6

Chapter 6

Vladimir

I shouldn’t have let the words slip out of my mouth, but I felt better after letting it out. I’d come to Chicago with the intention of taking Guilia and Dalian back to Seattle with me, after finding out that she had a son which I was absolutely sure belonged to me. Now a lot of things had happened and even seeing my son seemed like an impossibility and all of these had brought me to a decision–I’d go to any length to have them again no matter how long it took.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I questioned impatiently.

She pursed her lips, her forehead creased with disapproval.

“You should go check what went wrong with the jeep, shouldn’t you?” She deflected.

I nodded and hopped out of the car. Smoke was creeping through the bonnet and billowing into the air.

That wasn’t a good sign in any way. The engine was smoking hot by the time I lifted the bonnet and hinged it against an iron rod.

“The engine is knocked,” I announced, secretly happy that we were going to be stuck here for a while.

She bounced out of the car and hurried to where I was, her brows lifting to meet her hairline.

“Are you trying to say we are stuck here?” Her expression evened out.

“Seems like it, honey,” I brought out my phone to make a call, but there wasn’t one single reception. I frowned at the screen of my phone.

“I can't reach anyone at this point."

A scoff burst out of her lips, her upper set of teeth digging into her lower lip. “This can’t be happening,” she threw her arms into the air.

“Relax, Guilia, staying with me ain’t a death sentence,” I cackled.

She shot a deep glare at me. “Why do I feel that you are happy about our situation? I have a son to go back to and here you are rejoicing about our predicament–”

“He’s my son too, you know,” I snapped.

“You realized very early,” she shot back with harsh sarcasm, her chest rising and falling heavily like a hypertensive patient.

“You know, it’s funny how I ensured that no one outside my family knew I was pregnant. I only told Ariel,” she paused for a while and gasped pointing at me accusingly. “Did Ariel betray me?”

I shook my head. “No, she didn't. I found out by coincidence.”

“Then spill!”

Seeing how pissed she was, I knew that telling her the truth wouldn’t be a good idea. “Not now. Let’s find somewhere to lay our heads for the night. I’ll tell you all about it when we are all settled.”

She huffed and glanced around. “You owe me that story,” She replied in a surly tone and sauntered off while I fell in step behind her.

Dusk was settling in on us fast and since it was fall we were most likely to be battered by the jarring cold if we didn’t find a place to rest our heads for the night. Though she wasn’t on the best of talking terms with me right now, I still enjoyed the peace her company brought me.

A loud scream jolted me from my train of thoughts. I ran toward her direction and found her on the floor, holding onto her toe. Blood seeped out of it, red spreading through what was left of the torn scraps of her wedding dress.

She didn’t deserve to go through any of this.

“Hold on,” I took off my jacket and covered her with it then tore out a piece of material from my vest and tied it around her injured toe. “Do you feel any better?”

“Yes, thank you,” her voice was breathy and it worried me.

A ray of light shone on our path, the dried leaves rustling with each step, temporarily taking away my attention from her. My hopes were raised by the fact that someone else apart from us was out far here in the woods, but something else struck me and that had me pulling out my gun in a split second.

“Are we in danger?” Guilia asked fearfully.

“I won't let any harm come to you,” I assured her, the rays closing in on us. I cocked my gun, aiming at the direction of the light. “You’d better not come any closer or I’ll pull the trigger!”

I heard a loud hiss, then the light strayed off our direction.

“Who are you and what are you doing on my territory?” The strange person asked boldly.

“Oh, thank God,” Guilia winced.

Seeing how weak she was in her injured state, I decided to go straight to the point. “My wife here is in pain, she was kidnapped yesterday and I managed to rescue her. We just need a place to rest and eat, by tomorrow we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Then put the fucking gun away,” he commanded. “And if i fucking find out that none of what you said is true, your bodies won’t be enough food for my dogs.”

A snarky reply was well off on its way past my tongue, but as hard as it was I swallowed it in for peace’s sake and lifted Guilia into my arms. We followed the man quietly but it didn’t stop me from trying to make out the plains of our terrain. I understood the man’s feeling of distrust, but it would be more dangerous for us if he was a part of the Outfit waiting to sell us back.

