Chapter 24 Natalie
NATALIE
I’d lost my chance for distance from the man who’d killed my husband.
Sergei showed up with Andre and Roman.
Guns blazing.
Expressions fierce.
The men who’d captured us were dead on the floor.
Once more, we were saved. Which was good. Having those men out of the way and no longer alive to endanger me or my daughter was a godsend. A blessing. A gift I wouldn’t take for granted.
But it felt wrong to appreciate Sergei.
While he stared me down as my daughter clung to him, I refused to weaken, to be na?ve and see him as the “good guy”.
He was. He’d killed those who’d captured us. He’d ended the life of the man who’d backhanded me when he tried to hurt Maisie when she wouldn’t stop crying.
But Sergei was no longer the hero he once seemed to represent.
On one hand, there was no question that he’d risked himself to save us. But on the other hand, the dark and sinister truth that he’d killed Fitz loomed too largely and ominously to ignore.
“Are you okay?” Roman asked.
I swallowed hard, blinking and ripping my gaze off Maisie hugging Sergei. It hurt. It broke my heart that she’d run to him and perceive him as a safe haven. It angered me more, too.
Roman was Sergei’s brother, but I was glad they didn’t look too similar. He crouched in front of me, checking me over. His position was no doubt on purpose, as if he knew I needed to not see Sergei or else I’d be more pissed.
I nodded weakly, letting my heart beat slower with this “friendly” face in front of me.
But that was stupid, too, wasn’t it? Roman was just the same as Sergei.
For all I could guess, he might have been in on the actions of the night Fitz had died.
If he wasn’t, he likely was involved in other criminal, murderous activity.
“They didn’t hurt you?” Andre asked, stepping closer as well.
I stood slowly, wincing at the aches in my muscles. “Not really.”
“What does that mean?” Sergei demanded as he stood. It seemed like he was trying to release Maisie, but she cried louder and clung to him harder. He rose with her in his arms, adjusting to holding her.
It was hard not to see it as betrayal. That my child could want his comfort instead of mine. That she could be tricked into seeing her father’s killer as a good guy.
I clamped my lips shut and glowered at him, refusing to answer.
Roman stepped in again, quick to read the room.
“Did they hit you?” he asked as he guided me to exit first.
“One slapped me,” I muttered. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing—”
Andre cut in front of Sergei as we filed out. Roman led me out, and I couldn’t hear what he said, but it seemed that Andre was warning him to shut up.
They all know.
They all have to know.
I furrowed my brow at Roman, feeling so stupid to be “caught” again. To be forced to go with them again. Now that they’d found me, I would be expected to return.
“I left because I learned that Sergei—”
Roman nodded. He held up his hand to cut me off. “Maybe when Maisie can’t hear,” he whispered.
I appreciated that he’d be delicate about what she was exposed to. But it was all so twisted. And as I exited, refusing to look at the dead bodies on the ground, I struggled to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
They’d killed them all.
To rescue us.
Sergei would kill to save me.
But it couldn’t justify forgiving him for killing Fitz.
“I left because I overheard the guards talking about my late husband.”
Again, he nodded, not denying it.
“For what it’s worth,” he said before glancing over his shoulder to look at his brother and cousin with my daughter a few feet behind us on the stairs, “my condolences, Natalie.”
I scoffed, unable to even process the irony of that.
“I couldn’t face him,” I said, sticking with the present.
“Understandable,” he replied.
“I didn’t know where to go, and those men found us on the street again and kidnapped us.”
He let out a long breath, nodding and listening. I hadn’t expected the youngest Orlov to be such a sounding board, but I was glad he could serve as a buffer between me and his brother. That wasn’t the case for Maisie. She sat on Sergei’s lap in the car the whole ride away from there.
He carried her all the way to her room in his penthouse. And he tucked her into bed. I didn’t trust him anymore. He wouldn’t harm her. I knew that. But I couldn’t look at him without this anger. Without this worry.
