Chapter Twenty-nine

Celia

At the bank the next day, the personal banker is stumbling over himself to help me. I thought I was going to just withdraw all the cash they would allow me. However, he talks me into moving the money into an account with a secured debit card that didn’t have a name on it. It was some kind of thing parents did with their kids in college, they could move money as needed without the kid having to show identification in case they didn’t have it and they didn’t have their own checking account. They didn’t recommend it often in case the card was lost because anyone could use it. It’s perfect.

I should feel guilty, the money in the account is Milo’s. The money I was given every month as a stipend was more than I could need. What I didn’t spend over the four years is now almost twenty thousand dollars.

When I get to the dressmaker the place is empty of everyone but the dressmaker and her assistant. Her words confirm what I hoped, Carlo asked her to close for Carina’s appointment in an hour. She’s fearful when I tell her the plan but agrees to help me and Carina. Like I knew there was in the old building, she shows me a passageway that goes from her store into the one next door. From that store there’s a passageway that leads out of the building off the street.

As I put on the dress, it’s a struggle. I’m scared the dress is going to rip. “No, hold on. Don’t move. I do need to let it out, which I can do no problem. Your fiancé warned me to leave a few inches in case of pregnancy. Lucky girl, you didn’t waste any time.”

I go still. No. It’s not possible…right? I’m due to start my period any day, holy shit. I grab my phone once she leaves to fix the dress. No, no, no. I’m supposed to be ending my period. My period was regulated by birth control pills that went missing when I moved from school back home. I was sure I misplaced them but never went looking for them. Before I knew it I was dealing with Milos telling me I was to have his baby.

But the doctor said I should be safe. Fuck. No birth control is one hundred percent. Is this why I’ve been all weepy and weird for the last week?

The dressmaker is back and I’m not able to think of it. I beg Sergei to tell our car to go around the corner, out of sight of Carlo’s men. Now that the threat was truly over, it’s been Sergei at my side for the last two weeks.

He sighs.

“I’m not going anywhere, but I have to give Carina a chance. Please, Sergei,” I beg.

“Fine. But when this blows up in our faces, I’m telling Milos this is all you.”

“Don’t be so negative.” I shake my head.

“Come on, let’s go hide before they get here.” He guides me to the back.

Once we’re in the passageway, we sigh. Nothing to do but wait in the dark.

“So girly, talk to me. You’ve been happier but you seem on edge today.” Sergei’s voice comes out of the dark.

My head goes back against the brick. “I think I’m pregnant and trying not to freak.”

His squeal splits my ear. “Oh my god, that’s amazing.”

He hugs me so tight I can’t breathe. “Stop, you weirdo. This is not the time.”

I’m dropped without warning. “What? This is the perfect time. Also Milos will be over the freaking moon.”

“That’s the problem. He wants me pregnant. What happens once I am? Will he still want me?” I share my deepest fear. “I was hoping it would take a few months so he could fall in love with me.”

Sighing heavily, he says, “Okay, I don’t get you. It annoys me that you don’t see how beautiful and sweet and nice you are, then you have the firecracker, sassy element that girl is hella hot. You don’t get it, fine. But how the fuck do you not get what Milos has done for you. You say he didn’t want—”

I fight tears. “Not this again. He told me he doesn’t love me. That he doesn’t believe in love. He feels respect and he wants to fuck me. Marriage is different in mafia. You marry for position and power and you have a woman on the side. That’s how these things go.”

Suddenly the passageway opens. “Celia?” It’s Carina.

I find her in the dark, hugging her tight. She starts crying. “It’s going to be okay, sweetie. I promise. I’ve got you a debit card with all the money I have, nineteen thousand and change. Here’s the instructions on how to check the balance with the password.”

She grasps it tight. “Thank you.”

“This is my passport, you’re booked on a flight to Florence. It leaves in three hours. Go buy a carry-on and enough clothes to fill it. I’m taking your phone and leaving it in the dressing room. Then we’re going to drop you at the airport.” We don’t have the same colored eyes, but we look alike enough a casual glance of the passport wouldn’t have anyone questioning it.

“They wouldn’t give me a phone.”

“Okay, then let’s go.” I urge her forward.

The three of us make it up and out without being spotted. On the way to the airport we discuss her plans and because Carlo will be watching, no contact for a while. We both cry over it. But we know it’s for the best.

I hold her tight when we get to the airport far sooner than I thought we would.

I’m still crying once I get home.

Milos is waiting. “What did you do?”

Tears flowing, I tell him. Not about where I sent Carina, only that I helped her. He sighs but holds me as I cry.

