Chapter Forty-six
Dmitri Konstantinov
The third floor was quiet, the lights dimmed to the exact level Inna preferred at night. I noticed that and realized I knew her much better than I thought.
The bed was empty and untouched. She wasn’t here again.
Over the last few days, Inna developed a habit of falling asleep anywhere except our room.
It started the night we returned from New York.
I found her asleep beside Caitlin and carried her upstairs.
The second night, she was stretched across the couch downstairs.
When I lifted her, she woke halfway through and claimed she had work to finish.
The following night, she disappeared into Cole’s room under the excuse of helping him with homework.
She fell asleep there too, and I carried her back again.
Every time I touched her, there was a reaction. There was a brief stiffness in her body before she covered it quickly and acted normal again.
I noticed that and stopped touching her first. That alone irritated me more than it should have. I built my entire life by taking what I wanted. I walked into rooms, and people adjusted themselves around me. But Inna somehow reduced me to monitoring my own hands before reaching for her.
The distance between us kept growing, and I was helping create it by giving her the space I assumed she needed. That turned out to be a mistake. The more room I left between us, the more she filled it with everything except me.
I moved toward the door to check downstairs, but a quiet whimper stopped me. The sound came from deeper inside the suite, somewhere near the window.
I turned toward it.
The hammock beside the window hung lower than usual, a body’s shape visible.
I moved closer and found Inna curled up in the hammock, her body making small, restless movements while her head shifted from side to side.
Something left her mouth in a whisper too broken for me to understand.
A tear slid from the corner of her eye into her hair.
My hand settled on her shoulder. “Inna.” She kept moving, another quiet whimper leaving her. “Inna.”
I ran my hand along her shoulder, smoothing over her skin. I caressed her until the tension in her body started easing little by little. The whimpering faded, and her breathing steadied. I kept the rhythm going until she finally relaxed beneath my hand.
I spent most of my life detached from other people’s pain. Men cried in front of me, and I felt nothing. I built my name taking lives, destroying organizations, and listening to grown men beg me for mercy I never intended to give them.
But nobody prepared me for this.
Watching Inna drift away from me, with no idea how to stop it, felt worse than any threat aimed at me.
If I pushed her to talk, she would shut down further. If I gave her space, she disappeared deeper into herself. There was no clear strategy for this kind of problem.
I looked down at the way she curled inward even in her sleep. Clearly, she was fighting something vicious inside her own head while smiling through it during the day.
The hammock shifted under the added weight when I climbed in beside her.
Her body settled against mine as she moved in her sleep and wrapped her arm around my chest. She wouldn’t have done this awake.
She would monitor herself around me, as if she no longer trusted where closeness with me could lead.
I held her, my fingers moving through her hair while the night stretched around us.
I stayed awake the entire time.
My thoughts moved between problems. Inna came first, then Cuba and Iker’s meeting that was waiting ahead.
Zachary didn’t concern me. I had already arranged everything necessary, since I was to leave for Cuba tomorrow. He required a personal visit before I destroyed him.
But leaving while things between Inna and me looked like this sat badly. Taking her with me wasn’t possible either. There were too many eyes.
Iker’s case was different. If he were simply another enemy, I would already know exactly how to deal with him. But he was tied to Inna by blood, and that complicated every move I intended to make. The strategy forming in my head required her involvement, whether I liked it or not.
So I stayed awake beside her, making plans while holding the woman who could dismantle my focus without even trying.
Hours moved too quickly when a man wanted them to slow down.
It had been a week since I held Inna like this, and I understood why weak men ruined empires over women. I could have stayed there forever without complaint.
But morning arrived anyway.
Birds began chirping outside just as the first pale light entered through the windows.
Inna stirred against me. Her eyes opened, and she blinked in confusion as she looked around the room. When she realized her arm was wrapped around my chest, she started pulling away.
I tightened my arm around her waist and pulled her back against me before she could climb out of the hammock. “Just a moment.”
She stayed in the hammock but kept her hands carefully away from me, like touch itself had become something she needed to manage. The version of her that used to say and do whatever came to mind without hesitation felt further away than sleep.
“How long?” I asked.
The silence held for a moment before she answered. “What?”
“How long should I wait?”
“Wait for what?” Her brow drew together.
“For you.”
Her eyes met mine for a brief second before she looked away again. “Did I say I was going somewhere?”
“Inna.” I held her gaze until she had no choice but to meet it again. “I need my wife back.”
Something flickered in her expression. It was quick enough to almost miss, but she shut it down before it could settle. She shifted in the hammock, then slid out of it entirely.
“We can have sex if that’s what you want,” she said as she reached for the hem of her t-shirt and pulled it over her head without hesitation.
I closed my eyes for a second, not out of impatience but out of control.
Her shorts followed. She dropped them and stood in front of me in nothing but underwear.
“You want to do it here?” She glanced toward the bedroom. “We can go to bed.”
She walked out without waiting for an answer.
I stayed seated on the edge of the hammock for a moment longer, dragging a hand through my hair once.
This wasn’t her. Not really. It was the old girl who once offered her body as a shortcut. The first time it was leverage. Now it was an escape. She closed the door before anything heavier got in.
I stood and followed her into the bedroom.
She was sitting on the bed, her phone in hand, scrolling as if the last few minutes hadn’t happened at all.
She looked up when I walked in and set the phone down.
“What? You want me to come to you?” She stood and came to me, reaching for my trousers. I caught her wrists before she could go any further. “You don’t want to do it anymore?”
I turned her slowly and pulled her back against me, one arm locking around her waist. Her body went still against my chest. I leaned down, lips brushing her neck once, then closer to her ear. “I’m going to Cuba for business.”
