Free The Life by Bethany-Kris

surprise and anger registering in the blue of his irises before one of his usual masks replaced the emotions. “Excuse me?”
    “Um …”
    Viviana tittered, unnerved by all the stares currently leveling on her. One of the older gentlemen coughed under his breath, hiding his laughter poorly. Another man, younger than the first but older than Anton, scowled back over his shoulder at her. His obvious disdain of having a woman walk in on business was obvious.
    “I’ll uh … just wait, yeah, outside.”
    Coldly, Anton responded with, “Please do.”
    Outside in the hallway, with the office door shut tight behind her, Viviana groaned. Squeezing her eyes shut and pressing the heels of both her palms to her forehead, she resisted the urge to bang her head repeatedly against the nearest wall. Embarrassment welled up in her heart.
    She should have known better than to just storm in like that. Hell, she did know better.
    Sure, Anton would apologize for her rude interruption of his meeting—likely a Bratva meeting—and blame it on the pregnancy hormones. Viviana knew she’d have to apologize to him, as well.
    When things like that happened, no matter if it was a mistake or not, it only served to make Anton look positively ridiculous. As if he couldn’t control his wife, her actions, and her temperaments. Not that he did try to control Viviana, because Anton didn’t. But, there were certain appearances they had to keep up outside of their home for the obvious reasons related to his status, and this was one of them.
    Viviana screwed that up royally, again .
    Regrettably, she didn’t miss the question being asked inside the office, either.
    “How much tighter do you have to yank on your wife’s leash before she understands her place, Boss?”
    Scowling, Viviana fought off the urge to walk back into the room and give the man a piece of her mind. She couldn’t. It would only make Anton look more like an idiot. She would feel horrible afterwards when her husband was left either explaining, or hiding a pile of bodies because she couldn’t keep her opinions to herself.
    “Mind your fucking wife and I’ll mind mine,” Anton replied, his voice clipped.
    “Yes, because you’re doing such a superb job as it is.”
    Goddamn it , way to go , Viviana thought miserably.
    Yeah, Viviana definitely owed Anton an apology. Right after she got hers, of course. Because he owed her a big one after the crap she learned today. Sometimes being Anton’s wife had a million and one benefits, and other times she had to excuse or ignore his decisions and behaviors a lot more than she liked.
    Fucking Anton and his lack of a moral compass .
    Deciding it would be better for her to be far away from the office when the men left, Viviana made her way down to the main floor of the club. In the kitchen, she found Jen bent over the counter reading papers. At Viviana’s sheepish appearance, the older woman smiled knowingly and snorted under her breath.
    “Honey, I told you not to go up there,” Jen said, laughing.
    Viviana stuck out her tongue. “You didn’t say why .”
    “By now, I shouldn’t have to.”
    That was true enough. Sighing, Viviana rested herself up on a stool, crossing her fingers over her rounded stomach as she considered her course of action when Anton was done with his meeting. Lost in her thoughts, she barely noticed Jen coming over to rub her hand over Viviana’s bump with a sentimental smile.
    “How’d your appointment go with the doctor yesterday?” Jen asked.
    Viviana frowned. “My sugars are out of control. He wants me to start taking insulin the moment I can have the prescription he wrote filled. I just … ugh.”
    “Needles, huh?”
    “Yeah, that and I’d have to listen to Anton tell me I told you so again,” Viviana explained with a roll of her brown eyes. “I know he will.”
    Jen looked flabbergasted. “You haven’t told Anton, yet?”
    “Yeah, no. He’s going to make a big deal out of it. I was just going