Chapter 9 Sergei
SERGEI
Ever since I found out where Natalie lived, I doubled down on seeing her. Keeping up my routine of stopping in at the Diamond Mirage didn’t change. Now, I added in the pattern of stalking her. I followed her home—from a distance—almost every night I saw her.
If anyone were to ask me what the hell I was doing, admitting I was obsessed with her would be the quickest and most honest answer.
Kissing her on the sidewalk was a turning point. The taste of her lips was embedded on my tongue. The sound of her quiet whimpers of need were ingrained in my brain.
It just wasn’t enough.
I couldn’t will myself to give her up or stop coming to see that she was there.
With how much distance I kept between us, never trying to push her into talking more or giving me anything else, it seemed like a contradiction that wouldn’t make sense or be resolved.
I wanted her but didn’t actively pursue her.
I missed her, but I couldn’t figure out how to take the first step of claiming her when it was so obvious that she’d struggle.
She was scared of something. She was nervous and socially shy.
A woman as sweet and meek as her, yet scrappy and determined to work hard, couldn’t be into anything nefarious or bad.
Natalie was a good person. I sensed that immediately.
And because of that, she wouldn’t adjust to the ugliness and violence of who I was.
On nights when I was pulled into working, too busy acting as my uncle’s enforcer, I regretted that I couldn’t check in on her.
It took one slip to give away too much, though.
After driving out to a warehouse with Mikhail, a rarity now since he’d stepped back from being on the frontlines and personally involved in combat, I detoured around toward the Diamond Mirage and Natalie’s neighborhood.
It wasn’t as though I could see through the walls and spot her, but merely being in her area helped to assuage missing her.
“Where are we going?” Mikhail asked.
“Just driving past a place I’ve been keeping on my radar,” I explained. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He shrugged then shook his head. Looking comfortable in the passenger seat, he watched the scenery blur past us out the window. “No. I don’t mind. Is this something you’re keeping on your radar for the family?” He glanced at me. “For business?”
I shook my head and regretted it. What the fuck else would I be keeping on my radar if not for the family’s business? Clearing my throat, I quickly nodded. “Kind of.”
“You know, I thought Claire was being silly the other night. All those pregnancy hormones and all.” He chuckled lightly. “After we had dinner, she asked me if you were seeing someone. She got it into her head that you’ve been acting ‘different’ lately.”
Dammit.
I didn’t want to know how she could guess that. I wasn’t acting any differently. “How am I supposedly acting?”
“She said you seemed distracted.”
That wasn’t anything concerning. And it was a vague observation.
“And that you seemed close to smiling every now and then, as if you were thinking about something and reminded of being happy.”
Fuck. That was concerning. I’d been suffering from random thoughts about Natalie.
Any time I let my mind wander, it went right to her.
I’d wonder what she was doing. If she was lonely.
What she wore to bed. If she wanted me in her bed.
How the rest of her soft skin would feel with the fact that I knew how decadently satiny her cheek was.
“Well, shit.” He chuckled again. “That’s what she’s talking about.”
I furrowed my brow at him as we stopped at an intersection. “What?”
“You do look like you’re thinking about someone. A woman.” He arched one brow. “I never thought you’d be the next one to settle down.”
I rolled my eyes. “Settle down?” I huffed. “I don’t even know her last name. Nothing about her. She’s just a stranger who caught my eye.”
“That’s it?” he asked, amused.
“That’s it. Just a bartender I happened to see one night.”
He pointed at the neon sign of the Diamond Mirage. “That shitty dump?”
Goddammit. I couldn’t explain this need to keep Natalie as my little secret. I wasn’t ashamed of her. But after seeing how much Mikhail struggled to convince Claire to want to be a part of the Orlov family, I worried that Natalie would be even harder to persuade. She was that skittish and scared.
It reinforced how badly I wanted her to be with me. To belong with me.
“I stopped in there one night,” I explained.
He wasn’t asking for an explanation, but I couldn’t leave this hanging open between us.
When my father was killed alongside my grandfather, it left my uncle to raise me.
He had been my father figure, boss, and friend more than a mere uncle all my life.
I didn’t like to keep secrets from him. “Afterward, when a couple of punks were causing trouble, I handled them in the alley and found some of the Giovannis’ drugs on them.
The shit we’d eliminated in that one bust.”
He hummed, interested in knowing more.
“Another time, I spotted a dealer in there.” Changing the topic into business seemed to get him off the idea of my being interested in a woman.
“This isn’t Giovanni turf,” he said.
“I know. But I’m wondering if they’re up to something. Maybe trying to expand their distribution.”
“Then I suppose your fascination about being in this area is for work, not pleasure.”
Not necessarily.
“Sergei, if you have found someone—”
“I haven’t,” I replied quickly, cutting him off. I, along with Andre and Roman, was one of the few people on earth who could get away with cutting him off.
