22. Ford
FORDCHAPTER 22
A fter seven years of best friendship with Emzee, I had been under the impression that we basically told each other everything.
Everything important, that was.
School stuff, parent stuff, (her) bully stuff, (her) sibling stuff, dating and relationship drama, work and career shit, the occasional sex story.
But as I sat and listened to her dump an overwhelming avalanche of information on me, I realized exactly how much she’d been keeping from me ever since we’d gotten fake-engaged.
And what a burden it must have been on her to hold all those secrets in.
It all just poured out of her.
The Russian mob threats were somehow both completely shocking and also kind of unsurprising—a lot of dirty business had come to light during Emzee’s dad’s trial for sex trafficking, so I knew he’d had a connection to the Bratva, but I never considered that they’d turn around and put the heat on the Zoric children after Konstantin got put behind bars.
It made sense, though.
They’d lost a major stream of income when KZM’s side hustle shut down, and they had the muscle and the guns to push Emzee and her brothers to keep handing over the money.
Hearing about it from Emzee, it turned my stomach.
“They didn’t care that the agency was going legit, that the trafficking was over, that things on our end had changed,” she said.
“They just wanted business to proceed as usual, with them getting a large cut of our profits. When they realized Stefan wasn’t going to do that, they started making demands, to settle what they claimed were our ‘debts.’”
She told me the number they’d demanded, and my jaw dropped.
“That is fucked. I’m so sorry,” I told her.
“What did your brothers do about it?”
She let out a sigh.
“That’s, umm, the other thing I have to tell you about. Stefan was only able to make a partial payment, and DRM can’t take out another business loan, so…I had to figure out a way to pay off the rest. So the Bratva would leave us alone for good.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“You had to figure out a way…wait, what are you saying? Emzee, what did you do?”
Her voice dropped low.
“I made a deal.”
“A deal with whom? Why didn’t you just go to the cops or the FBI or something?”
She shook her head.
“I couldn’t do that, Ford. Think about it. They’d never catch the guys who are after us, and even if they did, the Bratva would still be chasing us for the rest of our lives. If they didn’t just hunt us down and make us disappear first.”
My adrenaline was pumping.
I couldn’t imagine what kind of deal she’d made, but I hated the idea of it, of her getting involved in some shady underworld shit and putting her life—and our baby’s life—at risk in the process.
God knows what could have happened to her.
Hell, it still could.
This nightmare was long from over.
“So what’s the deal?” I pushed.
“Who’s helping you?”
Looking at me, she tried to force a smile.
She was clearly miserable.
“Your parents.”
“ What? ”
Suddenly, it all made sense.
I’d known my parents had something on Emzee, since I’d overheard them pressuring her in their library before the See Yourself gala—but I’d assumed it was just minor dirt, the kind they thought was humiliating enough to blackmail her into walking out on me.
The kind nobody would really care about.
Which is why I’d barged in on them that night and declared my love, telling my parents I’d fight for Emzee and our relationship.
I’d naively thought that making my intentions crystal clear regarding my wife would put an end to their meddling.
That they’d back off.
I’d also thought that it would cement things between me and Emzee once and for good, but she’d walked out on me the very next day.
Now I knew why.
God, my gut had told me she had real feelings for me right from the very beginning.
So all the back and forth with her, the constant hot and cold, it was because of my parents and their “deal.” I was glad to find out I hadn’t been imagining Emzee’s affections.
But at the same time, the situation was so much worse than what I’d imagined.
It wasn’t just blackmail, wasn’t just Emzee’s reputation at stake—it was her life.
Our baby’s life. The lives of her entire family.
This was the Russian mob, and they weren’t the type to bluff when it came to threats.
I just couldn’t believe my parents had known about the Bratva’s extortion all this time and had used their power and money to strike this bullshit lose-lose deal with my wife.
Then again, of course they had.
They’d been against my relationship with Em from the get-go, and I knew how much they wanted to control my life—my mother especially—there was no way they would have just stood by and let me be with Emzee without putting some sort of failsafe in place behind my back.
Something to guarantee we wouldn’t stay together.
“So they offered you money in exchange for a divorce,” I said.
“Enough money to pay off the mob. It was never about blackmailing you at all.”
“They said they’d help me, but only if I agreed to leave you,” she confirmed.
“I’m sorry. It was the only way I could save my family.”
I was seeing red, practically shaking with anger.
I’d never felt so betrayed.
And by my own fucking parents.
“So that night of the gala, when I walked in on you in the library?—”
She nodded.
“That was when they told me I couldn’t get pregnant, or they’d let the mob go after my family. Your mom said they’d smear me in the press, deny the baby was yours.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant yet, but the second I did, I knew they could never know the truth,” Emzee continued.
“Otherwise they’d never pay off the mob. So after the gala, I went to them and said that I’d divorce you right away. Before anyone could find out about the baby.”
“I still don’t get how they knew about your problems with the Bratva,” I said.
“Did you go to them for help?”
“No. They came to me ,” she said.
“Right before the wedding. I don’t know how they knew. I just assumed…maybe they had their own ties to the Russians somehow.”
She looked up at me, her eyes worried and big.
As if she was telling me something I hadn’t already suspected.
As if I would be completely and totally shocked by this news.
“That makes sense. I’ve had access to my parents’ lives for a long time. And I’ve seen plenty of things that made me think they had shady dealings. The first time being, you know, all those years ago—the day I heard them fighting about my dad sleeping with the models at KZM. Like I told you, that was how I found out about your dad and the trafficking stuff.
“I never really explained why I kept it from you.
At first, I guess part of me wanted it to not be true.
Like speaking it out loud would make it all real.
By the time you and I became friends, I’d already buried it.
Carrying those secrets around was a burden to me, and I cared too much about you to let it be a burden to you, too.
I wanted to protect you.
”
“You did protect me,” she pointed out.
“Not just from the bullies, but from everything ugly and harsh in the world. I know how shitty it is to find out your parents aren’t who you thought they were,” I said, letting out a sigh.
“Who knows? Maybe my parents are the ones who introduced your father to them in the first place.”
I pulled Emzee into my arms and leaned back against the pillows, rocking her a little, my mind on fire with all the bombshell revelations.
“I know I said this before, but I always loved you,” I said.
“Looking back, I think even when I couldn’t see it, I wanted to protect you. Ever since I saw you hurting that first time, the hurt that I caused, I wanted to make things better for you. I wanted to make you happy.”
Looking down at Emzee, I realized there were tears spilling from the corners of her eyes.
As I wiped them gently with my thumb, kissing their tracks, she said, “What are we going to do, now that all our secrets are out?”
It was a fair question.
We knew what we were up against— who we were up against. But that didn’t mean the danger was gone.
If anything, it seemed even more present, especially after learning that some fucking Bratva operative had tried to corner Emzee at the bar earlier.
I was not going to forgive my parents for this.
They’d crossed a line a long time ago and it was time for me to push back.
Emzee and the baby were my family now—not my parents—and I was going to make that perfectly clear to them.
But first, I had to figure out how to save my family.
“I’ll take care of it,” I promised her.
“I’ll find a way.”
If we had to run away together, I’d do that, too.
I wasn’t going to let anything come between us. Not ever again.