Finally, we got to an old cottage. The roofing seemed as if it had been in existence before my birth and even the cracks didn’t go unnoticed under the dim incandescent bulb that cast a shadowy glow over the house.

“This is my humble abode,” The dogs barked the moment they heard his voice.

Guilia, who had been silent for a while stirred in my arms and peered up at me with uncertainty. “Are you sure we’ll be safe here?”

“I wasn’t joking when I said I wouldn't let any harm come to you.” I replied in a calm whisper.

She fell silent again and I took the inside of the cottage in. Unlike the shabby exterior I’d seen earlier, the interior was quite warm, cozy enough to relax. The chairs and the rest of the furniture were fairly new which spoke a lot about his personality. He was the kind of man that didn’t bother about outward appearance. If not, he would have trimmed his overgrown beards by now and maybe do some facials. Someone like him couldn’t be bought easily with money.

“Make yourselves comfortable, I’ll be right back.” He told us before disappearing through an open door behind him.

I gently placed her on one of the arm chairs and did a quick security check. Currently there wasn’t anything to prove that he was a part of them so I relaxed a bit. He came out in a jiffy and threw a key at me.

“What’s this for?”

He nudged at a door opposite me. “You can sleep there for tonight. When you get in you’ll find a drawer with a few shirts that you can change into. As for food, I’ll fix up something quickly for the both of you.”

I was awed by his level of kindness and I didn't even know when a word of gratitude slipped from my mouth. “Thank you.”

“Well you can appreciate me better by not suspecting me anymore. I won’t sell you off if that’s what you’re thinking, moreover, the people you’re running away from have done me more harm than good.” He threw Guilia a worried look in her direction before retreating back through that door.

Guilia came out of the bathroom a few minutes after I had washed myself in the shower, her body wrapped in a small white towel that barely covered her slender thighs. She limped towards the drawer and bent over, the towel riding up to her ass with beads of water cascading from her hair down to her back. Even my dick couldn't help but twitch at the sight.

Maybe, it was just my eyes, but being a mother made her more beautiful and hot, so hot that I was one second away from losing my control and doing what I'd always wanted to do with her.

She turned around suddenly and our eyes collided, and then she batted her lashes, unable to keep up with the staring contest.

“Umm… can you please turn around, I need to change.”

Briskly, I got up from the bed and advanced on her. “I don’t think I can, buttercup. Have you forgotten that you owe me something?”

Her hands trembled and the shirt she was holding onto fell off. “Your kiss…” she trailed off.

“Good girl, don’t you think you should do something about it now?”

She scratched her hair nervously and took a few steps back until her body collided with the wall. “I’m not properly dressed, Vladimir and kissing you here and now, might lead to other things.”

A chuckle reverberated in my throat as I gently tucked away the wet strands of hair that was stuck on her forehead behind her ear. “Have you been thinking of doing other things with me?” I teased her, enjoying the way her cheeks heated up to take on a bright shade of pink.

“Please, stop this. We shouldn’t even be caught doing this right now. What if that man comes in here?”

I shook my head in disagreement, caging her with both of my arms placed on the wall behind her head. “I told him that you are my wife, remember? So he should know that we could be doing a lot of things that married people do.”

She ducked under my arm and stalked away. “Is this your way of getting to sleep with me again? Or did your fiancé dump you and then you realized that I might still be available for free sex?”

My eyes blazed and it wasn’t with excitement. “You mean more than that to me. Didn’t my coming to save you prove it?”

“Anybody else could have done it,” She whispered almost inaudibly and my heart clenched painfully.

It was funny that she thought that Alessio or any other soldier was capable of doing what I did or wasn’t she aware that the only reason her father mobilized the soldiers was to save face?

Masking my pain with a smile, I picked up my shirt from the bed and headed for the door. “I’m going for dinner. You can join me when you’re done.” I led myself out without waiting for a response.

I’d barely made it past the living room when the door creaked open and my name rolled out of her lips.

“Wait. Don't go yet. “