“Natalie,” he said as he turned to face me. I’d followed her into her room.
Andre and Roman did as well.
“No.” Andre cut in, going to Sergei and guiding him out of the room. “Don’t. Not now.”
As the men argued, with Sergei insisting he needed to speak with me, Andre was the voice of reason. He told him to stop. To let me rest. To back off and not push. Their voices trailed off in the hallway, fading.
I glanced at Maisie in the bed, sleeping peacefully.
Roman cleared his throat quietly. “Would you like to stay in here with her? I can grab some blankets for you. Whatever would… help.”
I faced him and let out a deep sigh. Being up all night and fearing what those men wanted messed with my equilibrium. I was so exhausted that hating Sergei was too much to consider. “Thank you.”
As soon as he came back with pillows and a throw, I climbed into bed and snuggled my daughter.
In the morning, she was gone.
I sat up and panicked until I heard her talking in the other room. Her bedroom door was open, and her voice carried in clearly while Sergei ate breakfast with her. Mikhail’s voice reached me too.
“What?” Mikhail joked. “Are you really telling me that Sergei’s pancakes taste better than mine?”
Maisie giggled.
I sat up more and hugged my knees at the idea that a Mafia boss was doing something as sweet and basic as making pancakes for my daughter. These contradictions made no sense.
Mobsters were criminals. They killed. They lived with their own sense of law and order.
Sergei got my husband killed.
But he also saved me.
Mikhail was probably at fault for so many crimes.
Yet he was standing in the kitchen making pancakes for my daughter.
I sighed, rubbing my eyes. Struggling to reconcile that the man who saved me was also the one who took my husband from me, I suffered through a twisted heartache and spiking heat of fury.
How was I supposed to move forward with this?
How was I expected to accept this and forgive?
How can I ever trust my own judgment where he is concerned?
Sitting on Maisie’s bed, I listened in as the men talked with Maisie. They were discussing pancake toppings. Then it sounded like Maisie was showing off a coloring book.
At no time did they bring up Fitz. Or that I took Maisie from here to escape last night. Not a single mention of dead men or guns came up either. I realized they were just being there for her, preoccupying her, and I hated that I wanted to feel grateful.
If you hadn’t tried to leave last night, none of that would’ve happened, though.
I cringed, burying my head against my knees as Maisie said she was going to watch her favorite movie.
“She doesn’t seem traumatized,” Mikhail mentioned once it sounded like Maisie was gone.
“No,” Sergie replied, “but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t be hiding it.”
“True.” Mikhail cleared his throat, sounding exhausted. “When Claire is back in town, she can talk to her too, in case there is any worry about her repressing anything.”
I furrowed my brow, hating that it sounded like others were deciding something for my child without my input. But this was Claire. She was too sweet, and she was a doctor. Mikhail was only offering the help, not forcing anything.
“What are your intentions toward them now?” he asked Sergei. “I can see how fond you are of the girl. I see how she accepts you in her life. But Natalie…”
I narrowed my eyes, listening and waiting for Sergei’s reply.
“I think with time, she’ll adjust. Again.”
The fuck?
Anger coursed through me at his highhanded reply.
“Adjust to what?” Mikhail asked. “Staying here indefinitely?”
“Yes. As my woman,” Sergei answered.
My mouth hung open.
My cheeks heated with the flush of fury taking over again.
How dare he?
How fucking dare—
What?
How the hell can you just say that and think—
I could barely breathe with how mad I was. I was livid, trying to absorb the fact that he wanted to imply that I’d be here in his home forever. That I’d be “his woman”. Like I’d be his wife!
Just because you saved me? Twice?
Out of debt?
I wished I could regret ever getting close to him. Ever letting him have a piece of me. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t regret that any more than I could regret the fact that he’d cared to save me at all.
Stay here and marry you?
I gritted my teeth, glaring at the wall.
I think not!
There was no way in hell that I would want to trust the man who’d killed my husband, not to the extent that I’d ever allow him to replace him.