40. Arsen
40
ARSEN
“Where is she?”
“Who?” Polina is standing in the living room, dusting the sofa, the shelves, and, more often than not, the empty air in front of her. She swallows nervously. “Oh, do you mean Laila?”
“Yes, I mean Laila. We’re supposed to leave.”
Actually, we were supposed to leave half an hour ago, but Laila wasn’t downstairs. So I sent Polina up to check on her. I would’ve gone to get her myself, but my wife doesn’t have much interest in seeing me.
The bolted door last night made that abundantly clear. Let no one say I can’t take a hint.
I’ve had twelve hours to mull it over, and I still can’t wrap my head around what happened. One second, she was kissing me into a wall and riding me on the floor until I could barely stand. The next, she was storming into her bedroom and locking the door behind her.
Polina continues dusting nothing whatsoever. “I’ve been thinking… We’ve ordered more than enough supplies for the baby. I don’t think you need to take Laila shopping today.”
“Last night you said it was a ‘lovely idea.’”
“Yes, well…” Her face puckers like she’s sucking on something sour. “I changed my mind. I mean, Laila is pregnant. And her hip—it might not do well walking all around a store.”
“Then I’ll carry her.”
“I think she’s tired,” she says suddenly. “The poor thing is exhausted. You reschedule, and I’ll make her some tea, and we’ll all?—”
“Polina.” I reach over the couch and snatch the feather duster out of her hand. “What do you know?”
She clams up. Her lips purse, and she hits me with an indignant scowl that she’s been giving me for so long it’s probably ingrained in her DNA. “My job is to clean. I’m not supposed to?—”
“You’ve had your nose in everyone’s business since the day you walked through the door. Don’t start pretending otherwise.”
She lifts her chin, but doesn’t deny it.
“Now,” I continue, “where is my wife?”
“In her room.”
I blink at her. “I asked you to go get her.”
“And she told me she wasn’t coming out. She told me…” Polina sighs. “Laila told me that she—and I’m quoting directly here—‘has zero percent interest in seeing you.’ She said that—again, direct quote—‘since you like to do everything else by yourself, you can enjoy your own company on whatever date you have planned for her.’ She said?—”
I don’t hear the rest of what Laila might’ve said because I’m already halfway up the stairs by the time Polina registers what is happening and calls after me. “If you’re trying to connect with her, you should?—”
“What I’m trying to do,” I growl, whirling around and storming back down the stairs, “is decorate my child’s nursery. That’s what Laila and I are doing today. That’s what is happening here.”
This isn’t about luring Laila out of her room. Or striking some kind of livable balance between fucking and fighting.
And this isn’t about the look I saw in Laila’s eyes last night as she sprinted out of the nursery.
Polina arches a shrewd eyebrow. “Maybe ‘decorating your child’s nursery’ should be a quiet affair. Something you and Laila do here at the house. Together. While you talk.”
I shake my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“She doesn’t care about grand gestures, Arsen!” Polina cries suddenly. “Laila cares about family. That’s why she’s doing any of this to begin with—for her mother. I think you’d do well to remember that when you talk to her.”
I kick the feather duster back down the stairs at Polina. It lands at her feet. “And I think you’d do well to remember that the sofa doesn’t need dusting.”
Her lips twitch with irritation. She mumbles something in Russian that I can’t hear. I’m guessing she’s not singing my praises, though.
I spin around and storm up the stairs again. She shouts after me, “Go easy on her, Arsen! She’s going through a lot.”
She’s going through a lot? I’ve got the Italians on my ass, ghosts from my past appearing on my doorstep, and I’m the one shutting down a Buy, Buy, Baby so I can haul my pregnant wife out there to decorate a nursery.
And she can’t even be bothered to come out of her room.
Well, that changes now.
I know Laila’s door is still locked, which is why I go into my room and cut across to the secret access my grandfather had hidden beneath paneling. One flick of the wainscoting, and I’m storming through the wall and marching into Laila’s quarters.
She’s still in bed, wearing a silk dressing gown and reading a book like she has all the fucking time in the world.
But when the wall opens, she snaps up. “What the— Oh, for fuck’s sake, there’s another door?”
“Convenient, isn’t it?” I grab the comforter and yank it off the bed. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Put something decent on.”
She slides out of bed, the silk neckline dipping low across her chest, and plants both fists on her hips. “No.”
“No? Alright. That’s fine then.”
There’s a second where she can’t believe I’m agreeing so easily. Then I spin her around and shove her towards the closet.
“Let me go!” She tries to elbow me in the stomach, but the maneuver is clumsy and she only manages to brush past my ribs.
“Careful or you’ll hurt yourself.”
She screeches and flings her other elbow back. “It’ll be worth it to hit you, you, you… hoarder !”
“What?”
In my surprise, I loosen my grip, and Laila wriggles away from me. She spins around, her back pressed to the closet door, holding it closed. Her cheeks are flushed a deep red. “You’re a hoarder. That’s why we’re going to buy more baby stuff, right? As if we don’t have an entire diaper aisle stuffed into that nursery already.”
“I like to be prepared.”
“Well, there are enough diapers up there that an infant army could have a simultaneous poopsplosion, and we’d be fully covered. You’re prepared. So—” She waves me towards the secret door. “—go away. I’m staying here.”
“I’ll make that decision.”
