by Brook Wilder
He nods, then mutters through gritted teeth, “Is it Jack Bennet?”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “No, of course not.”
Utter silence falls between us, then he bellows in rage, grabs the decorative table in the entryway, and chucks it behind him. It shatters as it crashes into the wall and glass trinkets explode as they hit the hardwood floor.
“Dammit, Stella, do you have any fucking idea what you’re doing?”
“I’m trying to get us out of this life!” I shout back. “What are you doing?”
His chest heaves as he storms toward me, his face screwed up in anger, his brow furrowed. He grabs my shoulders as he leans down, his face inches from mine. “What do you think I’ve been doing this whole fucking time? Trying to keep you safe. I’m always trying to keep you safe and you,” he seethes. “And you go behind my back and speak to a goddamn journalist.”
“That journalist is our way out.”
“Stop being so naïve. That journalist is going to be the reason we die. Is that what you want?” he demands, then yells, “Is it? Admit it, you want this family to fall and you want me to go down with them!”
I try to get away from him, but he holds my arms tighter. “I love you, asshole, that’s why I spoke to him. I told him off the first time I met him. Told him to leave us alone, and then he said he could get us somewhere safe. We could start over, Danya. We could have a life that doesn’t involve blood and violence.” My hands drop to my stomach and as his gaze follows, it softens slightly. “A life where our baby can’t be used against us. Don’t you want that?”
I silently plead for him to say yes, but he hesitates. It’s all the answer I need. I bury my fist in his gut and he releases me. I stagger away as his eyes narrow, but I can’t read his expression.
“You’re choosing this life over your child and me? You’re choosing them?”
He licks his lips and I sense the turmoil inside him. “I can’t just leave. This is my life.”
“It was your life, but it doesn’t have to be. Jack has a way for us to get out. He just needs your help.”
Danya stiffens, and his suspicious glare makes me take another step back. “My help.”
“He just wants to talk to you, that’s it. Then he can get us out of the city.”
“How many times have you spoken with Jack?” he asks as he comes closer. I wring my hands and then he’s there, holding me to him. “How many?”
“Just twice, face-to-face.”
“But you’ve, what, been emailing him? Texting him?” I can’t bring myself to lie anymore and remain silent. “Shit, Stella.”
“He’s been asking me questions, but I haven’t responded.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Without meaning to, my eyes dart to my purse where my cell is. I’ve been careful to delete most of the messages between Jack and me, but I can’t remember if I took care of the more recent ones. I attempt to break free to grab my phone, but Danya’s too fast. He snatches up my purse and turns his back to me as he digs through it.
“Don’t!” I shout and lunge for him, but then he has my cell in his hands. “Danya, please.”
He unlocks my phone easily enough. I hate that he knows me so well he can guess my PIN. He keeps my cell out of reach as he walks away. I give up on trying to get it back, praying I took care of the messages. Danya stops walking away and his whole body tenses. Rage radiates off him, and when he slowly turns around to face me, I have to remind myself that he is not Mikhail, but Danya. The look in his eyes is not the man I know and love, though, and my heart plummets.
“Danya, please, just let me explain.”
“What day did you see Jack face-to-face? After your little trip to the bookstore?”
“Danya,” I try again, but then he bellows at me so loudly I flinch.
“What day?”
“The same day I gave you the intel!” I shout back. “The same day I came to you with a plan to save us!”
“Save us,” he says quietly, and that worries me more than his yelling.
“Yes.”
“All three of us.”
I frown, confused by his question. “Of course, the three of us.”
His face turns calculating and then he’s gripping my cell in his fist like he’s picturing it as Jack instead and he’s strangling the man. “The day you went with Jack, where did you go?”
“His office.”
“Do not lie to me!” he shouts. “Where did you go, Stella?”
“To find out if I was pregnant,” I blurt. “I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.”
“And afterward, you contemplated terminating the pregnancy. Tell me, did you discuss this with your new friend Jack?”
I can’t find words to answer him as my cheeks burn. I thought I planned carefully enough and that Danya would never find out about Jack until we were on our way out of the city. I certainly never wanted him to know it was Jack who was with me at the doctor’s office, or who gave me the name of a doctor to perform the abortion if it came down to it. I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but all that does is make it hard to breathe. My arms wrap around my stomach and the second I do, Danya curses and chucks my cell phone into the wall. It explodes on impact and then he’s ranting in Russian. I only catch some of the words and then he switches back to English as he stalks toward me.
“This man, this two-faced bastard, knew you were with child before me?” Danya asks. “He was with you when you found out? Tell me, dammit, is it true?”
“Yes,” I reply, but rush to explain. He cuts across my words with another furious yell then buries his fist in the nearest wall. “You want to be pissed? Fine, be pissed,” I snap. “I’m trying to do what’s best for our child.”
