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EMERY
I’m too restless to sleep.
Yesterday, I woke up and Adrik was already out of bed and working in the office. The night before, he’d been silent. Eerily quiet about his dad, about seeing Yasha at the hospital.
I thought I’d give him a night to sleep before talking in the morning. But then he was gone.
I don’t want that to happen again.
So I toss and turn all night, worried he’ll slip away as soon as I finally let myself relax. After we had sex, we climbed into bed naked and didn’t worry about closing the blinds. So, when Adrik sits up just as the first pink hints of the sunrise are coming through the windows, he is silhouetted against the sky and the sugar maple tree brushing the glass.
He turns to get out of bed, but I reach over and grab his wrist. “Where are you going?”
He barely even looks at me. “Go back to sleep, Emery.”
Even when he was inside me last night, I felt a gulf between us. Like we were standing on opposite sides of a chasm. As good as he felt inside of me, I’d rather know what’s going on inside of his head.
He’s don of the Tasarov Bratva now. What does that mean for him?
What does that mean for us?
I’m more aware than ever that our marriage was always meant to be temporary. This is what we were waiting for. So now, it’s all just… over?
I shake my head to ward off the endless invasive thoughts. “I’m not tired.”
He slides to the edge of the bed. His back is smooth and muscled. I reach out and run my hand down his spine.
“I have work to do today,” he says. “I’ll be back later.”
“But where are you going?”
“Out.”
It is grossly unfair how beautiful he is. He is stark naked and perfect, striding across the room to the dresser.
I drag my eyes up to his face and push myself upright against the headboard. “But where is out? I want to know where you’ll be in case anything happens.”
“Nothing is going to happen.”
“You don’t know that, Adrik.”
He pulls on a pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt, and I want to shred the clothes from his body with my teeth and wrap myself around him. I want to cling to him until he tells me what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling. Until he lets me inside.
Adrik gets off on portraying himself as an emotionless monster, but I know better. He feels things.
I just want to know what those things are. If they match mine.
“I know more than you could possibly imagine,” he says sharply.
“Only because you don’t tell me anything!” I huff in frustration and wrap the sheet around me as I stand up. “I just want to help you, Adrik. I want to know what’s going on. Your dad is dead, and I’m not sure what—”
“I told you already that I don’t want to talk about it.” His voice is a snarl so deep that I feel it as much as I hear it.
“I know, but—”
“No,” he snaps. “This is not a negotiation. I have to go.”
I grab his arm. “We’re married. We’re partners now. You’re my husband. I want to help.”
“I am one thing only,” he rasps, his eyes as black as midnight. “The don.”
I keep waiting for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t need to. He’s said enough.
He’s the don. He’s the boss. He’s in charge.
I’m just his wife. And maybe I won’t even be that for much longer.
“Go back to sleep, Emery,” he sighs again.
Then he pulls his hand free from my grasp and disappears through the door.
I have only a few seconds to decide what to do. A few seconds before it will be too late, and I won’t even have a choice.
As I’m deciding, I hear the intercom in the kitchen buzz. Adrik answers it. “Yeah?”
“The maid service is here, Mr. Gonzalez,” the doorman says. “Can I send them up?”
Mr. Gonzalez, the actual owner of this penthouse, must have a regular maid service set up. How convenient for me.
“Yes, that’s fine,” Adrik says.
A second later, I hear the elevator ding and the doors open.
And my decision is made.
As soon as the elevator doors close, I throw on clothes, check in on Isabella to make sure she’s still asleep, and then hurry into the kitchen to catch the maids as they come up.
I meet them at the door into the mud room. One of them is a petite blonde with long braids and the other is a tall, broad brunette with a high ponytail. They both stutter to a stop as soon as they see me.
“Hello.” I’m grinning like the Cheshire cat, but I can’t seem to help it. I don’t know how to be nonchalant. “I have to leave for a few minutes.”
“Okay,” the blonde says. “That’s no problem. We’ll lock up when we—”
“Actually, my daughter is still here,” I say. “She’s sleeping and will be for a couple more hours. Would you mind staying here until I get back? It shouldn’t be long at all.”
I have no way of knowing that. I don’t even know where Adrik is going. But if I can’t get through this conversation quickly, I’ll miss him, anyway.
The brunette frowns. “Um… we don’t really get paid for—”
“Five hundred dollars,” I blurt. “Each. I’ll pay you both to stay here until I get back.”
The women exchange a glance, still unsure.
“You’ll be here cleaning, anyway,” I press. “And I promise you she won’t wake up. It’s easy money.”
I’m selling it too hard. Every word I say is making them even more suspicious.
“Six hundred,” I offer.
The brunette narrows her eyes, considering it. Then she holds out her hand and we shake on it.
“But I’m not a babysitter,” she warns. “If she wakes up, I’m not making breakfast or—”
“She won’t wake up,” I say as I hurry past her. “Just clean quietly and I’ll be back soon.”
I skip the elevator and take the stairs two at a time down to the main lobby. The night we arrived at the apartment building, it was late. Too dark to see much of anything. And when we left the day before, I was so worried about how Adrik was doing with the news of his dad that I didn’t look around much. Nothing in the lobby looks familiar.
Except for Adrik.
I duck behind a potted tree as he crosses the metal and glass lobby and steps onto the busy sidewalk in front of the building. When he flags down a cab, I run for the doors.
The second he is inside the cab, I step outside and wave down one of my own.
“Follow that cab,” I say, pointing through the windshield where Adrik is disappearing into the tangle of cars. “Do whatever it takes.”
The old man sighs like he’s heard this a million times before, but he pulls away from the curb with a screech and tears into the line of traffic.
I sit on the edge of the cracked vinyl seat, never letting my eyes divert from Adrik’s car. At a red light, when my driver loses him for a second, I quickly point out which car he’s supposed to be following and we stay on his trail.
“Is this guy really worth all the trouble?” the driver mumbles.
“Just stay close to him,” I snap back.
I have no idea where Adrik is going, but I can’t shake the feeling that this has something to do with Yasha. I still don’t know what old wounds Yasha might have ripped open in Adrik’s heart. Or what new ones he might’ve added for good measure.
“Are you sure this is where you want to be?” the driver asks, pulling me out of my thoughts.
We’ve turned onto a side street. Short, grimy buildings rise up all around us, blocking out the sun. Half of the windows are shattered. There is so much graffiti on the lower stretches of the buildings that you can’t even see the bricks. I’m fairly certain I could walk over and peel the spray paint off in a single thick layer.
I look up and see Adrik’s cab pull up to a building on the next block up.
“Yes, stop!” I cry out.
