I didn’t have time. There wasn’t enough time, and I had no one to take her. “I’m sorry,” I said hoarsely.
Naomi’s hand paused above my thundering heart. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“This,” I said, blowing out a breath. “This shit that you are in. I never meant—”
She cut me off with a look, her scrubbing on my chest more vigorous than it had been. “Don’t. This was my world too. This is my world, and I will not have you apologize because my psycho ex decided to try and ruin my life.”
I gripped her wrist lightly, dropping the washcloth into the sink. “I have to go.” I couldn’t waste any more time, and no matter how much I wanted to stay and protect her, I had to do this myself.
Naomi swallowed hard as she looked at me, worry in her depths. “Gavril, I can’t do this by myself. You hear me? I can’t go on and bring this child into this world alone, so I’m going to need you to be here when that happens. I’m going to need for you to fight for what you want, and I believe it’s the same thing I want, right?”
Her words never wavered, and I felt the ball of worry increase in my chest. I couldn’t promise her anything right now. I couldn’t even promise her that I would get out of this day alive. I had fucked up everything, thinking we could come out of this Krasnaya shit without too much damage. Instead I had nearly destroyed my Bratva.
Instead of answering, I dropped to the floor on my knees, pulling up her shirt so I could see her belly. “This,” I forced out, laying my cheek against her stomach that was just now starting to take shape. “This is what I fight for.”
I felt Naomi’s hand slide into my hair, comforting me as I allowed myself a moment to think about the child inside. I didn’t give a shit what the gender was. He or she was going to be my heir one day, and if the child was as tough as its mother, then this family was in good hands. “If I don’t come back,” I continued, emotion clawing at my insides at even thinking about the possibility of never seeing her again. “You go to Russia. My mother will take care of you and our child. I’ve set everything up for my assets to be transferred over to you. The Bratva business will go to my mother. She will know what to do next.” After all, she had cultivated it for years before I stepped in, and it only made sense.
“Gavril.”
I heard the shaking in her voice but wrapped my arms around her waist instead. “Know that of all the things in my life, you are not one of my regrets. I’m fucking happy that Sveta wasn’t there the day that Anatoly went and retrieved you. You have given me something I thought I didn’t need and healed the rifts in my heart at the same time.” Pressing my lips to her stomach, I whispered a few words to my unborn child, hoping that if something did happen, those words would float around in my child’s dreams for years afterward. I had so many fucking regrets, but most men did when they were staring death in the face.
I felt like I was doing that right now.
Rising from my knees, I avoided Naomi’s gaze as I finished washing off my chest, comforted that she was still there. My strong, beautiful wife, my partner, was going to be just fine if something did happen to me.
She followed me out of the bathroom and I walked over to her wardrobe for the shirts I kept in there, pulling a black T-shirt over my head. “I want you to stay in here,” I told her, smoothing back my hair with my hands. Strangely I felt calmer now, as if I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
That light was Naomi and our future. “Do you still have the gun?”
Naomi nodded, and I realized she was still wearing her vest. “Come here,” I told her, closing the distance between us and undoing the vest, placing it on the bed. I withdrew the gun and pressed it into the palm of her hand. “If someone comes through that door who you don’t know, you shoot them. Don’t wait for answers. If it’s not Vera or Ivan, they have no business in here. Got it?”
“I can’t do this,” she pleaded as I wrapped her hand around the butt of the gun. “I’m not—this can’t be.”
I grasped her chin with my other hand, forcing her to look into my eyes. “You can do this. You have fought him many times before, Naomi. This is no different other than the fact that he’s not going to fucking win this time. Remember that. You hold the power over him. Not the other way around.” I believed it. She was stronger than Hampton ever gave her credit for, and it was going to be his downfall that he’d underestimated Naomi.
She just had to believe it herself.
Prying the gun out of her hand, I placed it on the bedside table, pulling out the knives from the vest and tucking them into the various pockets on my pants. Without my vest, I had no weapons, and I didn’t have time to visit the basement. My knives would have to do for now. “When I leave, you lock the fucking door and don’t come out until I come back, all right?”
“Gavril, please don’t go,” she begged, grabbing my arm and forcing me to face her.
Though the time was starting to tick away in the background, I framed her face with my hands, wiping away the tears with the pads of my thumbs. “Don’t cry, moye serdtse. I can’t stand to see your tears.” I had tried to keep her out of my world. Hell, I had tried to push her away, but here she was, now forced to defend herself until I could return.
It was my worst fucking nightmare.
Could this be the last time I held her like this? Could this be the last time I stared into her gorgeous eyes and told her that I loved her? “You know how I feel,” I started out, realizing that words weren’t going to be enough to convey what I needed to say to Naomi. “You know what you have done to me.”
“Don’t talk like this!” Naomi cried out, pressing her hands against mine. “You aren’t going to die, Gavril. You aren’t going to leave me.”
“I have to,” I admitted, pressing her forehead to mine. “You are my life, moye serdtse. You are my world. Without you, nothing exists.” I thought that Katya had done a number on my heart, but in reality, she was the precursor to Naomi. Naomi was the reason that I was finding it hard to walk away and handle my shit. Before, I would have done it without pause.
I tilted her face up to my mine and pressed my lips to hers in a gentle kiss. It wasn’t one of possession or even need, but more of one that I hoped wouldn’t be the last. I didn’t know what awaited me outside or even at Hampton’s apartment, but even if it was death, Naomi was going to know I loved her.
She kissed me back with the same gentleness that nearly broke me, but I shoved it all down deep inside. I needed to move past all this emotion if I was going to finish this job. When we finally broke for air, I had pushed us against a wall, my body cushioned against hers. “You need me,” she breathed, her fingers moving to the waistband of my pants. “You need this.”
“Naomi,” I answered through gritted teeth. “I—” The words were lost on my lips as she covered my mouth with hers, her hands successfully undoing my belt and tugging at the pants until they slid past my hips.
She was right. I needed this. I needed her.