“And killing it is what’s best?”
“You’re so blinded by your need to avenge Mikhail’s death and save his legacy that you don’t see what’s right in front of you,” I say, fighting the urge to keep screaming at him. “You weren’t there tonight. You didn’t hear your mother or Camilla. The baby isn’t even born yet and already they’re planning to kill it. To use it. Your mother is stalking me, for God’s sake. You really think our child will last a minute in this world?” Furious tears burn in my eyes as I wait for him to understand, to show me that he gets why I did what I did.
But his eyes grow colder, and I no longer recognize the man standing in front of me. The man who held me in his arms last night and told me over and over I was his heart and he would do whatever it took to keep us safe.
“At least my mother knows her place,” he mutters, and my mouth falls open in shock.
“What did you just say?”
“My uncle was right. They were all right. I wouldn’t be in this situation if I had simply made you understand where you belong. It’s time to grow up, Stella. We’re not teenagers anymore.” He runs a hand through his hair as he adds, “I should never have let you think you could be my equal. All you do is make it worse.”
I back up to the stairs. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do,” he says as I frantically search for the Danya I know and love. He’s absent in that icy glare. “Everything I’ve done has been for you, but all you do is fight me at every turn.”
“Danya, please.”
“You will do as I say,” he orders. “You will obey me. And when you give birth to a son, we will take control of the family and you will do everything you can to be an example of loyalty and obedience. Do you understand—”
The sharp crack of my palm connecting with his face echoes around the house. My hand stings, but I hardly feel it as I glower at the red mark on his cheek. I raise my hand to do it again, but he grabs my wrist. We stare each other down until he blinks and glances at his hand, clutching my wrist hard enough to bruise. He lets go as if I shocked him, and I back up another step.
“Fuck you,” I whisper, then bolt upstairs.
“Stella, get back here!” he yells as he chases after me.
I sprint into my bedroom, slam the door, and bolt it. He bangs on it, but the door holds. “Go away! Just leave me alone.”
“This is not over,” he warns. “You and I are going to lay down new rules, and you’re going to follow them.”
“Or what? You’re going to beat me into submission?”
“You are doing everything you can to destroy us!”
“I’m doing everything I can to save us,” I reply furiously, then beat against the door myself. “I hate you, you hear me? I hate you. I never should’ve married you!” My heart breaks as I say it, but it’s too late to take the words back now.
“And I should’ve never trusted you.” The rest of my heart shatters as I flatten my hand to the door, struggling to keep breathing.
I wait for him to say more, but all I hear is a stream of curses, then he’s gone. I let out a shaky breath that turns into a sob as the moment catches up with me. I slide down the door, pressing my back to the wood as I curl in on myself. What did I just do? And Danya, he didn’t mean what he said. He told me repeatedly he’s nothing like his father or mine, but that man down there, that was not Danya.
What’s happening to us? I hate this life. Hate that it’s ripping us apart. I let myself believe our love was strong enough to stand against his family, against all of them. Too bad I was wrong. Perhaps this whole time, it was him putting on a show to draw me in. But what I feel with him is real. All those nights we woke up tangled in each other’s arms. The sweet kisses he’d plant atop my head as he wrapped his arms around me and held me close. When he’d stare deeply into my eyes and do something as simple as tucking my hair behind my ears.
I just wasn’t strong enough to save him from his family.
I have to be for our baby.
“Don’t worry,” I tell my baby as I manage to haul myself to my feet. “Mama’s going to keep us safe. I’ll get us out of here. No one will touch you.”
I change out of my dress from the evening and tug on a pair of jeans, running shoes, and a T-shirt. I grab my jacket, too, then whatever jewelry I have in the room that’s worth something, along with my stash of cash. Getting out of the house won’t be easy, but Danya’s leaving me with no other choice. If he won’t believe me about my motives with Jack, then I’ll just have to prove it to him. I can’t terminate the pregnancy, not anymore, but there’s no way I’m sticking around here to have this baby only to have it torn from my arms.
I hesitate at the door, knowing there’s a very real chance I’m about to lose Danya forever. I might never see him again. For the sake of the baby growing inside me, I have to take that chance. I open the door quietly and listen. After a second, I creep down the hall to the small table with the house phone sitting on it. I dial Jack’s number then wait for him to pick up.
“Bennet,” he says on the third ring, then says through a yawn, “This better be good.”
“It’s me,” I whisper, afraid to speak any louder.
“Stella? Is everything all right?”
“No, it’s not. I need you to meet me and get me away from the city. Tonight.”
“What’s going on?”
“Are you my friend or not, Jack?”