Aside from that conversation, we don’t discuss what I did. Even when Carlo calls to scream at me. Milos takes the phone from me, then calmly tells Carlo what he’s saying is unacceptable. If Carlo does it again, Milos will see it for the disrespect to him it is. Carlo hangs up and doesn’t call back.

The night before our wedding we leave the condo and go back to the house. I’m ordered to pack a bag—but don’t worry about too many clothes. After we get married Milos can’t take a true honeymoon, but Tony Sabatini offered us his lake house for a week. It’s safe and secluded. Once we leave the wedding we’ll drive straight through, only an hour north.

We have dinner with Mother, she’s so excited I get excited too. I ask her if she will stand in for Carina and she cries tears of happiness when she says yes. It’s a wonderful night, until she tells me I’m to stay with her in her part of the house. For good luck and a surprise, so Milos doesn’t see me before I walk down the aisle.

Milos argues as loudly as I’ve ever seen him with his mother. I don’t want to give in but I want to make her happy.

“It’s one night,” I whisper to him as I go on tiptoe to kiss him.

“One night away from you feels like a dozen,” he growls.

“No more nights away after this,” I promise him.

Sighing, he gives in.

Although I miss Milos, I’m so glad I gave in to Mother. We spend the night looking at pictures of Milos and his brothers. She finally tells stories of Milos growing up. My chest squeezes tight at the pictures of Milos as a baby. As scared as I am I might be pregnant, I also can’t wait to hold a baby who looks just like his daddy.

***

Milos

Stalking my office, my mind won’t settle. Is it that she isn’t in my bed tonight, or that tomorrow is when all the pretending can end? I’d walked a fine line of allowing my pleasure with her as my wife to show while also making it clear I still viewed our marriage as a power move. She was safe as my woman because she was mine, not because I loved her more than all the money and power I have. No one believed that for Celia I would give everything in my possession. The problem was she believed the lie too.

Her surprise of how completely I supported her in going against Carlo pained me. One because after speaking at length with Sandro, I gave him the tracker information for Carina. It wasn’t about helping Carlo, it was about ensuring Carina was safe. Sandro would protect her, and something told me he would come to love her sooner than either he or Carina thought. And two, because I finally saw how deeply I fucked up.

How could she believe I loved her when I told her not once but twice our marriage wasn’t about love? No wonder she was confused. She did feel it in my touch, when we made love, but the words from my mouth didn’t match my actions. Nothing less than me laying everything out for her would allow her to believe me, in me.

Tomorrow, before our family and everyone we knew, we’d vow forever. It didn’t feel right doing it with the lies hanging over us.

Mind made up, I go to my mother’s wing. The lights are off. Slipping into her room is easy. There is enough light through the window and a nightlight to see Celia in the room.

I place my hand over her mouth then whisper into her ear. “Kotyonok, I changed my mind. No sleeping away from me tonight.”

Instantly she’s awake. A hand runs over my chest, perfect. I put her over my shoulder and carry her out of my mother’s room.

“Naughty boy,” my mother murmurs before I close the door. She knows me well.

It doesn’t take long to get her to my bedroom. Setting her down on the bed, I take the time to lock the door to my room.

When I turn, her beautiful face is scrunched up. “What’s that, cigar smoke? Oh no.” She moans as she rolls off the bed and runs for my bathroom.

I’m a bastard for the satisfaction that rolls through me. The confirmation of my thoughts for the last few days. Celia is pregnant. Shit, poor baby is dry heaving, shudders wrack her small frame. I grab a washcloth, cool it and run it over her face as I pull her into me.

Out of breath, she moans. “What the hell was that?”

Pressing a kiss to her temple, “Our daughter making her presence known. Like her mother, she doesn’t do anything quietly. “

Celia goes still. “No.” It’s a whisper. “How could…”

Her mouth snaps closed. The lie she told sends anger rushing through me. I’m unrepentant as I pick her up and take her into her old room, as I’ve never smoked in the room. “How could you be pregnant when you received a birth control shot?”

I let her go, turning her to look at me. Her head stays down. “Because you didn’t get a birth control shot. The syringe was filled with two different extremely effective fertility treatments. It would be shocking if you weren’t pregnant, especially how often I fucked you to get you pregnant.”

“How could you do that?” She gasps.

I shrug. “The same way you lied to me and went for a birth control shot. I would never have given you the shot if you hadn’t gone in for birth control.”

“You can’t just tell me I’m going to get pregnant and not allow me to have any say in it. This is something a normal couple talks about. Discusses, it isn’t up to one of them. You never gave me a choice in what was going to happen to my body,” she shouts at me.

