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“Okay, okay, you,” I said, trying to calm him down but only making him crazier with my goofy dog voice. “Let’s go outside and sniff some trees.”
When I led him to the front doors, three men slid from the shadows to block it. They wore dark clothes and dead-eyed looks on their stern faces, silently refusing to let me take the puppy outside. All the warm feelings I recovered after Leo’s and my little slip-up in the kitchen dissolved when I saw they had guns strapped to their sides.
Right, this wasn’t a vacation. I really was a prisoner.
“I- I just want to take the dog out for a few minutes,” I said.
One of them reached for Burya’s leash. “I’ll do it.”
I stepped back. “Why can’t I walk around the front yard?”
They gave me no answer, and I didn’t dare try to rush past them, not wanting to be slung over any brute’s shoulder and dumped into my room. Frustrated tears welled in my eyes, which only made me angry. They stared straight ahead as if I didn’t exist.
“Stand aside and let her go out.” Leo appeared from the back and gave them exasperated looks. “You’ve secured the perimeter?”
All three nodded in unison. “Yes, Boss. All clear.”
“Then there shouldn’t be a problem with Samantha taking the dog out.”
They slipped back out of view, not bothering to look abashed and certainly not apologizing. Leo swung the front door open and stepped outside into the blazing sunshine with me. Burya jetted ahead to the maximum length of his leash, alternately sniffing and peeing on everything. I let the dog guide me, and Leo meandered along beside me. I was so anxious from the encounter at the front door that I barely took in any of my surroundings until we got to the edge of the property.
It backed up onto a small beach with pale sand dotted with shells and driftwood. Low, bent-over palm trees grew in a clump in the middle, their trunks tangled as if huddled together against storms. The water rolled onto the shore in lazy, almost careless waves, and the whole scene was so pretty it knocked me out of my stupor.
“How is this the same ocean as New York Harbor?” I asked.
“I never get tired of looking at it,” Leo said.
I let Burya off his leash, and he barreled toward the shoreline, barking at the low whitecaps as they washed up as if they were his archnemesis. We sat on a palm trunk growing almost horizontally and just stared at the water while the dog wore himself out. I wanted to ask if I needed his permission every time I wanted to go out or if he’d have to accompany me. Still, I was afraid it would destroy our fragile peace if I didn’t like the answer.
When Burya figured out he’d never tame the sea, Leo hopped up and grabbed a stick of driftwood, and we took turns tossing it for him to fetch. He wasn’t very good at it yet, finding it difficult to let go when he brought it back.
The sun felt good on my shoulders, and it was much cooler by the water than in the garden. I could have stayed there the rest of the afternoon, and I was about to suggest a picnic when Leo looked down at his phone and frowned.
“I have to go in to make some calls,” he said, whistling for Burya.
“Can I stay out with him a while longer?” I asked. I already suspected the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it.
He looked pained, which didn’t make me feel any better. Of course, I had to go back in. I strode ahead of him, not caring that he tried to explain it was only until they could be sure they had everything locked down properly. So, until then, I would be the one locked down.
This roller coaster of highs of forgetting reality and having a good time with him, to lows of remembering I was his prisoner, was almost worse than being miserable nonstop.
Chapter 16 - Leo
I sat in the room I set up as an office, staring past the computer screen to the window but not seeing much of anything. The calls I’d just gotten from my sister and my second-in-command in New York both had nothing good to say.
Things were escalating with the Giannis. They were going hard against my businesses, taking out an art gallery that was an extension of our partnership with my cousin Aleksei’s in-laws in Boston. They had broken the windows, slashed every painting, and set the back room on fire after making off with a safe. The money they took was negligible; the building was obviously insured, as were the paintings. It was the insult of it that rankled me. The only good news from New York was that no one had been badly injured. I told everyone to hold off on anything, despite them wanting to retaliate instantly.
That was usually my modus operandi as well, but they weren’t backing down. I wasn’t convinced they would easily give up on trying to get to me, and since I’d gone in guns blazing to rescue Samantha, they were now certain of how important she was to me.
Evelina was on my back, refusing to understand why I didn’t leave Samantha down here with guards and get back up north where I was needed. I couldn’t explain it myself. There was no real reason I needed to be around her as long as she was kept safe until the baby was born. She had everything she needed here, and my guys were loyal. They’d protect her with their lives if that was my order.
She was due for a routine medical checkup in a week. I’d arranged for the doctor who delivered Evelina’s and my cousin’s wives’ babies to come to the house and see her. Everything was under control and taken care of.
It would be wisest to leave since I couldn’t get our passionate encounter out of my head, and I didn’t know how long my self-control would last. I just couldn’t make myself go. For whatever reason, I had to be nearby to really know that she and the baby were safe.
I let her check in with her family every few days, keeping tabs on them through my own daily updates. It made her happy to hear her sister’s and her grandmother’s voices, and I liked seeing her smile. In the last two weeks, we settled into a routine of walking the dog, swimming, and sharing cooking duties.
We even watched some of Ivan’s DVDs in the big home theater, always choosing one we both loved first, then picking one we thought we’d both hate, and then ruthlessly making fun of it or being pleasantly surprised. It was shocking how well our tastes meshed, and a few times, I found myself looking at her instead of the screen, wondering what it would be like to keep her in my life after the baby was born.