Her eyes gleam, and she tries to dart around me. “Of course. Because you’re the one who always calls the shots. You’re Mr. Bossman telling everyone—” I block her path, and she shoves both hands against my chest. “You don’t own me! You paid for my uterus, not my soul.”
“Laila,” I growl, caging her against the closet.
“Don’t,” she snaps. “Don’t say my name like that. Don’t act like I’m being crazy. You’re the one forcing us to go shopping for our daughter like we’re normal. Like we aren’t fifty shades of fucked- up. But we are, and I don’t want to pretend with you today, so leave.”
Her breathing is ragged. Our bodies brush together, and she twists herself away from me.
“You need to calm down, Laila.”
“I’m calm. Now, move.”
I’d believe her if her breath didn’t hitch. If her eyes weren’t shimmering with tears I don’t understand.
“No.”
Her shoulders sag as she shrinks back against the wall. “Why not?”
“Because you’re…”
There’s only one, very loud, very tangible reason amassing inside my head: Because you’re mine.
But that’s not what I say.
“Because we need to finish the nursery before you go into labor.”
“It’s finished!” she shrieks. “We have enough diapers for our future grandkids. We don’t need anything else. Just leave me alone.”
I’m shaking my head before she even finishes. We aren’t ready. We aren’t even close to ready.
Before I can say that, she narrows her eyes. “For someone who was in prison, you sure like to lock people up.”
I freeze.
“Yeah,” she says, standing a little taller. “I know about that. So you can stop trying to hide it.”
I shift back, suddenly regretting coming in here at all. “I wasn’t hiding anything. I’ve been to prison. I’m not ashamed of that.”
“Criminals never are,” she mutters under her breath.
“Seventeen-year-olds don’t have much shame, either.”
I watch as something like horror washes over her face. “You were only… You were a kid?”
“And already running missions for the Bratva. That’s the pro and the con of your grandfather being pakhan —they start you young.”
“What about your parents?”
“Dead and gone,” I say dismissively. “The Bratva is all I had, but I was young and the men running the mission with me didn’t trust me—not that I blame them.” This is the last thing I thought I’d be talking about today, and I have to dig deep to find the words. “The mission was botched. I got caught.”
“But your grandfather was powerful, wasn’t he? He was like you?” She grimaces at the roundabout, unintended compliment. “Couldn’t he have gotten you out?”
“He had as much power as I do now. He used it to make sure I suffered.”
She sags back against the closet door, too caught in the story to be mad at me now. “How?”
“They were going to try me as a minor until Yeremy Adamov stepped in and asked that I be tried as an adult and moved to maximum security.”
Laila presses her palm gently against my chest. “Arsen, I?—”
“So, yes, I like to be prepared. I like to know what’s coming. And I don’t like to depend on anyone for anything.” I swallow the bitter taste in my mouth and retreat out of Laila’s reach. “I always have a way out so I can’t be trapped again.”
It’s more of an explanation than anyone else has ever gotten, and I wait for Laila to say… fuck, something . To pity me or apologize. I don’t need either one, but it’s the only way I see this going.
Then, just like everything else with this infuriating woman, she does something I don’t expect.
She huffs out a bitter laugh.
“Right. You always have an escape plan. Even with me.” She brushes past me, deeper into the room. “You don’t need to take me shopping, Arsen. I understand what is going on here. You can go.”
She may understand what is going on, but I have no fucking idea.
“The shopping trip is just a gesture. I was—” I clear my throat, realizing exactly how bad I am at this. “Fucking hell, Laila, I was trying to do something right for a change.”
“By making me shop for the child I’ll have to leave behind?” she spits, grabbing the comforter where I tossed it on the floor and spreading it on the bed. “No thanks.”
Leave . The word settles like an anchor around my neck. Just hearing her say it sounds wrong.
“What are you—? You aren’t going anywhere.”
“You’re a cold man, Arsen, but you’re not cruel,” she says so softly I almost can’t hear her. “But it’s cruel to make me believe I have a place in this child’s life when I don’t.”
“Says who?”
“Says the contract I signed!” She whips around, tears on her cheeks and her hands plastered over her bump. “I should’ve known. I should’ve— You said what you needed to say to get me to marry you, and I understand it, even if I hate it.”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
She shakes her head. I don’t even think she’s listening to me. “Don’t stand here now and act like we’re going to be some happy family when you know we aren’t.”
I arch back, heat rushing to my face. “You don’t trust me.”
“I do trust you,” she whispers. “I believe you when you say you always have a plan and you’ll never be trapped again. When we get divorced, you’re going to do what you need to do to get out clean, and I can’t even be mad at you because I agreed to all of it.”
The resignation in her voice breaks my black, icy heart. “This baby is yours. I wasn’t lying to you when I said you get to be in her life, roza .”
“Oh, yeah? What happens when you divorce me and I have to move out?—”
“You’re not moving out,” I growl, surprised by my own conviction.
Her lips part, her eyes going wide. “It’ll be hard to live together after we’re divorced.”
I haven’t really thought about it. Not in a long while. There was a time when the idea of divorce sounded like music to my ears, but now…
“Then we won’t get divorced.” I close the distance between us and reach for her hands. “I want you to stay here with me, Laila. I want you to be a mother to our daughter. I want you to… to be my wife.”
“But your… your escape plan…” she breathes. “You said you don’t like to feel trapped.”
Truths I haven’t admitted even to myself rise to the surface.
“I don’t, but—” I curl my hand around her jaw, tilting her face to mine. “I haven’t felt trapped with you since the day we met.”