“If and when you do,” he said dryly, as if he didn’t believe me, “please consider the efficiency and speed with which you bring her under our protection.” Wearing a stern, serious expression as he watched the scenery out the window, he was likely recalling how Claire had been targeted once she was identified as someone associated with him.
“I will consider that,” I replied truthfully. “But she is just a stranger, Uncle.”
A stranger I couldn’t stop thinking about.
A stranger I wanted to kiss again. To touch. To pleasure. To protect.
After I took him home, though, I drove right back out to the Diamond Mirage instead of going home.
Blood still stained my clothes from the hit I’d taken out at the warehouse with Mikhail.
I was filthy, sweaty, and in need of changing and cleaning up.
Yet, I proved myself that I was a liar by going to see if I could get a glimpse of Natalie.
“Just a stranger,” I muttered to myself as I drove past the Diamond Mirage. Due to the late hour, I wondered if she was even there anymore. The bar looked closed. No one was inside. I bet Rosa had closed again and had left.
“Fuck it,” I whispered to myself, needing to see her.
I headed over to the apartment building I saw her enter.
As I turned in that direction, I shook my head and hated how she controlled me like this.
How weak I was with this need to see that she was okay.
Just to see her, all to experience that lift of my heart and the happiness that crept in with the awareness that she was safe and sound.
I didn’t want to know how this was possible.
I didn’t have time to spend on figuring out why she mattered so much, how she’d gotten under my skin like this.
I could only worry that it would get worse before it got better.
What if I stayed so distracted, needing to check on her, that it pulled me from something important for the family?
What if I get sloppy with her hogging my thoughts and made a mistake?
This has gone on too long.
It wasn’t sustainable, keeping her in the periphery of my life and unsure about whether she’d ever fit in it. Irritated with my obsession and loathing how I’d let myself get into a stalemate like this with how she lured me to want to be closer, I knew this was it.
Two months had gone by already. If I didn’t make a move and go for her, I had to insert more distance and time apart from her so I could wean myself off this interest.
But not tonight.
I was already here, parking near her apartment building.
If my guess was correct, she was already home from her shift.
Still, I had to appease this draw to her. I got out of my car and walked down the sidewalk toward the entrance to her building. Staying on the opposite side of the street, sticking with the shadows, I truly adopted the role of being her stalker. A creep in the darkness, always watching.
Are you up there?
I leaned against the wall, hiding under the darkness from the steps to this building and stared up at the windows that might be hers.
Are you asleep?
I imagined her in bed, naked and relaxed.
Do you dream of me too?
My dick would get hard any second now as I entertained myself with one of my favorite fantasies, the ones of sneaking into her room and surprising her with my touch to wake her up.
Do you—
The sound of footsteps rushing close jarred me from my forbidden thoughts about her.
Down the sidewalk, a woman walked quickly.
Carrying a small child, she hid her face from me.
With her short, curvy body, she seemed to struggle running.
That power walk was likely all she could do, holding that young boy or girl.
A hood blocked the child’s hair from my sight.
The brown and white striped pajamas under the black coat weren’t giving me clues.
But I didn’t need any.
I’d recognize her long, chestnut hair anywhere. I’d stared at her so many times that I’d committed the contour of her sexy figure to memory.
Natalie?
Alarmed with this change in her routine, I furrowed my brow and watched her come closer. Half worried that I was imagining her, I waited for her to pass me on the rushed way to her building.
What the hell are you doing out here?
Who are you carrying?
Why aren’t you safe at home this late?
She had to have left work not that long ago with the bar just closing. That meant she should’ve walked home by now. Not be on the sidewalk looking scared as she tried to run with a child in her arms.
The closer she came, the more details filled in. Her green eyes full of fear. Her jacket with the rip near her elbow. The worn shoes that she had on every night. Swinging with her quick gait, the small, simple purse was looped to her shoulder.
It was her, all right, but nothing made sense about her being out here like this, with a child. Nothing was right about the two masked men chasing after her, either.
Every protective instinct I possessed ran hot. Spiked with the need to keep her safe, I stepped out from the shadows as she came close.
Without a single second of hesitation, I had my gun out of its holster. I lifted my arm as I ran to intercept.
They weren’t just any men. The pair of men chasing her down the sidewalk were Popov soldiers.
What the fuck?
“Get her,” one told the other, both of them picking up speed. As I hurried toward them, a van sped down the road, its engine roaring as it revved.
I don’t fucking think so.
They weren’t getting her.
No one was.
Not on my watch.
I was lost, confused and lacking any answers for what the hell was going on. It didn’t matter. Whatever had happened to set the stage for this incident, it was way too close for comfort. I wasn’t allowing any danger to trouble this woman’s life.
Not at work.
Not near her home.
Especially when she was carrying a young child.
“Go get her,” the Popov soldier ordered.
I reached her, passing her swiftly and earning a gasp of surprise. Before she could whirl around or flinch from me, I jumped onto the sidewalk. Putting myself between her and the Popovs, I raised my gun and dared them to even look at her.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I growled as the men skidded to a stop at the sight of me blocking them from chasing her.