She whirls around, eyes wide, both fists raised. “Get out of my room.”
“My room, remember?” I remind her. “My house. My mountain.”
“Right—because everything’s fucking yours. Me most of all.”
“Glad you’ve finally accepted that.”
She moves forward as though she’s about to continue her punching exercise, but she stops a foot away and lowers her hands.
“What do you want?”
“Answers.”
She crosses her arms. “Then you might as well leave. You’re wasting your time.”
“You don’t think I have a right to know about my son’s birth? His name?”
“You’re not going to have a chance to know him, so it would be cruel to give you details.”
I smile darkly. “Anya really did a number on you, didn’t she?”
“This is not about her.”
“You’re not like her, Willow. Stop pretending.”
“The name is Viktoria,” she corrects, but even I can sense the half-heartedness of those words. “And I am not the powerless little girl you deigned to save from a bad marriage. As you so rightly pointed out, I do have a name of my own. And that name carries weight.”
I raise my eyebrows, impressed yet again. “And you’re planning on using that name, is that right?”
“Why not?” she asks. “If I can’t escape this life, then maybe my only other option is embracing it.”
“That was quite the change of heart.”
“I guess I can thank you for that,” she snaps. “You’re the one who made me realize that power is the only way to be heard in this world. And I’m done shouting into the abyss while everyone ignores me.”
“You’ve developed a penchant for hyperbole. Is that also courtesy of Anya?”
She narrows her eyes. “You have no idea how much I want to kick you in the balls right now.”
“She may be your mother, but that doesn’t make her any less of a monster.”
“How the fuck would you know?” she explodes. “You don’t know her!”
“Do you?”
She bites down on her bottom lip. I feel my cock come to life despite the fact that I still want to wring her neck.
Fighting or fucking—it’s always one or the other with us. Both options seem tempting right now. Especially with the way the tank top cups her breasts and highlights how hard her nipples are.
“She was a woman who made her own way in a world dominated by men,” she says. “She may not be the warmest person, but that’s what the Bratva does. It hardens you.”
I roll my eyes. “You think I give two shits about the fact that she’s a cold bitch? I don’t. In fact, I respect it. But Anya Mikhailov is a woman without loyalty. Just like Spartak Belov.”
She shakes her head, and I can tell that nothing I’m saying is getting through to her. “And you have loyalty, do you?”
“Fuck yes, I have loyalty. Loyalty to my men and my Bratva. Anya and Belov? They work only for themselves.”
“She’ll protect him,” she snaps. “He’s her grandson!”
“He’s nothing more to her than a trump card.”
“Like I was to you?”
“I made you my wife,” I say, moving forward. “I gave you my fucking last name. Don’t you understand? You have power as a Mikhailov and you have protection as a Solovev.”
“Don’t pretend that you did this for me.”
“I didn’t do any of it for you,” I admit. “But it’s funny how everything worked in your favor anyway, isn’t it?”
“Don’t. Don’t. You’re trying to get in my head, and I won’t let you.”
I grab her by the neck and pin her against the wall. She barely reacts.
“You can’t intimidate me, Leo,” she whispers. “You’ve made the mistake of telling me that I’m too important to kill.”
I almost smile. “You’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I get whatever the fuck I want,” I growl. “And I will get my son back. With or without your help. But if you help, I might let you see him again.”
I can see the naked fear in her eyes, but she lifts her chin in defiance, apparently forgetting my hand is still around her neck. “My mother will never surrender him to you.”
I shake my head. “You’re putting too much trust in a woman you barely know.”