“Prosti,brat,” he apologizes contritely. “You’re right.”
We sit in silence as I pour each of us a small glass of my classically aged whiskey. Leaning back in my chair, I close my eyes and savor the bitter, charred notes of the drink, letting the flavors roll and take over my senses.
Has it come to this? That my men go against me because of a woman?
Mywoman.
I know they’ve grown attached to her. Come to love her like brothers should. But I never thought my ownsovietnikwould chastise me.
I can’t let her relationship with them interfere with business. My business. Ava isn’t just my weak link.
She’s theirs as well.
“I found her outside the door last night.” Vas breaks the silence. He takes a sip of his whiskey and sighs.
“Again?” I ask, my forehead creasing in concern.
“Third night this week, and she’s only been here four,” Vas confirms. “Never seems to be at the same time, and just like the other two nights, she’s completely out of it. I think she’s sleepwalking.”
I shake my head. “Ava has no history of sleepwalking.”
“No.” Vas nods. “She doesn’t. But guilt and trauma change sleeping patterns. She still refuses to go into Libby’s room. Won’t even talk about it.”
“I don’t see you going into Libby’s room either,” I point out.
“I’ve been waiting for Ava.” Vas shrugs. “Libby was her sister. She deserves to be the first to go in. The first to see everything like it once was.”
I nod, taking another sip of whiskey. He’s right.
“I tried talking about it, but she refuses,” Vas continues, crestfallen. “She won’t discuss anything to do with Libby. Didn’t even want to see the urn we placed her ashes in or talk about spreading them like Libby wanted.”
There’s another point of contention between us. His authorization to bombard the Romanos and Wards at the funeral site. It isn’t something I would have authorized, and he knows that. He takes the opportunity to bribe the funeral home director and has someone else’s body placed in the casket while he took Libby’s and had it cremated.
Libby Ward wanted to be cremated and spread on a cliff overlooking the ocean. True freedom—that’s what she once told Ava—is found on the wind, not in the ground. Vas was furious when he found out they were burying the woman he had come to care for next to her vile father.
I don’t approve of his method.
But I understand it.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
“I’ll talk to her about it.”
Vas quirks a skeptical brow, raising his hands in peace when I growl at him. Just because I ignore Ava doesn’t mean I won’t speak to her when the moment calls for it. And Ava sleepwalking through the penthouse in the middle of the night calls for it.
I down the rest of my drink in one gulp and stand, going in search of my wife. I expect to find her in the kitchen with Mia—where she is most days—but when I walk in, she isn’t there.
Mia, my housekeeper, hums an old Russian tune as she putters around the large chef’s kitchen preparing dinner.
“Oh, Matthias.” She presses a hand to her chest. “You startled me.”
I give her a small apologetic smile. “Prosti, Mia. I was looking for Ava.”
Mia wipes her hands on the towel slung over her shoulder and smiles up at me.
“She went down to the gun range to practice her marksmanship.”
I frown. “By herself?”
