Chapter 42 - Mikhail
I wanted to hold Laurel for a long time, but we’d just shot off a few rounds in a suburban neighborhood, and I didn’t want to know how many people were watching behind their curtains as my brother hauled Rand out to his car.
My wrist was sprained, and I’d been cracked in the head with a chair when Rand’s crew first surged in. Laurel was a mess, crying and holding onto me like someone was about to rip her away. Not now, and not ever.
“Come on,” I said, helping her up. “I’m shocked this place isn’t already swarming with cops.”
She flinched, probably remembering that I was the bad guy. Now I had to find a way to fix whatever nonsense her captor had filled her head with and hope she could forgive me for keeping secrets.
I carried her out, waving at Luk, who was going to take Rand back to LA.
I couldn’t face the drive back, so I found the first hotel and checked us in to rest for a while.
There was always a first aid kit in my car, so I rummaged for an elastic bandage, and once we were inside the room, Laurel wordlessly helped me wrap my wrist.
“You need an X-ray,” she finally said.
“Probably. It can wait. What about you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Nothing more than a scratch or two.”
“Are you really fine?” I asked. She only stared at me for a moment before looking away.
She was pissed off and didn’t want to hear another word out of me, though I could have gone on and on about how proud I was of her. At the moment, she didn’t want anything to do with me and retreated to an armchair in the small room.
I ordered some food that she picked at and gave up on, pushing the styrofoam carton of Chinese noodles away. She kept glancing at me, only to find I was watching over her. She’d open her mouth to say something then clamp it shut again. I wanted to fight—for her, with her, anything but this silence.
The guys I sent to look for her friend called, and Laurel perked up when I told her she was fine. “She wants to talk to you,” I said, turning on the speaker.
“I’m so sorry,” her friend Nell wailed.
My guard had told me she was pretty banged up but would be fine once she calmed down and realized we were the good guys. Now if only Laurel would realize it.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Laurel told her. “It was mine.”
There she went, blaming herself again. What was it going to take to make her see she wasn’t at fault for Rand’s behavior? Did she really believe she deserved to be on the run for the rest of her life all because she was tricked by a smooth-talking asshole who couldn’t keep his hands to himself?
The two women talked for a few more minutes, mostly half-hysterical ramblings and promises to each other that neither one was to blame.
When I got control of my phone back, I gave orders to get Nell to one of my family’s safe houses in LA where eventually Laurel could meet up with her and see for herself that she hadn’t caused any permanent damage.
“I’ll make sure one of my cousins offers her a job,” I said. “She’ll be protected.”
Laurel huffed, crossing her arms. “Your family can make that happen?” she asked, not impressed but disgusted. “I bet they can make a lot of problems disappear.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Now do you want to hear everything from me or go with what you heard from the guy who kidnapped you?”
She scowled, then her shoulders slumped. “Go ahead and explain your side.”
“If he told you my family is involved in organized crime, that was the truth,” I said without flinching.
“He said you were a little more than involved.”
“Right. We run things. In LA, and in Moscow.”
“But what about you? In particular? Is the brewery just a front or a money laundering scheme or whatever?”
“Up until recently, my brewery was the most important thing in my life. It’s not a front, and I don’t need to launder money because I’m not that involved in my family’s activities.
But I’ll always be Bratva. That doesn’t go away because I try to live a quiet life.
It means brotherhood, and it’s in my blood. ”
She sighed, and for the first time since I found her tied up and furious, our eyes met. Tears welled up, but she blinked them away, finding more of that hidden strength I always knew she had. “My whole life was chaos and violence. Watching it happen, hiding from it, not being able to hide from it.”
“I can keep it away from you,” I promised. “I will always make sure you’re safe.”
She shook her head. “Let me finish. I didn’t hide today, and that felt… good.”
“I’m personally glad you didn’t hide,” I said with a smile. “Or I’d be dead.”
“I couldn’t watch anymore, couldn’t stand back and let it happen. And I think that fixed something in me. Taking action instead of falling apart.”
“You were never broken, Laurel,” I said.
She looked me straight in the face, swallowing hard. “I couldn’t let the father of my child get killed.”
I stared at her, listening back to the words she just said. Opened my mouth to ask her to repeat them and closed it again. “What?” was all I could get out.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, her chin falling to her chest.
There was no way she felt bad about that, no way she thought I did. I leaped forward and pulled her into my arms. She shoved away, fiery and fierce.
“Now you know,” she said.
“And I’m delighted,” I told her, reaching for her.
She stepped back. “It’s not all about you, Mik. I’m not raising a baby in a crime family.”
Something shuttered in my heart. “You’re raising a baby in our family,” I told her.
My brief moment of joy was overshadowed by her burst of anger as she let me have it. “Who says you get to decide that? I just told you what my childhood was like. How messed up it made me. Do you think I’ll introduce guns and knives and late-night brawls and people getting tossed into trunks—”
“That fucker deserved to get tossed in a trunk,” I interjected. “And it won’t be that way with us.”
She hissed at the very mention of the word us. “So you never saw anything like what happened today when you were a kid?” she asked, hands on hips.
That stopped me in my tracks. I’d seen far worse. Participated in far worse. “Laurel,” I said. “We’re married. You’re my wife.”
“On paper.” Her voice rose. “It’s not real. We’re not real. Now, excuse me while I go check into my own room.”
My arm jutted out to stop her from leaving.
She glared at me like she was considering biting me, and not in a fun way.
I refused to let her go. She refused to stay.
My brief moment of joy at learning she was having our baby was overshadowed by the biggest fight of our time together. None of which she considered real.
It was like we were enemies all over again, with no future at all in sight.