There was no reaction at first.
“Do you want me to come?” she asked.
“No.”
A quick laugh left her mouth. “Then why are you telling me? You don’t need to. It’s not like knowing changes anything.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow.”
She shifted slightly, trying to turn, but I kept her in place.
“Seriously.” Her voice tightened. “You can leave whenever you want. You don’t need my permission. People leave all the time. They don’t explain or ask. That’s just how it works.” She paused and let out a shaky breath. “So, just leave. It’s work anyway. It always comes first.”
Those words came from somewhere deeper. It was the accumulated proof of what she had been holding back. Years of people disappearing without warning and calling it normal. A belief built on repetition, not choice. She was speaking out of fear, and she didn’t even realize it.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out without letting go of her. I answered, and Akim spoke. “Boss. The plane is ready.”
Inna slipped out of my arms and walked into the bathroom. I stayed there for a moment, phone pressed to my ear and eyes on the closed door.
Going to Cuba was the start of my plan to destroy Zachary. Choosing Inna over Cuba was not something I had done before. Every operation I ran worked on a simple rule: business first. Work does not bend for comfort. Yet for the first time, I would not follow those rules.
I left the room and went downstairs to my office. Choosing to stay meant I needed plan B. I opened the laptop and sat down.
“We’re not traveling,” I told Akim, who was still on the call. “We send a gift instead. The charity event starts in three hours. That’s enough time to arrange something properly.”
“Should I go myself?” Akim asked.
“No need. We pull it from here. Send a package.” I pulled up Zachary’s schedule and began moving through it. The public speaking engagement was in a week. Seven days were enough time to build the next move properly if nothing slipped. “Work on it.”
“Understood.” Akim knew what sending a package meant. We had done it before on other targets.
“Get me into my wife’s phone.” My attention stayed on the screen even though I wasn’t really processing the numbers anymore. I needed to know what held her attention so completely that she could disappear into her phone while sitting right beside me.
“Yes, boss,” Akim said. “Also, I’ve discovered something. Inna and Caitlin started an online store. There are no security threats so far.”
My fingers stopped tapping. “Online store?”
“Yes. I’ve been on Caitlin’s phone. For security purposes.”
So that was it. The late nights and the way she angled her screen away when I came close. She was building something.
She owned a hotel. I put it in her name because she should have something that belonged to her. Now she was selling things online, like she still needed to build her own way out of every room she entered.
I never wanted her to work. Not because I doubted her, but because she had spent years carrying everything alone. She pushed herself through difficulties for years. I wanted her to have a break, to have a life that did not require constant rebuilding.
“Boss?”
I came back to the room. “Do what I said.” I ended the call and tossed the phone onto the desk.
Inna thought all I wanted from her was her body. We were long past that, and she still didn’t understand it.
My thoughts ran in circles as I tried to understand how men proved to women that some lines were closed. I tried to find the angle where I could see what I was missing. But I saw nothing. Meaning I was losing this particular battle, and I didn’t like it.
I could ask around, but people like Akim were useless on this front.
Akim lost Caitlin to Ivan, which made him more stupid than I could ever be.
Roman would laugh if I asked. Rodion had the emotional range of a geologist and somehow still maintained a marriage, which remained one of the mysteries of my life.
Grandma would roll her eyes and tell me I needed a therapist first. Which was bullshit I refused to even entertain.
A therapist.
The words stayed longer than they should have.
I scoffed at myself and dragged the laptop closer, intending to push into Plan B, but my hands moved before I fully decided against it.
I opened a search engine and typed it, anyway.
I searched for ways to get a therapist, and a list of results came up.
There were also online therapists, people waiting as if it were normal to sell access to your mind by the hour. It looked absurd.
I shut the laptop and leaned back. No one could give me a better read on my situation than I could. That was always the principle.
My hand moved, and I opened the laptop again.
The cursor hovered for a moment before I clicked on the first website that led to a private therapist section. A form appeared with categories laid out like inventory. I moved through them without commitment, scanning until I reached marriage and selected it.
A button appeared to request a therapist. I stared at it first before I clicked.
A confirmation page appeared with two options.
One said they would call me back. The other provided a phone number in case I preferred calling myself.
Why did everything involving normal people come with unnecessary complications?
I stared at the number on the screen. I had never looked outside myself for solutions. Problems came, and I handled them. That was how my life worked. I had always been enough for every situation placed in front of me.
I picked up my phone and dialed before I could reconsider. The call started ringing.
There was still enough time to hang up and erase this entire moment of existence.
A woman answered in a calm voice. She began explaining the service, the intake process, and the structure of what I had just signed up for.
“Hello?” she said when I didn’t respond.
“Yes.”
“I can see you’ve selected a few areas you’d like to discuss—”
“Let’s skip to the point,” I said.
A brief silence settled. “Of course. May I start with your name?”
“Why is that necessary?” I asked.
“It’s not strict. I would like to know what to call you.”
“Call me whatever you want. Look, I didn’t call for introductions. I called because my wife changed.” I pointed it out plainly because the woman seemed determined to circle the subject rather than reach it.
“Alright. When did you notice this change?”
I pressed my fingers to the bridge of my nose. “A week.”
“Was there anything that happened around that time that might have contributed?”
“You think she changed without reason?” I asked.
“So, something happened?”
“What happened isn’t relevant. I need to know what a husband is supposed to do to get his wife back.”
“Sir,” she said carefully. “We need context first to understand how to approach the situation.”
This was exactly why I handled my own problems. People turned clarity into procedure and called it help.