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It was enough to drive me to insanity. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat.

All I wanted was revenge and her safely tucked at my side. I wanted Naomi to call me out on my bullshit again related to the women trafficking.

I wanted her to smile at me with what I perceived as love reflected in her eyes and tell me that this feelings shit was worth it in the end.

That she wasn’t going to break me like I knew she could. Katya and her claws had nothing on what Naomi could do to me, and I had learned a little too late that my wife, the mother of my child, was everything. She had filled the fucking hole in my chest with something I never thought I could feel, and now I had lost her.

My life without her was unfathomable, however short it was going to be.

The car pulled up to the mansion, and I nodded at Ivan as I climbed the steps, my hands shoved in my pockets. It wasn’t home for me right now, not without the heart of it missing.

“Master,” Vera acknowledged as I stepped inside. “I’ll have a late dinner prepared for you in the dining room.”

“I’m not hungry,” I replied, cutting her off.

Vera stepped in front of me, halting my steps, and I saw the clench of her jaw. “You need to eat,” she demanded. “You are doing her no favors being like this.”

I stared at the woman who had been in my employ for longer than I could remember, now standing up to me like she wasn’t scared of the repercussions that could come. I was her master, but here she was, acting like she cared about me as well.

So, I drew in a tortured breath, pushing past the anger I should have felt for her insolence. I felt, hell, I felt like I could break down in front of her right now. “Send a plate to my office,” I told her instead, watching as her eyes widened just a hair. “But no promise that I’ll eat it.”

Vera opened and closed her mouth a few times before she gave me a single nod. “Of course, master. I will see to it right away.”

She stepped out of my path and I continued on, the vise-like grip on my heart turning yet again. These people depended on me just like Naomi did. I couldn’t let anything happen to them.

I had failed once. I wasn’t about to fail again.

As promised, Vera delivered the meal a few minutes later, catching me sitting at my desk, a bottle of vodka on my right and my laptop opened on the left. I was detailing out the inventory that Anatoly had started so I could keep track of what I had available. It was tedious work, which was why he had been much better at it than me.

That and I was trying to locate the whereabouts of Jon Hampton. Wherever he was, Naomi was likely to be, and even though we hadn’t found any dirt on him in the beginning, there had to be something there. I had made a few calls to some of my contacts in the computer intelligence business, asking for them to track down his last known places of residence, including any sort of rental properties that he might own. He couldn’t have disappeared into thin air, and I didn’t believe that he was taking Naomi out of the country.

Not yet. If he truly had any hand in this war, he would want to see me go down first, knowing that I wouldn’t come after his ass when I won.

I ignored the plate that Vera had brought and picked up the bottle of vodka instead, taking a long draw to coat my empty stomach before pushing myself out of the chair and stepping out into the cool night. From my vantage point, I could still see the lights of the city in the distance. Naomi was somewhere down there in the hands of a fucking monster.

As the words crossed my mind, I thought about the times she had called me a monster. Was I any better than Jon? I had kidnapped her, taken her against her will, and gotten her pregnant. It wasn’t like she had jumped at the chance to be involved in this shit, just like she hadn’t with Hampton.

If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met Naomi, fallen in love with her. It was hard to fight that fact, even if I was a monster in her story.

I thought back to what my mother had stated on the phone, how I couldn’t blame Naomi for keeping secrets from me when I had done the same thing to her. I hadn’t given her all my secrets, yet I expected her to reveal hers.

It was a double standard. I had demanded so much from Naomi, yet the moment that she pushed back, I pushed her away and shut down.

No wonder a part of her hated me. I had given her no reason to love me and every reason to walk away.

My throat worked, and I took another long sip of the vodka to chase away the sudden pain. None of it mattered if I couldn’t find her, and that was what terrified me the most. The what-ifs. This mansion, my entire fucking life, seemed empty, dark even. If I couldn’t locate Naomi, I would spend the rest of my life thinking not only about the what ifs but also about moving through life like nothing mattered.

Without Naomi, nothing did, and I was just too stupid to have noticed it until now. Maybe she would be here, and I wouldn’t feel so alone.

“Fuck,” I breathed, shoving a hand through my hair roughly. I would give anything to hear her voice right now just to make sure she was all right. The unknown was killing me, knowing that I was doing everything to find her and it still wasn’t enough.

Did she know I would come after her? Did she believe that I wasn’t going to give up until I found her? I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure if she would believe it or not, given the past few days.

My cell phone buzzed and I sighed as I pulled it out, my blood freezing in my veins as I saw the name flashing on the screen.

Roman Marchetti? What the fuck did he want?

The Marchetti Mafia had gone silent over the last few months. Rumor was that he was tied up with his new wife and expecting his first child, setting aside his organization, and months ago I would have laughed at him for doing so.


Tags: Brook Wilder Belaya Bratva Romance