CHAPTER 2
Naomi
I 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 would make me think any differently.
Was I willing to confront him about it? I wanted to. The very thought burned in my soul, wanting to let go so that I could get some answers out of him.
My conscience, on the other hand, made me pause. My heart as well. But I didn’t want to admit that I had fallen in love with the man I had seen out there today. It was almost like he had kicked that woman himself, and though I had never seen him raise a hand to any woman, he was condoning the fact that it was okay to do so.
It made me sick to my stomach.
The moment we got back to the mansion, I told Ivan that he couldn’t tell Gavril we had been there. I needed to think, to figure out a way to broach the subject without unleashing the monster I had seen. A small part of me wanted to just tell Ivan to keep driving, to not take me back to the mansion, but I also knew that he was Gavril’s man first and foremost.
He wasn’t going to give me what I wanted.
Ivan had hesitated at my request, finally stating that if Gavril asked him directly, he wouldn’t be able to lie to his Pakhan. I guessed it was the closest I was going to get to him helping me out.
Now, I waited for Gavril to arrive at the mansion. What should have been a joyous occasion had been overshadowed by what I witnessed, and now I wished I had remained in the dark rather than having gone after him.
What would he think if that was his sisters or me out there on the dock? Would he have just stood aside and watched us be beaten and raped without lifting a finger to intervene? I knew I was getting a little extreme in my thoughts, but somewhere, those women had families that were worried about them.
They didn’t deserve what had happened.
Nobody deserved to be treated like that.
I sat down on the bed, nausea roiling in my stomach once more. I was going to have to face Gavril eventually. He was going to come back, and I was going to have to decide what I should do. On one hand, I wanted to tell him what I had witnessed, just to see his reaction, then pepper him with all the reasons it had been wrong.
On the other hand, I could remain silent and pretend it didn’t happen. I knew that wasn’t my course of action, however. I couldn’t just shut out what I had seen today, nor could I just go along with the rest of my days here and ignore the feelings I was having.
My hand went to my stomach, and I swallowed hard. The baby. I had to tell him about the baby. This pregnancy couldn’t have come at a worse time.
I shook my head. No. It wasn’t our child’s fault, nor was it mine that its father was a monster. I might have been forced into this marriage, but I had an inkling of the sort of man Gavril Kirilenko was.
I just didn’t expect him to be like that. Sure, drugs, guns, and maybe even some prostitution along the way. That was to be expected. That was the Mafia’s main source of business. But the display of cruelty on the docks…
That was something I couldn’t get behind.
I would rather live in a shack than know that this mansion, the clothes I was wearing, and the food I was eating were all supplied by money from the buying and selling of human beings.
Drawing in a breath, I pushed myself off the bed. There had been a time a few years ago when I had done a piece on human trafficking, one of the few pieces that made me feel like I was making a difference with my social media influence.
A local shelter had asked to be featured in some of my short videos, and after my own experiences, I had jumped at the chance. Even Ilsa had joined in, giving the cop side of it all, and as I had listened to her own real-life experiences of what she had seen on the beat, I had been horrified.
Girls as young as five were being trafficked—from all across the world—either to places around the city or to private buyers for God knows what. The woman that ran the shelter supplied what they did to help them. Sometimes they even raided the shipments vigilante style to save the women and girls, often at the cost of their own lives.
In the end, the piece had been touching, and I had raised a heck of a lot of money for the shelter, even donating some of my own money anonymously every month.
Yet here I was, living with a man who not only supported but was an active participant in that horrific trade.
Not just living with, I reminded myself. Married, and pregnant with his child.
What was I going to do? I couldn’t just leave, especially now. Gavril would never let me go. Not after everything he’d told me. This was what he wanted—this was why he’d made me take on the identity of a dead girl.
And then there was the piece of me that still cared for him, for the good side that I saw. I wanted the man that had spent the last few days in bed with me, clearly ignoring any responsibilities that had wanted his attention.
That had to mean something, right? That had to mean that there was a part of him—the part that had laughed at my corny jokes and watched classic movies with me—that wasn’t like the person that was on the dock earlier.
I couldn’t believe it. Not totally.
The door suddenly opened and I turned to find Gavril in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe like he was some sort of GQ model. A small measure of fear sliced through me as I met his gaze, closed off and dark, like when we first met.
I had seen the easy smiles, heard the laughs, felt the warmth. It couldn’t have been some sort of dream.
I thought I’d opened him up. Was I wrong?
“You’re home.”
“I am,” he answered, that dark, accented voice I had come to love filling the room. “Did you have that little faith in me, Sveta?”
That stupid, horrible name was back. Despite it all, despite what I had seen, I didn’t want to be Sveta again. “Of course not,” I forced out, ignoring the fact that my pulse was racing.
Not because I was afraid. No, it was because I could imagine what he looked like under that expensive suit he had on, how his large hands would caress my skin like I was fragile and soothe every longing ache inside.
The same hands that belonged to the monster now standing before me.
Gavril pushed away from the doorframe, and I forced myself not to take two steps backward as he closed the distance between us.
His hands reached up to cup my face. “I’m glad to see you,” he said, his voice softer.
My heart broke. His words were so sincere, so full of emotion, so I didn’t stop him from lowering his lips to mine and giving me a sensual kiss that curled my toes. When we broke apart, I had to place my hands on his chest to keep from pitching forward. His fingers hooked my chin and for a moment, I lost myself in the swirling depths of his eyes, forgetting what he was.
How could I live with this man and love this man, knowing what I knew now?
More importantly, how could I shut myself off?
Gavril’s eyes darkened. “What is it?” he asked, as his thumb rubbed over my jawline. “What happened while I was away?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, hoping that he didn’t hear the tremor in my voice. “Did work go well?”
Gavril dropped his touch from my face. “It went very well. Everything is going according to plan.”
I opened my mouth to respond, wishing to tell him what I had seen. But instead, I turned away, my heart and soul in turmoil. What would he say if I confronted him? What would he do?
What would I do?