“I gave you the choice when I asked you to marry me. I told you I wanted children, that it was time. You said yes.” Frustration seethes through me. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.

She reels back at me. “A choice? It was you and yes, right then and there, or no to the only thing I wanted for the last four years. What I thought I lost that day I screwed up. Saying no was never an option for me. Why couldn’t you have given me a little more time? Why did I have to get pregnant immediately?”

“Because you pregnant ties us together forever. No matter what happens our child will link us, always in each other’s lives, always a part of each other. Once you were pregnant maybe the fear of you walking away from me would die.”

My honesty stuns her. Backing away from me, she shakes her head.

“Yes, I fell for you that first day. From the moment I laid eyes on you, all your fire and spirit—I wanted it—you, for myself. I was plotting and planning all the ways to get you, I was not above using your father to get you. Then you cried, the tears turning your gray eyes silver. You would not be able to continue your education. It meant so much to you. I hated it, yet I knew if I kept you from your dream you would grow to hate me. For the first time I came across a problem my money could not get me out of. There was no way I could marry you, then allow you to run off for the years you gaining your credentials in another city two hours away from me would require.”

Another shake of her head.

I fight for control, needing to tell her everything. “I could not, Celia. I would have appeared weak. As my wife you belonged at my side, not in another city. To indulge you would have made you the one thing I did not want—a target for how deeply I cared for you. So I ensured you got the money you needed to go to school, then made sure you were protected at all times except for one very fucked-up night. You have no idea how hard it was not to push you to come back to me, to Chicago when you figured out you wouldn’t be happy being a veterinarian. In fact I planned on meeting with Carlo and telling him enough…just enough to get you. But then I ran into my own problems.”

“You got shot,” she whispers.

“It felt like fate was telling me to wait for you. To give you the time you needed to grow up and be your own woman. If I took you without you coming to me, then it would all be for nothing. I wanted you to pick me, or maybe I needed the illusion you were not simply enduring me as your husband, that you wanted me the same way I wanted you. The same way I loved you.”

Tears spill down her cheeks. “You said love was a hormone—”

I catch her close, forcing her eyes up to mine. “I lied,” I whisper against her lips. “The moment I met you it was love. There was that hormone in the beginning that had me listening to your recordings day in and out. Buying the helicopter and forcing Peter to take lessons in case I needed to get to you immediately.”

“You bought the helicopter for me?” Silver eyes wide in awe.

I smile in memory of Aleksander and Peter telling me I’d regret the cost. I never did. “Planning ahead, kotyonok, when it comes to you. Using it only once to get to you as soon as you needed me was worth it. I felt like the biggest bastard in the world. I hated what you’d gone through, how in pain you were, yet having you all to myself for a week was a dream come true. It confirmed it wasn’t just lust or obsession, what I felt for you—it was love.”

She shakes her head, as new tears fall.

“I lied to protect you from Grigori. To keep him and everyone else from knowing I wouldn’t just kill for you, I’d die for you. I would give up everything I have, walk away from this life and my family, if it meant I got to keep you. If my enemies knew…there are no limits to what they might do to hurt me through you. You’re an easy read. If you knew how deeply I loved you, you would have glowed with it. And I wouldn’t have been able to keep from floating on cloud nine right along with you.”

A trembling hand runs along my cheek.

“It’s why I used you the night of the dinner with Grigori. You freshly fucked would have any man understanding why I might be possessive and get caught up in your smile. But they would think it was what I said—hormones that would fade away after a few months. Only me enjoying my new toy. Except I swear it was all a lie. Every time we touch, that electricity is there because you are my other half. Our bodies recognize it and want only to fuse together, to become one. No woman has ever made me feel the way you do, no woman could ever make me feel this way.”

“What was going on between you and Anna?” she whispers as though she’s afraid to hear the answer.

Catching her behind her neck, I shake my head. “Not a fucking thing. She was attached to the charity because she was a former victim of trafficking. I got tired, so fucking tired of pretending with the women. Anna expressed her gratitude of me not trying to fuck her at the end of the night. I told her the truth, I never would because if I couldn’t have the woman I wanted—then I wouldn’t have any woman.”

Doubt fills her gray eyes. “Nothing at all for five months?

She isn’t going to leave me with a secret. Fine, she deserves them all. “I haven’t been with another woman since the day I met you.”

“For four years?” Eyes wide, she shakes her head in disbelief.