I hear rustling and then a bit of static, then he’s back on the line. “Yeah, of course. Where do you want me to meet you?”
“Corner café near the bookstore. Be there in an hour.”
“I will. Be careful, Stella.”
I hang up and brace myself to sneak out of the house. It won’t be easy to get past the guards, but I don’t have another choice. At the bottom of the steps, I dig through my discarded purse for my wallet, tuck it in the one I have slung crossways over my body, then tiptoe to the back door. There’s usually a guard out there, but he doesn’t stand right by the door. The backyard is dark. I’ll have to hightail it away from the mansion then catch a cab. Taking my Mustang will draw too much attention.
The back door opens silently, and I see the outline of the guard standing near the back wall. If I stick to the shadows, I can make it around the house without being spotted.
Holding my breath and telling myself this is what I have to do, I step into the shadows and try not to focus on those cold hazel eyes I saw on the face of the man who stole my heart. A heart I know now I’ll never get back.
Chapter 16
Danya
Lukas grabs hold of the door handle as I swerve around a bend in the road. “Care to share why you’re trying to kill us?”
My hands tighten on the wheel until my knuckles cramp. I speed down the street, running reds and cutting through traffic. All I see is the look of utter confusion followed immediately by hatred and fury in Stella’s eyes as she slapped me. My words replay like a soundtrack in my head and I push the accelerator to the floor.
“Danya, you’re going to get us fucking killed. Slow down,” Lukas snaps.
“What the fuck did I just do?” I snarl as I finally hit the brakes and park crookedly against the curb. I ignore the blaring horns around me, hearing only Stella’s final words to me. I punch the steering wheel. “I spent all this time proving to her that I was nothing like Mikhail. Showing her that I could keep her safe. And she went behind my back. Again.”
“She was trying to help you.”
I scowl at Lukas. “By talking to Jack fucking Bennet? He’s a journalist. He’s going to try and destroy all of us.”
“She’s doing what she can, the only thing she can,” he says. “What would you have done if you were her?”
“I would’ve trusted my husband to keep me safe.”
“You really think she doesn’t trust you? Shit, man, I know you’re not that blind.”
I expect Lukas to be on my side, but instead, he sounds just like Stella. “What are you talking about?”
“If she didn’t trust you, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.”
“She doesn’t love me.”
He barked a harsh laugh. “Yeah, she does, and you love her. Stop being a dick, Danya. You knew from the start, Stella was not going to be a normal Mafia wife. That’s exactly why you two work well together. It’s why you love her, and then you go and turn on her when you should be supporting her.”
“That man knew about my baby before I did,” I snarl. “She talked to him about aborting my child. Mine, not his.”
“But she didn’t do it,” he reminds me quietly. “She was brave enough to admit it to you.”
“And that’s what, supposed to make me feel better? She disobeys me. That’s all she does.”
“You can’t sit there and honestly tell me you want her to be like those wives?” He scoffs and shakes his head. “You’re the one who’s been telling me all these years how you want the traditions to change. Then you go and make an ass of yourself by being exactly like every other man in her life.”
“All I’m trying to do is protect her,” I whisper roughly.
“And in the process, you went and lost yourself. You got caught up in all this shit with your brothers and your mother and you let yourself become those men. Stella has every right to be pissed at you. Every right.”
My head falls back to the headrest as I shut my eyes. Every bit of me screams that Lukas is right. My chest aches and I rub at it, but that won’t make the pain go away. My jealousy over a stranger being there for Stella turns into anger at myself. I should’ve been there for her. Any good, loving husband would’ve known something was off. That she was pregnant. But I didn’t care enough to simply ask her. I let myself get caught up in the game of blood all over again in my search for vengeance and traitors. I became so obsessed with taking over the family business, I didn’t stop to think clearly about what it would do to me. In trying to beat my father and his damn will, or the twins, I went back on my word to Stella.
“Fuck,” I mutter, and Lukas nods in agreement. Stella deserves a better man than me, but she’s stuck by me this whole time. She’s put aside her fears and dreams for me.
All I did was threaten to tu
rn her into a submissive, weak woman. My strong, fierce Stella who held nothing back, who I told to call me out for my shit, just said she hated me. The second I get back to the house, we’ll be having a very long conversation. I’ll take whatever she throws at me, but by the morning, she’ll be mine again.
Even if it means speaking with this Jack Bennet. I can’t say I’ll walk away just yet, but if I’m not willing to try it her way, I’ll lose Stella forever.
I throw the jeep into drive, not sure yet what I’m doing at first. Then I remember what Stella told me about her meeting with Nadia and the other wives tonight. Camilla threatened her and the baby. I can’t let that stand. “You staying with me or getting out?”
