The doctor reached out and shook my hand. “It was a pleasure to do so.”
Naomi entered just as Dr. Carter exited and sat on the bed, looking a bit better than she had the previous night. “Bad news,” I told her, reaching for her hand. “No sex.”
She looked startled before rolling her eyes. “You did not ask Dr. Carter if we could have sex.”
“I didn’t have to,” I stated before tugging on her hand until she was moving onto the bed. I had asked Carter to help me move over so that my wife could at least lie beside me, and he had obliged, even though it had been far too fucking painful to move. “Come here.”
Naomi did as I asked, and when she was situated next to me, I pulled her hand up to my lips, pressing a kiss to her palm. “Marchetti still babysitting?” I asked lightly, not sure how I felt about having my enemy in my household.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful that he had come for Naomi’s sake, but fuck, it was an odd feeling.
“He and Ilsa left this morning,” Naomi said, resting our joined hands on my bare chest. “Oleg is handling some business that he said popped up this morning.”
I rubbed her hand absently, wondering what sort of business he could be dealing with. I was going to have to get back into the swing of things. There was a shitload of work that needed to take place to pull the Bratva back together.
“What now?” she asked after a moment. “What do we do now, Gavril?”
I drew in a breath, careful for it not to be too deep. “Well, I don’t really know,” I admitted. For the first time in a long while, I didn’t have an enemy breathing down my neck or a plan that I needed to execute. For years I had planned the takeover of the Krasnaya Bratva, the single, solitary goal that was to bring me everything I wanted.
Instead that plan was now shit, and I had everything I could have ever wanted in my bed, lying next to me. “Ever been to Fiji?”
Naomi laughed, and it filled my heart with happiness. “We aren’t going to Fiji, Gavril.”
I looked over at her, a grin flirting on my lips. “But why not? I think that we are long overdue for—what are those called? Babymoons?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not even that far along, Gavril. Those come like at seven months.”
“Then I will take you again,” I teased, clenching her hand in mine. “I just—we need some time alone.”
Naomi’s eyes drifted down my torso, where the sheet covered the swath of bandages that Carter had changed this morning. “Maybe we should wait until you can have sex again, or else it’s going to be a long vacation.”
She wasn’t wrong. I had no intention of taking her somewhere warm, where she would be wearing next to nothing, and not being able to fuck her in every room we came in contact with.
Before I could respond, though, there was a knock on the door and Oleg stepped inside. “Pakhan,” he said respectfully.
“Oleg,” I acknowledged him. “Thank you for what you have done for your Pakhan.” Without him, I would have died.
He gave me a single nod. “There is a matter we need to discuss.”
Naomi moved to rise, but I held her in place. “Go on.”
“There is an FBI agent in the freezer,” he said after a moment. “That needs to be dealt with.”
I blew out a breath. He was right, of course. I needed to get rid of Hampton’s body before someone started to notice his disappearance and came looking for him. If Ilsa had held up her end of the bargain, the FBI was already suspicious of him. “Remove all traces of his identity,” I told Oleg, feeling Naomi’s surprise beside me.
Oleg didn’t look surprised at my decision at all. He knew exactly what needed to happen. “It will be done.”
“Gavril.”
I turned to my wife, half expecting her to disagree. She didn’t understand the ramifications if his body was ever found, and I couldn’t take the risk of someone tracing him back to her, to us. “It has to be done, Naomi,” I said gently.
“I know,” she answered, surprising me. “I want to be there.”
I stared back at her, my lips parting. “Seriously?”
Naomi nodded. “I feel like this will give me closure, Gavril. I, well, it still feels like he’s going to come after me even though I know he’s dead and gone. I need to see that.”
Swallowing, I searched her eyes. “It won’t be pleasant.” The last thing I wanted her to witness was what Oleg was going to have to do to the FBI agent’s body, and while I would watch without it bothering me, I worried about her.
“I know,” she repeated, reaching up to cup my face with her hand. I closed my eyes briefly at her touch. “Please, Gavril. It’s the only favor I will ask.”
I opened my eyes, grinning a little. “I doubt that, love, but yes, if you want to attend with Oleg, I won’t stop you. It needs to happen today.”
She drew in a breath before leaning forward, kissing me softly. I growled and tried to deepen the kiss, but she danced away. “I won’t be long,” she said, rising from the bed.
Damn. Now I had other issues, like the fucking boner that was tenting the covers. I looked at Oleg, giving him a glower. “That is my wife,” I reminded him as Naomi joined him at the doorway. “Protect her as you would me.”
There was laughter in Oleg’s eyes as he nodded and the pair walked out together, leaving me alone to stew over the fact that I had a raging cock and could do absolutely nothing about it.