Page 58 of Claimed in Sin
I clench my teeth and breathe out through my nose. No way am I going to cap him with her standing right here, but if she weren't here he'd be dead already.
"Baby, he locked you up."
"Step... please," she says again softly, and I see Kazimir standing over him.
It takes me a few seconds to shake myself loose from the rage, and I’m only able to do it because of Marina. She means too much to me to hurt her now. She looked right past who I reallyam when I walked her into Ro's garage. Not many women would do that.
"Get up," I order him, and he slowly struggles to his feet. At the same time, Radimir crosses to the door where I hear him ordering her uncle into the room.
We stand with weapons trained on the two men as Kazimir lays out what's really going to happen.
The Belova name is nothing in this city without an ally, and with Orlov dead, it's time they start thinking about the real future. The Kuzin-Radin alliance could save them and it's the only path forward.
Sergei doesn't look happy, but he's not a fool. Right now, he's furious about being overpowered, but he knows it was inevitable. There was never a chance that he'd be able to defeat us. The best he could do was catch us off guard, and now we're the ones in control. The future for him is only possible if he aligns with us, and I have a feeling Roman will be able to get through to him now that I have his daughter.
29
MARINA
The next morning, we drive back to Stepan's home to collect what we can. The front door's been replaced by a piece of plywood that one of Roman's men nailed to the frame, and Stepan yanks it off and sets it aside as we step inside. The living room's a mess, much easier to see now in the daylight than when it was dark two nights ago.
Bullet holes pepper the walls and a lamp is shattered on the floor. The coffee table's overturned, along with a few side tables and the stand by the front door. Glass crunches under our shoes as we move through the room.
Stepan's shoulders sag as he walks through the carnage of his once-beautiful living room. I want to pull him in for a hug and hold him, but he's a bit distant. Something has been on his mind and I don't really have the guts to bring it up, but I can tell he's in his head as he walks toward the bedroom.
The past forty-eight hours have been nothing but a nightmare. I should've trusted him to take care of things with my father and stayed at Roman’s house waiting for him, but I was foolish andran off thinking I could make my father see the light. I'm grateful Roman allowed his men to come help Stepan find me and bring me back. If not, I have no doubt I'd have been ushered into an abortion clinic as soon as this morning.
I grab a cardboard box from the kitchen and fill it with things I think he may need while repairs are being done to this place. A phone charger peeks out from behind the coffee maker, so I shove it in the box, then his beer bottle opener and a stack of mail. I'm only here for moral support, but I'm not sure what moral support I can actually be if Stepan won't open up and talk to me. Part of me fears that the reason he's so in his head is over the baby. I just don't know how to bring that up. I did keep it from him for so long, and he deserves to let his emotions be expressed.
When he comes out of the bedroom with a large suitcase, I assume it's full of his clothing, similar to the one in the car brought from my father's house which I filled with my own clothing and most valuable things. I’m not welcome at my father's house anymore, or at least for a while. I hope that changes when the baby is born, but for now it's my father's silent way of punishing me.
"Where do you think we'll be staying?" I ask him cautiously. I notice a frown flash across his face before he calms and sighs at me.
"Ro's got a safehouse on the north side that's untouched after all the attacks. It's small, but we don't need a big, fancy place right now." He pulls a jacket from a hanger in the coat closet, checks the pockets, and tosses it onto the couch, which is riddled with holes. "We'll be there until this place gets fixed up. Could be a few weeks."
"Yeah, okay... Well, I don’t mind a small place. All I really need is you, anyway."
He glances at me over his shoulder. The corner of his mouth turns up, and it's the first thing close to a smile I've seen from him for a few days. Since he learned about the baby, I guess.
It's hard seeing him like this, so withdrawn and closed off. I feel like it's all my fault, and I feel restless knowing I can't just force him to be okay with things. I haven't even adjusted to the idea of being a mother because I’ve been so busy trying to convince myself to marry a man I don't love. Now that Maksim is out of the picture for good, it's sort of hitting me the same way.
"My father wasn't happy," I say after a while. I'm just trying to find a way into the conversation I need to have without stepping on his toes. I stoop to pick up an empty cartridge from the shooting and let my eyes rise to meet his when he turns toward me.
"No," Stepan says. "He wasn't."
"He'll come around, though. He's angry and humiliated, but underneath all of that, my father's a practical man. He knows it's a good choice." Kazimir and Stepan didn't leave my father much room to negotiate. The way they promised to crush every last Belova trade deal left my father with no other options. Align with them or die refusing to.
I hang my head and wrap my hand around the shell casing. He will make the right choices, I know he will. I just wish he'd have done it for me, not for his business. It's why it makes Stepan all the more special to me. He came for me and fought for me when he didn't have to, and he did it because of love. Something my father would never have done.
"Well, he didn't deserve it..." Stepan shoves a few framed pictures into a box and glowers at me. He's told me a few times what he'd have liked to have done to my father, and I shudder to think he might have if I hadn't been there. It was wrong of them to lock me in that room, but I know he thinks he was protecting me, as misguided as that sentiment is.
"I'm not excusing what he did," I say. "I'm telling you who he is. He makes decisions out of fear for his future. When the fear passes, he'll see that this alliance is the best thing that could've happened to him."
"Yeah, well I don't like how he treats you and you're never going back to him." Stepan's possessive side comes out and he sets the box down next to his duffel bag, which is on the coffee table he turned back over.
If the hostility on this side continues to persist, things between me and my father may never be what they should be or what they could be. Stepan has to let this go sometime, and I worry he won't be able to. I have to get through that thick skull of his to what he's really thinking because if I don't, maybe he'll stay locked in that anger forever.
"You don't have to hold it all in..." I set the box in my hands down next to his and join him by the fireplace. He pulls me against his chest and kisses the top of my head, but he's still stiff.
