At the same time, I also knew that once I told him the truth, he would be in danger as well. My stomach twisted as I thought about what had happened just that afternoon at the bar. I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger, but I also didn’t want to keep hiding things from Ford.
If we were going to do this, we had to be on the same team. He had to know exactly what we were facing.
“Ford,” I said. My tone was so serious, he immediately stopped stroking my belly.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I still can’t really be with you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Immediately he sat up, his expression turning from peace and calm to anger and fire. We were probably destined to repeat our fuck-to-fight cycle unless I calmed him down quickly. I sat up too and put my hand over his open mouth.
“What I mean is, I can’t be with you publicly,” I clarified.
He relaxed a bit, but now the expression on his face was one of confusion.
“Let me explain,” I said.
And then I told him.
I told him everything.
Ford
Chapter 22
After 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.
