Page 55 of The Enemy of My Enemy: Pt. 2

With that simple reminder that Decio Fontana’s body had been left for the coyotes, both men immediately remembered why we were here, which was good because I didn’t need my father and husband bumping dicks over something that wasn’t necessary.

“I’ll call Stefano to take care of it,” my father replied.“I’ll need to brief him and Santino on what happened anyway.”

“You know, Decio and Armen weren’t the only ones against the marriage,” I reminded them.“We’re going to have to make a pretty loud statement to keep something like this from happening again, and I don’t mean just me.Someone could easily go after Viktor to garner the same result.”

“I can take care of myself,” he said, prompting me to shoot him a look.

“Oh, can you?Must be nice,” I deadpanned.

Viktor let out a long sigh.“I didn’t mean it that way.”

I could hear my father try to cover his laugh with a cough, but I wasn’t feeling amused.Once again, Viktor was reminding me that we weren’t getting anywhere positive in our marriage, and it was becoming exhausting.Whoever’d said that marriage was hard work hadn’t been lying.This shit felt like a never-ending basketball game with no intermissions.

Ignoring that, I asked, “Do you want to have children, Viktor?”

He glanced at my father really quickly before answering my question with a question.“Do you really want to have this conversation now?Here?”

Since I already knew his answer, I said, “Look, I understand why you don’t want to have children with me, and truth be told, I agree with why having them would be a bad idea.Nevertheless, if we don’t show a united front about this marriage, then we can never change our minds about children later on.”

There was a tick in his jaw, but he didn’t shy away from the topic, even with my father in the room.“I thought that I was pretty clear about our marriage when I shot Georgi Aliev at TheRusalkaduring our wedding reception.”

I shot him a pointed look.“Well, they must not have believed you, and I have the scars to prove it, Viktor.”

His jaw ticked again, and I could tell that he was struggling to rein in his temper with my father in the room.“Then what do you suggest, Aurora?Do you want me to start shooting anyone who looks at us sideways?I mean, it might become a little harder to remain out of prison by doing that, but I’ll do it if that’s what you want.”

Knowing that we weren’t going to get anywhere like this, I said, “Maybe we should discuss this later.”

Then, to add more fuel to the fire, my father said, “Just remember that you have enough nieces and nephews on the Marchetti side that you needn’t do anything that you don’t want to do,Alba.As far as I’m concerned, you’ve given enough.”

I walked over to my father, then reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek.“I know, Papa.”

“Never forget, despite your husband’s wishes, you can always come home,” he assured me.“The fallout will be worth whatever it takes to make you happy.”

“Thank you,” I replied sincerely, and not to hurt Viktor.Right now, we were a father talking to his daughter, and it had nothing to do with the angry Russian standing behind me.

As I stepped back from my father, he said, “I’ll call Stefano to take care of Decio and whatever else needs to be taken care of.”

I gave him a terse nod before looking back over at Viktor.“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” he bit out, and I knew things were bad when he made no attempt to shake my father’s hand before escorting me out of the office.

Nothing was said as we walked towards our cars, but when I stopped next to mine, Viktor asked, “Why can’t you just ride with me?Why can’t someone take your car home?”

“Because you need a code to get into my building, and with Stefano busy taking care of Decio, that leaves only my mother, father, and Santino to run the errand, and I’m sure that they all have better things to do, Viktor.”I stepped to him, placing my hands on his chest again.“Is it really that big of an issue to follow me to my condo to drop off the car?”

“Yes,” he bit out.“I already had to deal with you driving back from the barn on your own.”

My brows rose at that.“With you right behind me.”

“That doesn’t help,” he admitted, so I tried another tactic.

“Look, you can follow me back to my condo, then you can check it out for yourself,” I suggested.“You can see that it’s safe and secured, so there won’t be any issues in the future when I say that I need to check on my place.”

His blue eyes flared, and he seemed angrier than a second ago.“Because why are you going to need to check on your place in the future?”he asked.“In fact, why do you even still have your fucking condo?”

Instead of taking the bait, I said, “Well, follow me home, and you’ll find out.”

Stepping to me, he said, “That’snotyour home.”