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
NaomiA Week LaterI stood at the railing of the balcony, allowing the warmth of the sun to beat down on my face. I knew I should have on a hat or something to block my skin from being burned, but the warmth felt too good, and I didn’t want to move from the spot.I was content. In this moment, I didn’t have to worry about anything, breathing in and out slowly to loosen the tension that seemed to have taken up residence in my shoulders.What I wouldn’t give to have a massage or a week’s vacation.Or just my sanity intact.Slowly, I opened my eyes and looked at the walls in the distance. At this distance, the barbed wire covering the walls was barely visible, but not impossible to see. A reminder that I was locked in. Gavril had given me the right to leave the mansion whenever I wanted to, but I hadn’t.For a week since that night in the study, I’d stayed indoors, conflicted as to what I was going to do with the awful truth of who my husband was.The nightmares came frequently now. Eith
GavrilI flipped the page back with a frown, rereading the column of numbers that were staring up at me. That couldn’t be right.I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand and squinted at the numbers, trying to make sense of it all. Anatoly was the only one who knew I fucking hated to wear reading glasses, preferring to strain my eyes so no one would see a weakness that I couldn’t do anything about.Call me vain, but I wasn’t old enough for reading glasses, nor did I have the time to go get my eyes fixed.So squinting was the result.Still, even with my bad eyesight, there was no mistaking the numbers there. It was a list of all the shipments that had come from Russia to LA over the last two months, from the women to the additional goods like weapons and drugs meant to placate what was left of Orlov’s men.I hadn’t expected it to be so expensive.Quickly, I added the numbers myself, something I liked to do when I was stressed out and needed a way to calm my mind.Tonight, though, it wa
NaomiI idly turned the pages of the magazine in my lap, not really reading the words. All day I had been restless, and nothing seemed to satisfy me, no matter what I tried to do.I couldn’t even sleep for more than a few minutes, which was what I usually did when I couldn’t find anything else to do.Gavril had been MIA since breakfast, not even showing up for our normal workout time or for lunch.It hurt a little bit to know that he had already busted our routine up for God knows what. Sometimes I wondered if any of what we had experienced over the last few weeks was just a lie, a dream that I had finally woken up from.I didn’t want this rift between us. No matter what I had seen or what I thought he was doing, he was still my husband and the man I depended on for my very livelihood. To have him upset with me was almost like he had cut off my right hand. After nearly two months of being attached at the hip to him, I could feel the distance between us, and mentally, I wasn’t ready fo