, taking a heavy drag from the cigarette dangling between his fingers. “You’re taking this remarkably well. If it was Steph …” The younger man trailed off as he exhaled the smoke into the SUV’s cab.

Anton disagreed. He wasn’t taking it well at all. Whatever care or concern he might have had left for anyone in the direct vicinity of Sonny Carducci was in no way his problem when the scene went down. The quiet, stillness of his own person was just a by-product of his own anger and anxiety, one he learned to control with near silence and little movements.

Ethics? Gone.

Lungs? Breathing.

Heart? Aching.

Viviana? Alive.

Anton felt robotic. As if he was just moving through the motions for the time being because that’s what he had to do. He just fucking had to. Despite the city moving around them with a gentle, humming flow, sounds didn’t register. The only thing he heard was rushing blood in his ringing eardrums.

Stony.

Calculating.

Seething.

Anton was
pissed
.

And there wasn’t anything quite like a Russian boss with a vendetta.

“You could say that,” he finally replied indifferently.

Red hot and ice cold.

The man inside that building had damn near taken away Anton’s entire life with a horribly placed, substandard bomb. The damned thing could have been a how-not-to-do manual for any pipe maker. That wasn’t to say it hadn’t gotten his point across, but the Bratva prince had a much better one coming. It was sure to turn a few heads and make headlines.

When it came to Viviana, lucky was a downright understatement. Had she been just inches closer to the blast, had Rocco not taken her down like he did, had the medics not gotten her heartbeat to regulate—there were too many variables that slipped into place for her.

Maybe Anton should start going to the temple like his mother kept bothering him about. Considering some God was up there looking out for one of them. It was probably Viviana. The girl was a goddamn angel while he was nothing more than a well-dressed sinner.

“What’d they say about Rocco?”

Anton flinched at the question. His tongue peeked out to wet his lips as he considered the phone call he’d received a little over a half an hour ago.

“Operation went okay, he made it out which was more than they thought he’d do. Covered with seventy percent burns. Three broken ribs. The blast likely ruined his scenting ability, or most of it. Pup’s going to be in a lot of pain for a long time.”

There was a choice he had to make … one that damn near killed him. Put Rocco down or see how he fared in the next few months. It’d be rehab, constant pain medication, and skin grafts. Costly, but that was the least of his master’s worry.

“I’m going to have him put down in the morning,” Anton managed to say, ignoring the thickness that built in his tone. “They’re keeping him sedated so he doesn’t wake up. Vine isn’t going to be happy about it, but I can’t let that dog suffer. There’s no respect in that.”

“And Vine?”

Anton breathed, letting the pain from the action soak him from head to toe. He hadn’t spoken to his lover on the phone, but from Ivan’s account, she was doing okay. After she’d calmed down about him not being there, of course. And when he asked again about the blood work, he hadn’t gotten a response because his lawyer was too much of a fucking pussy to ask.

“Awake, talking, being her usual self …”

“That’s good,” Bo said, shrugging.

“And pissed off like nothing else because I’m not there.”

The younger man chuckled with a nod. “No doubt.”

With his arm reaching back into the SUV’s cab, Anton’s hand came in contact with a gun case. Agony rocked him from the action, but he didn’t care a bit. The boss had business to attend to and his own issues could wait.

Only a few more hours, and he’d be right where he needed to be: beside Viviana.

“I made a promise to be there with her every morning. I need to make good on that.”

“Get it done, then. Let’s smoke this rat out.”

“You didn’t tell him, did you?”

Ivan, resting back in the comfortable leather chair in Viviana’s private hospital room, shook his head and grinned like a fool. “No.”

“But he asked?”

“Yep. You do know he’s going to kill me when he finds out I knew before him, right?”

Viviana sighed, resting back into the pillows meant to help ease the pain in her back. Holy hell was she sore … and tired. She was also terribly worried and had little to no memory of the last forty-eight hours.

