Page 75 of The Arrangement

Oh, for fuck sakes. Anton couldn’t even hide his cringe.

Tatiana was something casual. It happened when he was seventeen and pissed off about being forced into a marriage that he was positive just wouldn’t work. Then, he reconnected with Viviana and all of the stunts he’d been pulling and the nonsense he was going on with just quit. She had literally been his turning point, like finding his soul all over again.

Yeah, he’d messed around with the Jersey girl a few times in his early twenties at different clubs under random circumstances. It wasn’t like either of them had actively searched one another out, or maybe she had for him … Either way, he was sure she understood that they weren’t rolling together like that. A quick fuck or Tati on her knees blowing him off was just about as far as it went. Nicoli had warned him, though. Anton should have listened when his step-grandfather said she was no good … just a spoiled boss’s daughter who wanted the title with her money.

Fuck, he should have listened.

Anton clicked his tongue chidingly at Sergei. “You brought your daughter along.”

At least the man had the decency to look ashamed. “She assured me your … issues … had been resolved.”

“Far from it,” Anton spat. “The bitch tried to burn down my club the last time she was here because I wouldn’t let her suck my dick. Quite the child you raised, Boss.”

That probably wasn’t the best choice in words, but Anton was a little too pissed off to calm down. What in the hell had Tatiana said exactly? His mind ran with all the worst possible scenarios he could think of, and all of them collided with the same conclusion: the truth. Of course she would have known, her father did, after all.

“Mind your tongue, prince,” Sergei warned.

Something flashed in the older man’s eyes and Anton felt the heat flare through his blood in response. Ivan, who sat quietly beside him, coughed to draw their attention away and defuse the situation, but neither man moved his gaze from the other.

“That girl of yours,” the older Pakhan continued, sneering a grim smile. “She must have a hell of a lot of Italian in her, doesn’t she?”

Anton spoke through clenched teeth. “You know she’s only half.”

“Given what we both know her mother did, aren’t you the least bit afraid she’s going to do the same to you?”

Air sliced into Anton’s lungs like a hot knife through butter. It literally fucking ached.

“No, I’m—”

“Raised by a byladina, Anton. Your pretty little wife might just turn into her mother the first time you find yourself behind steel bars. After all, you’ve managed to keep yourself from doing any real hard time so far, but how long is that going to last? Every one of us does our time eventually, my boy. Will you come home to find her knocked up with your Sovietnik’s child?”

“Fuck you,” Ivan snapped beside Anton, speaking totally out of place but his boss wouldn’t correct him.

“Or maybe she’ll run to another boss like her mother did.”

Byladina was by far one of the most offensive terms in Russian for the English equivalent of slut. It was regarded as an even worse title in their language, to be sure. Women who were worth less than even the stale air that left their lungs were graced with that insult. Never had Anton used it in his life. For Sergei to even remotely consider letting that word roll out of his mouth and compare Viviana to it was just about the worst thing he could have done, especially in Anton’s presence.

There was no way for his bulls, or Ivan, to stop the fast movement of Anton’s fist reaching over the table. Clenched knuckles slammed into an unsuspecting face, crushing the bones of the other Pakhan’s nose on impact.

Anton packed one hell of a punch.

It carried a heavy price, and he knew it.

He did it, anyway.

The knuckle in his pinkie popped out of joint, but he drew back his fist again and landed another solid hit. When his fists grabbed at the broken man’s collar, blood was already pouring. His knuckles were cut up but the pain didn’t even register. He could hear the shouts of both languages beginning to rise around him, but his fury was swelling by the second. Russian spit from his mouth like poison when he was in Sergei’s face.

“Durak! Ty troop, Sergei!” Close enough that he could smell the heat of the man’s blood, Anton’s voice turned to a dangerous whisper as he muttered, “Say it again, motherfucker, and it’ll happen. I fucking dare you.”

“Damn it! Anton!”

“Boss!”

“Shit, get off, Boss …”

The click of a gun’s hammer being pulled back just barely registered to Anton’s ears.

“Shoot and every fucking Jersey boy in this room is dust,” someone snarled.