Chapter 7
Gavril
I patted my pockets as the SUV pulled up to the iron gate, making sure I had my guns close by. Ever since I had heard from Naomi, the nervous energy had tripled, and until I could see and verify that she was all right, I knew I would continue to feel this way.
On one hand, I was glad that Roman had her and she hadn’t mentioned Hampton’s name. Had she escaped, or was there a bigger play that I was going to walk into in a few minutes?
On the other hand, Roman Marchetti was a dead man if Naomi had been harmed in any way. It would be extremely foolish of me to start a war while I already had one going on, but for the mother of my child? I would do whatever it took. If what I had heard recently about Marchetti was true, then I wasn’t sure I had much to worry about in terms of him harming Naomi.
It was all over LA that he was infatuated with his new wife, a former police officer at that, and unless she was just a cruel woman, I couldn’t imagine her standing by and taking him abusing a pregnant one.
I swallowed, thinking of how Naomi had accused me of doing the very same thing to those trafficked women at the docks. Maybe this was the side of Marchetti that his wife didn’t know about either.
The gates finally swung open, and I tugged on my vest nervously, ensuring it was in place. While I would have preferred to have met Marchetti on a neutral playing field so that he could turn over my wife, I wasn’t going to go into his property blindly. All of us, myself included, were armed to the teeth and ready for violence. This could easily be a trap, and I wasn’t stupid enough not to prepare for it.
Once the SUV pulled up to the door, I stepped out, smoothing my hair back with both hands and putting on my game face. Marchetti wasn’t going to know how desperate I was to get my wife back, not at first anyway.
“Pakhan Kirilenko,” one of the guards waiting on the stairs acknowledged, inclining his head. “If you will follow me.”
I glanced over at Yuri, and he shrugged his broad shoulders as if to tell me he didn’t get it either. We had expected to be met with gunfire at least, but this seemed more formal than I would have anticipated.
Yuri fell in step behind me as I entered the interior of the home, where we met a wall of guards. “Pakhan Kirilenko,” started the one that had addressed me earlier. “Don Marchetti means no harm to you or your men.”
“That’s all well and good,” I replied smoothly, my words edgier than normal. “But I demand that he let me see my wife or harm is the last thing he’s going to have to worry about.”
To his credit, the guard didn’t flinch. “I’ve been instructed to ask you and your men to wait here for the don and Mrs. Kirilenko. If you prefer, we can move back outdoors.”
“Here is fine,” I growled, giving him a dark smirk. “I’m not a patient man. Can we move past these pleasantries and get on with business?”
“Your wife is both safe at the Marchetti home and unharmed,” the guard said, as if that was meant to placate me from resorting to violence. “Don Marchetti—”
“Needs to show me my wife,” I finished for him, my patience wearing thin. “Or I might be inclined to go searching for her myself, and we both know that could get ugly.” I would tear this fucking mansion apart brick by brick if I needed to.
The guard turned around nearly immediately and headed out of the foyer, leaving me to face roughly eight or so men with my own behind me. Their expressions gave nothing away, but it wasn’t hard to see the bulge of guns under their suit coats, and I silently begged one of them to go for his weapon. I was itching for a fucking fight, any excuse to take out my rage on someone. My internal conscience reminded me that I had put myself and my wife in this position, but I was going to rectify all of it.
She would never be separated from me again.
As I waited, I couldn’t help but think about Anatoly and what he would be saying at this moment. Likely something stupid about how I couldn’t hold my shit together in anticipation for a woman I hadn’t even wanted in the first place. Fuck, I was going to miss the bastard more than I realized. My grief wasn’t coming to the surface yet, but while both my wife and my Bratva’s positions hung in the balance, I couldn’t allow that.
None of my brigadiers would ever be close to me like he was. That was the true tragedy.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but really was only a few minutes, Roman Marchetti stepped through the doorway. It had been a few months since I had seen the Italian bastard, but he looked, well, he looked like he was at peace about something. I mean, who wouldn’t when both Guzman and Orlov were dead?
“Kirilenko,” he acknowledged.
“Marchetti,” I replied, not letting him see my level of anxiety about what was going to happen. “My wife, if you please.”
Something passed over his expression before he turned and nodded, and my knees nearly buckled as Naomi entered the space, her eyes searching and finally resting on me. I watched as her lips parted, and a glimmer of tears shone in her eyes as she broke out in a near run at me, my arms opening right before she fell into them.
“Oh God,” she breathed, pressing her face into my vest. “You’re here. You are actually here.”
Despite the room full of people, I lowered my head until my face was pressed into her hair, breathing in her scent with a shaky breath that only she could decipher. The relief was overwhelming that she was in my arms, even acting like I was the best thing she had seen in a long time. There was so much I wanted to say to her, but not with an audience or a smirking Italian don watching my every move.
So, I pulled back and framed her face with my hands, my eyes roaming over every feature. “Are you all right?”
A tear slipped down her cheek, and I brushed it away with my thumb, feeling my hands shake. “I’m fine.”
“Are you certain?” I urged, wanting nothing more than to have an excuse to fuck up the Italian. “If he touched you in any way…” I couldn’t finish my words, the threat of violence souring in my gut. I would kill him. I would watch his blood pour out of his body and not blink an eye.