Maybe the memories would come back slowly, the doctor said. And maybe they wouldn’t.

Viviana wished they wouldn’t. She didn’t want to remember any of it, but she swore she could hear Anton yelling her name. Or maybe that was just her muddled brain creating the recollection. She also wished that little drip of morphine she had finally accepted to take when it was offered for the fifth time would actually do something.

Not long after the sweet nurse and quiet mannered doctor woke her up, one of the first things out of their mouths was the fact that she was pregnant. Not very far along, and from what they understood, everything seemed okay. The mandatory blood work that was done on all new patients had shown that her hGC level was at twenty-eight mlU/cc.

A definite positive for pregnancy.

They then proceeded to calmly explain the accident, her injuries, and what happened after. It didn’t matter how soft they kept their voices, or how quick they were to say it most likely wouldn’t affect the pregnancy, Viviana still cried herself into an anxiety worthy mess. She couldn’t figure out when it had happened and she’d been so worried that maybe—oh God, just
maybe
—it had been before she was back in New York.

That all disappeared when she was able to remember her last menstrual cycle, and the doctor guaranteed her conception date would have been between the last fourteen to eighteen days, given the level of hormones doubled with every passing day and hers was still showing a low enough number to be an early pregnancy.

It might have gone better if she’d woken up to Anton in her room with the nurse and doctor instead of Ivan.

“He’ll get over it,” she finally replied, wincing on the last word when her fluid IV jostled.

“The doctor said all you need to do was ask and the nurse will up the dosage. It’s safe.”

“I’m fine.”

“Said no one who survived a blast from a crappy bomb ever,” Ivan joked.

“How old are you?”

Ivan gave her a cheeky smile. “Old enough to ignore your dirty looks when I say it. It
is
safe, Vine. Just ask.”

Didn’t matter to her. Studies this and studies that. Viviana heard enough of it from the nurse when they were changing her bandages. It was bad enough the time she got pregnant was likely right around the point she drank half a night away and smoked up. Of course, the doctor had rushed to assure her those little slips probably hadn’t done any damage, either.

Oh God, he’d taken her so good that night, too.

Soft and slow.

Tender and sweet.

Like loving her was the easiest goddamn thing for him to do.

And he did it
so
fucking well.

Coming deep and hard enough that she’d felt his release. Holding her body connected with his as she gasped her way through an orgasm. Wrapping her tight in blankets and limbs before his fingers splayed wide open above the spot where her heart thundered like a drum.

Yeah
.

Viviana couldn’t remember a bit about the past forty-eight hours, but she remembered that night two weeks before like nothing else. She had to wonder if …
somehow
… that had been the one to do it.

Turning to look at Ivan out of the corner of her sore eye, she asked, “Where is he?”

The older man sighed. “Please stop asking.”

“But—”

“Stop.”

Viviana scowled, the action causing pain to ricochet from the cut above her brow to the side of her face. Tears fell without her permission, air sucking into her lungs like a cat’s hiss.

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Ivan muttered.

Not thirty seconds later, the nurse was in. Pain medication was doubled. Viviana slept.

• • •

“So, the police were here again,” Ivan informed. “Left an hour ago.”

Viviana had only been awake for a short time. Just long enough for the nurse on duty to come in and wake her up to ask if she was feeling well enough to eat. Another dosage of antibiotics in her IV drip later and the woman was gone just as quickly as she came. Viviana couldn’t swallow pills, so liquid form it was.

“And?”

Ivan shrugged as he handed over a plastic cup with a bendy straw. “Same as this morning, sweetheart. You don’t have any recollection of the actual event or the hours leading up to it, it’s been verified by the doctor, so what can they do. They’ve gotten more than enough statements from the bulls and the medics that arrived on the scene. I imagine they’ll want to speak with you in a week or so when you’re feeling up to it.”

“And?” Viviana pressed again.

“And nothing. There’s no set rules for this. You say what you know.”

