NaomiI didn’t like anything that I was witnessing at this moment. I didn’t like the fact that my kidnapper was standing before me or how Gavril was giving me a look that seemed to sear my very soul. He looked so defeated, and I didn’t think I had ever seen him like that before. “What’s going on?” I asked, far too scared to say anything else. “Why is he here?”Gavril finally snapped out of his thoughts and placed his hands on my shoulders, the heat of his skin burning through my thin shirt. I could feel a faint tremor in his touch, and it surprised me. Gavril was never rattled. “I need for you to go with Anatoly,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “He will get you to a safe house.”“And you are coming with me, right?” I countered, already knowing the answer.His jaw tightened and I gripped his wrists with my hands, tightening my hold. “Your men can fight this war for you,” I rushed on. “You don’t need to fight alongside them.”“There is no honor in running from a fight,” he said tightly
GavrilI stood in the driveway until I could no longer see the taillights of the car that carried Naomi away. I felt sick to my stomach at what I had just done, hoping that I had made the right decision in sending her away.Of course, it was the right decision to get her away from the danger, but I should have taken her myself.“Fuck,” I breathed, shoving a hand through my hair and forcing myself to turn back to the house. I thought that when she left, I would be able to breathe a bit easier, but right now, I didn’t feel like it at all.I felt like part of me had just left in that car.“Pakhan?”Looking up, I found Ivan standing at the entrance, concern on his weathered face. “What is it, Ivan?”“Anatoly will watch over her,” he said softly, as if he could read my thoughts. “She will be safe. We will make certain that she is.”I drew in a steady breath. “Thank you, Ivan.” The old man was one of my trusted few, and while I wouldn’t normally take that sort of conversation from just anyo
NaomiI rubbed my stomach as the car rode along the highway out of the city, watching the ocean in the distance. I had barely said two words to Anatoly since his last statement, waiting for the shoe to drop, so to speak, and for him to pull the car over to kill me.It seemed, though, that he was truly going to drive me somewhere safe. Either that or we weren’t to the kill location just yet.At this point, I really didn’t know.Still, there had been a hole in my heart from the moment we pulled away from Gavril. I didn’t like that I was leaving him to fight his war by himself. I didn’t like that he had felt the need to send me away, as if he wasn’t going to make it through this fight and that was potentially the last time I would see him. Touch him.God, I couldn’t believe how my entire feelings had taken a turn in the last day toward him! I both loved and hated him, loving the part that was the good in him and hating the bad part that made him consider himself a monster. In order to lo
NaomiI adjusted my body on the leather seat, trying to relieve some of the pressure on my shoulders. Despite all of the men that had been present when Jon finally found me, it was now just me and him in the SUV. I remained silent as he drove, afraid of what would happen if I said something.I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified at the prospect of being in his hands again. I knew exactly the kinds of horrific things he wanted to do to me. But I wasn’t the same person he remembered. For the longest time I had been scared of him, of what he could do to me. I hated the way that he made me feel helpless, but I wasn’t helpless anymore.I wasn’t the helpless girl he had tormented for years.But he still held most of the cards, and I had to be smart about being around him if I wanted to find a way to return to Gavril.This couldn’t be the end of my life. I had so much more I wanted to do. I wanted to see this child grow. I wanted to repair my relationship with Gavril, for us to find some
GavrilAfter the phone call“Fuck!” I shouted, scrambling to put on the tracker that was embedded in Anatoly’s cell phone. This couldn’t be happening, not now.“What do you need, pakhan?” Ivan said from the driver’s seat, sensing my anger.I showed him the location of Anatoly’s signal, glad that it was still beeping strongly. Wherever he was, I was going to get there immediately and find out what the hell had happened. “Take me there. Immediately.”“Yes, sir,” Ivan answered as he changed directions, heading toward the location quickly.Jon Hampton had my wife. My chest felt like it was going to explode with both fear and anger for what was happening, knowing that I had made a mistake in sending Naomi away. I thought that she would be safe from the impending war, but I had failed to consider that the FBI agent could make a move on my fucking wife during this time.It had been my mistake, my lapse in judgment, and now Naomi was in the hands of a madman.Shoving a hand through my hair, I
Naomi“Oh, you poor thing! Are you sure I can’t get you another glass of water? What about some cookies?”I shook my head, giving the older woman a kind smile. “Just a cell phone will be fine. I promise to be out of your hair shortly.”She waved a hand at me. “This is the most excitement that me and Clyde have had in quite a while! Clyde? Have you found the phone yet?”There was no answer and Mary frowned, placing her hands on her portly hips. “Clyde! Did you hear me?”He still didn’t answer and she stormed out of the living room, yelling his name. I allowed my smile to fade and looked around the clean and slightly outdated space. At least I had chosen my house correctly. I doubted these people even had a social media account, given the fact that Clyde couldn’t find his flip phone to begin with.When I had knocked on their door, they had been reluctant to let me in, but after I had begged for a cell phone and a glass of water, Mary had ordered her husband to open the door.She had gon
NaomiIlsa ended up taking us to a heavy iron gate in the LA hills, not far from where I believed Gavril’s mansion was. “Why are you in LA?” I asked, remembering the lovely island that Roman owned in the Gulf of Mexico.Ilsa shot me a dark look. “Were you not paying attention? Didn’t I tell you we were looking for you?”They had come to find me. My throat clogged with tears, but she was turning toward a keypad, swiping a card over it to open the gates. Roman had just gotten himself out of a tangle months ago with the very men that Gavril was about to face, and I’d thought that they would live it up in paradise, especially with Ilsa carrying his child.But they had come for me. I couldn’t believe it.Ilsa navigated the car up a driveway and to a Mediterranean-style home that was backdropped by a ton of flowers and the ocean in the far distance. The door opened immediately, and I was helped out by a kind-looking guard just as the front door opened and Roman Marchetti strolled out, looki
GavrilI clasped my hands behind my back, a cold mask of indifference on my face as I walked around the strung-up body. The man was shirtless, and small rivulets of blood ran over his chest from the cuts on his face. His mouth was gagged and his hands bound at the wrists by a set of chains that suspended him about three inches off the floor.Enough to put pressure on his shoulder joints to hurt, but not enough to cause permanent damage.Dark hair hung limply on his sweaty forehead, and the stench of piss and sweat filled the air, but it was the look of defiance in his eyes that pissed me off the most. I stopped before him, ripping the gag out of his mouth and letting it fall to the floor.“Are you ready to talk now?” I asked coolly. “Or are you going to make me do this the hard way, Sergei?”Sergei Puzanov glared at me, licking his lips to wet them from the gag. “Nothing you can do will make me talk, Kirilenko.”I chuckled and picked up the jumper cables, holding them over the battery