Chapter 20 Natalie
NATALIE
Anya showed Maisie another pattern of notes, gently correcting her on where the middle C was located on the keyboard of the expensive instrument.
It was cute. It was so stinking adorable seeing Maisie all dedicated and eager to learn and impress. She knew her alphabet and was already so advanced in reading and writing—for a four-year-old. It blew my mind that she’d learn the language of music, too.
And I never could’ve given you lessons or afforded this experience on my own, baby girl.
Sitting in the back of the large room where the grand piano was located in Mikhail, Claire, and Anya’s building, I smiled and enjoyed the gift of seeing Maisie beam with pride under Anya’s tutoring.
I watched her frown in concentration, moving her mouth to sound out the letters of the keys she wanted.
They’d done these lessons just a couple of times a week now, and Maisie was hooked.
Feeling the need to move around, and slightly restless because Claire hadn’t come back yet and I was without a chance to talk to her, one-on-one, with any advice she could give me on starting and sticking with a real relationship with an Orlov mobster, I stood and told them I was heading out to the balcony for fresh air.
It was cold, so close to the holidays that I wasn’t sure when I could ask Sergei about getting a tree for his penthouse. But on this balcony, the heaters did their job. Chaise chairs and a bistro table with stools stood ready to be used, but I didn’t want to sit.
I leaned at the railing, setting my arms on the wrought-iron scrollwork that made the simple safety bar ornate and artistic.
I sighed, breathing in deeply and letting the cooler air chill me from the inside out. It was invigorating, giving me a little zest and waking me up. It wasn’t that late, but still, I wondered like I did every night when Sergei would come home to me.
To come home to me and Maisie.
My God, Nat. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
This situation wasn’t a conventional or traditional one at all, and I’d do well not to start romanticizing all that happened.
He could very well tell me tomorrow that I could go home.
No. Are you serious? That’s not happening.
We couldn’t keep our hands or mouths off each other long enough for either of us to want that as a possibility.
Instead of letting a game of what-ifs fill my mind and preoccupy me, I furrowed my brow at the sound of a couple of guards patrolling down below.
The path out here was narrow, probably more of a utility route than something with a vista, but the men were there and moving like they were on a routine to personally keep this building safe.
Behind me, the notes of music from Anya’s playing mixed with the distant happy laughter from Maisie. But I listened to the men.
“Sergei thinks he can impress her, going out there and killing anyone who wants to hurt her.”
Sergei? I was all ears. I didn’t get close to the guards. I never spoke to the many men who came and went, almost like part of the background here. Now, I couldn’t resist listening in. They were talking about the man I feared I was falling for. They were talking about me, too.
“I’m sure it does impress her,” the other guard said. “But hell, it’s not like he can just snap his fingers and erase how she’d hate him, too.”
What? Erase what? Why would they think that I’d ever hate Sergei?
I had been stubborn and defensive when I first came to live with him, but I’d loosened up. I’d opened my eyes.
“And she would,” the other said. “She would never forgive him if she found out that he was the one who got her husband killed.”
I sucked in a breath. It froze in my lungs as I gripped my fingers tightly on the railing.
What?
Did you just say what I think you said?
Shock sliced through me, leaving me feeling weak and disoriented. The beginning streaks of a panic attack webbed over me, clouding my mind, making my ears roar with the deafening pulse in them, my heart already racing at the drive of fear and anger that coalesced into an ugly mix.
One coughed and cleared his throat. “I wonder if Sergei remembers who that man was. If the name Fitz Hayes rings a bell.”
They were talking about him! These Orlov guards were discussing my late husband. No one else. Only him.
But to hint that Sergei would’ve known about my husband before…
I shook my head, wishing I wasn’t hearing this. Right when I wanted to take a huge leap of faith and trust that Sergei and I could have a shot at a real future together, as a couple, or a family, instead of just being lovers, something like this had to explode in my face?
“It’s a shame,” one guard said. “It’s a shame every time any civilians are too close to danger.
Any innocent life that’s lost too soon is an unfortunate side effect.
But damn, could this be any more twisted?
He finds the widow of a man he’d gotten killed as collateral?
Just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? A damn shame.”
Blood sizzled through my veins. Sergei was responsible for Fitz’s death? The very idea rocked me so hard that I was amazed I was still standing, still here and breathing through the agony of pain and anger.
“Hey. It’s not like he killed him,” the other man said.
“Well, he could have. With all the shots fired in a confrontation like that, who could begin to guess which shot killed or harmed which enemy?”
“I know, but still…” The other man seemed to lose his argument.
“Sergei was the one in charge of arranging that meeting with the Cartel that night. But he couldn’t have counted on anyone being too close to the building.”
That didn’t matter.
It couldn’t.
All that mattered was that Fitz was gone. He was dead—because of the man I wanted to move on to loving next.
No.
Fuck no.
Staggering back to get away from this conversation, I shook my head and willed myself to just breathe through it all. The pain and anger.
Sergei was a dangerous man, but I hadn’t considered that his lethal power and skill could be projected at me and my life, robbing me of the husband I thought I’d grow old with. That he could be something other than my hero, to be my enemy instead.
“No,” I whispered to myself, wishing all that I’d heard was false.
I bumped into the door, trembling with the intensity of my anger.
“Never.”
I couldn’t imagine a future with the man who’d taken my husband from me.
I couldn’t… daydream about living with him and loving him.
I can’t stay.
Maisie and I needed to leave now, right now, before Sergei would return and be able to spin this story in another way that would dupe me out of this anger that burned and flared so hot inside my heart.
I’ve been so stupid.
I knew he was dangerous.
I knew there had to be a catch.
As tears slipped free from my eyes, I regretted that I hadn’t counted on a catch like this.