“It was actually one thousand, five hundred and fifty-four days that I went without a woman. There was no one for a few days before I met you, and there was never another woman until we made love. I existed for the day we could finally be together forever.”

Her eyes flare silver, so I keep going. “I tried. I didn’t like being so completely in your thrall. Yet I went through far too many hoops to get a woman who looked as close to you as possible, only for me to realize I didn’t want a woman who looked like you. I wanted you and no other woman would do. If no one could touch you then no one could touch me either. The problem was the moment I laid eyes on you, you were mine. You belonged to me. What you somehow never understood, my beautiful Celia, is that I belonged to you too. This goes both ways. Four years, today, ten years from now until I draw my last breath, I am yours.”

She blinks and tears roll down her beautiful face again. “I loved you the moment I met you too, but I was so afraid that you were like all the mafia men I had encountered, especially Carlo. I would love you and you wouldn’t love me back. That you would take me over and leave me…or worse, not leave me and cheat the way all the men did, and I would take it because I couldn’t—wouldn’t leave you. Then the love would become all twisted up.”

I allow my forehead to fall against hers. “I’m sorry for playing on your fears. I swear if I thought there was another way—I would have done it. For almost six months after the week you spent with me I considered walking away. All I wanted was to be with you again the way we both wanted. We could go where no one knew who we were or what we did. You’d run your practice and I’d find something to do to keep busy. A life that was ours alone…”

Her lips meet mine in a gentle press. “We both would have been miserable. I don’t want you to walk away from this life, it’s our life now. It’s who we are. It would be like trying to change our hair color—we could keep it up for a while, we might even like it, but eventually the work it would take to maintain would turn us weary and resentful. You are the life I want and you are Bratva. I love you, Milos Levin. Every part of you, even when you make me crazy and sad, I’ll take all of them because the good parts aren’t simply good, they’re better than all the rest.”

Thank god. “Ya tebya lublyu tebya. Navsedga moy.” I whisper against her lips.

She nods. “I love you too. Forever yours.”

***

Celia

Lying in Milos’s arms, floating in waves of pleasure, I marvel at everything I learned tonight. I can’t help wondering if I’m dreaming. Odd how life could be. I was sure the moment I found out I was pregnant would be the beginning of our end. Instead, it was everything I needed.

I give in. Good girls get what we ask for. “Milos?”

“Hmm.” He’s playing with my hair.

“I want you to lose control with me. Nothing turns me on more than you undone. You’re always so…sometimes it doesn’t even seem like you’re breathing hard. I love it when you control me, and just a little bit of pain.”

Yellow glows. “I was trying to be careful. You’re so much smaller than me. There was also a part of me that just enjoyed making love with you. We don’t fuck, no matter what I said before. It isn’t fucking when I love you. When I can’t breathe deep until I’m inside you. Before fucking was like sleeping or eating, feeding a need—now you are my need.”

“Even if I liked it?” I wonder.

“If you like it then we can do both. There is no one way for us. We make our rules, no one else.” Catching my hand in his, he presses a kiss to the center of my palm. “How many children will you give me?”

“I have a choice?” I widen my eyes.

His chuckle is unrepentant. “I want at least two, I think any less than three and I will spoil the shit out of them. It would not be good. But I will not complain if you want less.”

The feel of his cheek beneath my palm is too much of an enticement to pass up. “Hmm…good, because I want a half dozen like you grew up with. Just me and Carina felt so lonely at times. I would like five or six. Is that all right?”

“I can think of nothing more pleasurable than giving you as many children as you want.” His husky voice is throbbing with intent.

I’m not done yet, learning all the things I’ve wondered about this man. My husband who loves me and is going to give me all the love I need and ask for…and hopefully spankings.

I trace over the numerals on his chest. “What does this mean?”

An eyebrow goes up. “It’s the day we met, February nineteenth. You and that kitten were the best thing to ever happen to me.”

Milos was so obsessed with me he inked the day we met into his skin. Something has to be wrong with me for loving it so much. This man tattooed… Wait. “The tattoos on the back of your hands?”

Bringing his arms around me, he shows me the tattoo on his right hand, tracing it slowly. “Heavenly.”

“My name means heavenly.” I exhale.

He nods, showing me his left hand. “Celia. So I could see them whenever I needed to.”

I lift my hand to his face in awe. No words will come, none are needed. His kiss tells me everything. He enters my body in one sweet push. The sting is still there, grounding me to him.

I’m so close that in only minutes I’m breaking apart around him. Milos comes with me, his mouth still on mine. His air is my air, our moans of pleasure mingling and becoming one, the same as us.