There wasn’t very much for her to tell, then. The apple juice felt like heaven sliding down her raw esophagus. Never let it be said that an impact, no matter how little, didn’t affect someone everywhere it could possibly reach. Because it damn well did.

“What about …” She trailed off, forcing the pain in her throat to subside before she could speak again. “Anton. Surely they want to speak—”

Ivan’s gaze traveled to the door of her room that was only opened a crack. “As far as they know, they’ve been missing him on and off all day. He’s come and gone. There isn’t a sign-in sheet for your room, the security cameras are horribly placed and could have missed him easily. You’ve slept most of the day now, and otherwise you’ve been medicated, so you couldn’t possibly be a reliable witness to his presence.”

“Has he?”

Ivan wouldn’t answer.

“Has he called again?”

“No.”

Viviana swallowed the emotions rising up. Crying only served to hurt. Everything made her hurt, really. Unfortunately, holding it back caused painful sobs to catch in her throat.

Then something else pricked at the back of her mind.

Like a memory trying to form. One she couldn’t bring up but knew was there.

A simple glance down at her wrist had the memory bubbling up. Suddenly, she was almost feeling Rocco’s jaw clamping down on her bones as sharp canine teeth tore into skin.

“Oh,
Rocco
…”

Ivan made a noise that fell somewhere between pain and concern. “Viviana?”

“Is he gone?”

“Rocco?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, taking slow measured movements to turn on the bed.

“No, he’s alive, but hurt awfully bad. The vet said he was doing all right, given everything. It’s certainly not going to be easy, and I think … Well, Anton is seriously considering having him put down.”

Anguished was an understatement.

Instead, it was more like a knife had stabbed into her heart. It had been vaguely explained of Rocco’s involvement of getting her out of the way of the blast, and taking a great deal of the shrapnel and damage himself. Even so, Viviana hadn’t really remembered, let alone felt what that meant to her until now.

Yours,
Anton had once said.
Like me, he’s waited a long time to have you with him
.

“But-but … he
can’t
. Ivan, he just can’t do that.”

“Vine, listen to me and think. Rocco isn’t going to be the same animal. He’s going to need specialized care for the next long while …”

“I don’t care! I’m
his
. He’s mine. Anton can’t do that!”

“He’s going to be in a lot of agony. I know you care a great deal for him—”

“Stop trying to convince me otherwise,” Viviana snapped, surprised at her own vehemence. She didn’t even care if she sounded like a brat, not when it came to poor Rocco. “Call him. Call him and tell him I said no, Ivan.”

“But—”

“
Do it
.”

His hands flew up, a signal of surrender. The trembling in Viviana’s body barely began to subside at the sight. She was quiet as he picked up his cell phone and waved it between them with a soft expression.

“Okay. I’ll try to call him, but there’s no saying he’ll answer right now.”

The black darkness outside the windows caught her eye.

Where was
he
?

“Then leave a fucking message.”

• • •

The ear buds from her iPod blocked out all noise. Slow, throaty tones that reminded her of a forties Americana type music hummed from the tiny speakers in her ears. Viviana didn’t notice the time passing by after Ivan had left the room. The emotional, deep blues soaked her right to the core, reminding Viviana what it felt like to be ten-years-old and watching her mother in the mirror as she readied for a party.

Christina Carducci had once had the raspy hum of a smoker when she sang, but she never actually smoked. The low notes crawled from her lungs with the same ease and expertise as the higher ones, but she never took lessons. It was one thing Viviana wished she had taken from her mother … that ability to sing … but she couldn’t carry a note to save her life.

Blues aren’t about the sound of a voice
, her mother once explained.
They’re about feeling the emotions and the words where it hurts and making it echo from the heart and soul.

So, when Rory had peeked into her room a little while ago with a bag in hand, Viviana had all but clawed through it to see if her iPod was there. Thank God it was. That and comfortable ass pajamas. Hospital gowns were not only indecent, but useless and itchy.