GavrilI drummed my fingers along the table’s surface, staring back at the men who sat before me. They were in varying degrees of comfort, though I wished all of them were equally worried.A confident brigadier was one that could be perceived as an enemy instead. Pakhans and dons might look like they were untouchable, but the ugly truth was that we weren’t.Case in point, Stanislav Orlov. There was always someone around the corner, someone wanting to make a point or get a leg up on their own fucking ladder. I had learned after the tenth assassination attempt on my life that my position was never ironclad or safe for that matter.I’d started to get smart about what I was doing, where I was going, and how to protect myself.The men before me were what was left of the Krasnaya Bratva, the brigadiers that still had pull in the shambles of Orlov’s once-powerful Bratva and the ones I needed on my side to be loyal to me.Konstantin Poroshenko, Sergei Puzanov, Ramzin Kovalyov, and Nikolai Leb
NaomiMoments beforeThe car moved quickly through the streets, and I tried to tamp down the excitement that had been building inside me since I climbed in. I still couldn’t believe that I was pregnant. I knew it was the plan all along. But now that it was here and real, I really didn’t know what to do or say about it.One thing was for sure: I wanted it to be a happy occasion, to see Gavril’s face light up because I was carrying his child and not because the last piece of his plan had clicked into place.Biting my lower lip, I let my hand rest on my still-flat stomach as I mulled over the reaction I thought that Gavril might have. After the last few days, I hoped that he would pick me up in his arms and tell me that he was happy, that I had made him happy with the news.Then we could go back to the mansion and celebrate together, maybe with a nice dinner and plans for what was to come.The problem was, I couldn’t picture any of it. Somehow, fear started to take the place of my happin
JonI grinned as I snapped a few more pictures of Naomi on the side of the road, not even caring that she was puking up her guts. After she had gone dark for weeks, I had finally found her.And fuck! She looked better than I ever remembered.An older man climbed out of the driver’s side and walked around the car, handing her a bottle of water and saying a few words to her before making his way back. How long had I camped out at the bottom of the hill, waiting for the moment that she would leave the mansion so that I might get a glimpse of her?Hell, I had spent more time than I planned on. Everything had been put on halt as I waited for her to make an appearance again.Her trip to Russia had been unexpected, and I hadn’t been able to work it out so that I could follow her in person.But no matter.Seeing Naomi wasn’t the only thing I had witnessed today. I thought about the photos I had snapped of what had happened on the docks and knew those for what they were worth.A fucking goldmi
JonI tacked up the photos I had taken earlier and then stood back to admire my masterpiece. Before me was a careful catalog of what I liked to call Naomi’s wall, years in the making. Every movement she’d ever made in the last year was up there. The places she liked to eat. The clubs she frequented. The paths she took day in and day out. When she went to the gym. Where she went to the gym.Everything.It turned out that my quiet, submissive Naomi was quite the popular person when it came to places I thought she had given up, places that I had scoured for months after our breakup, only to find her nowhere to be found. She hid from me, kept her distance, and whenever I got too close, I was forced to back off because she threw herself into the wind again.Every time she did, I would spend months tracking her down. Why she ran, I didn’t know. It did her no good whatsoever.I always found her and always would.Scratching my chin, I turned my attention back to the photos on the wall, each c
NaomiI pressed the heels of my hands against my aching eyes, trying to dispel what I had seen on the docks an hour before. It couldn’t be true. That couldn’t have been Gavril standing there, watching as those men raped young women who didn’t even have a chance to fight back.That couldn’t have been my husband, the father of my child, not lifting a finger to help any of them.It was sickening.It was devastating.I removed my hands and resumed my pacing in my room, my hands twisted together tightly. What was I going to do when Gavril returned? How could I even look him in the eye and pretend that he wasn’t a monster?If I told him I was out there, what would he say? Would he deny it all? It would be kind of hard to do so, considering I had clearly seen him from a distance.Would he say that there was a greater good involved? Any man who stood by and watched a woman be beaten couldn’t have any sort of greater good in his mind. It was wrong. There was nothing he could tell me or do that
GavrilI speared the asparagus on my plate with my fork and broke off the head, popping it into my mouth. The rich flavors burst on my tongue and I chewed slowly, savoring every bite of my victory dinner.At least that was what I thought of it as. Today had been a big step in the right direction. I was on the right track. All my plans, all my actions up until this moment, were paying off, and while I reveled in my successes, I was cautiously waiting for the other shoe to drop. One did not have success in one area without things falling apart in another.In my line of business, things could turn on their head in an instant.For now, I felt like the merger had been successful. The brigadiers seemed satisfied for now with the shipments. And though I knew some were skeptical that I could lead them, it was only a matter of time before they realized I was stronger than Orlov ever hoped to be.I wasn’t one who lived in the past, who relied on old-world connections to reach my goals.I was fu
Naomi“You can sit up now.”I pushed myself into a sitting position, tugging the dress back over my knees as the OB stripped off her gloves and threw them in the trash. I was in an exam room somewhere in downtown LA, having been ushered through a private side entrance into an expensive office building. Dr. Kipley was her name, and her warm smile had immediately put me at ease.The man in the corner, however, still had me tied up in knots.“Well?” Gavril asked, lounging in the chair that he had recently sat in and refused to leave during the examination. “How is she?”Dr. Kipley appeared to be unruffled by his rough tone as she typed away on the laptop before her, cataloging whatever she had found. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these private visits she had done or who her clients were. Her office gave off the appearance of catering to high-profile clients, from the sleek furniture to the comfortable exam table that I was resting on.I had been offered a warm blanket and robe t
GavrilI stared at my wife, wondering what was going on in that pretty head of hers. When I had left her asleep in her bed, I hadn’t expected her to wake. It seemed that Naomi was now more tired than ever these days, something that I had immediately looked up online to make sure it was normal for pregnant women to be that way.Hell, I did more internet searches these days than I ever had, finding myself worried about each little change in Naomi.I didn’t think this was part of the searches I had done. Never had Naomi asked me to fuck her before, and I wasn’t about to turn her down.I couldn’t tell her no, even if somebody pressed a gun to my head.My fingers found the buttons on the shirt she was wearing—my shirt—and I worked to loosen them quickly, baring the breasts that I had touched hours before. These days they seemed fuller, her nipples taking on a darker rose color than before.I fucking loved them. I couldn’t wait to watch Naomi swell with my child, to watch her figure become