Owned by the Badman (Russian Bratva #1) (20 page)

“
Golubushka
,” he whispers before he falls to his knees at my feet and sobs.

My big, beautiful, strong husband cries at my feet, and it makes me sick.
I make me sick
. I let another man inside of my body while my husband worried about me, and I didn’t fight it.
I am worthless.

“Go to him,” Gregori whispers. I don’t move. I can’t. I am rooted to the spot, my body shaking. Suddenly, my husband lifts me and takes me into the house.

“Find out everything,” I hear him whisper to Dimitri before he takes me up to our bedroom.
Ours—
I am home.

“Are you hurt? Do I need to call you a doctor?” My hands fly to my stomach and, for the first time, I am relaxed enough to truly worry over the health of my baby.

“I am not hurt, but I will need an OB/GYN, Maxim.” He nods as he lays me down on the bed, his lips touching my neck.

“Were you violated, Haleigh? Do not be scared to tell me. I kill them for taking you. I torture them for violating you.” My eyes clash with his blue ones, and I know I must tell him as much as I can, but I do not think I can ever tell him everything. It would kill him.

“I was, Maxim. I am so very sorry,” I cry, my body shaking as the world crashes down around me.

Was I violated? I accepted Gregori into my body; he brought me to climax so does that mean that I was violated? I don’t know. I hate myself, at this moment; answering this question makes me hate myself. Gregori was trying to save me, but he made me come and I even enjoyed his body lying with mine. I am disgusting.

“Sorry, in this case, is weak,
golubushka.
You are strong. You survived and you did what had to be done, what was forced to be done to you. I do not hold it against you and I never will.” His words are beautiful for him, but if he knew I liked it when Gregori fucked me, if he knew I came—he would hate me.

“I am pregnant, Maxim. I need to make sure the baby is okay. They drugged me a few times, and I don’t think I ate enough while I was there.” My words take a moment to sink in and then he looks at me with concern and maybe a bit of happiness.

“My baby?” he asks. I hate,
I
hate
, that he has to even ask. I nod, wanting to punch him in the face for even asking, but it isn’t his fault at all.

“I call the doctor. You go and take a bath.” He is all business, and I follow his directions. By the time I am out of the bathroom, a doctor has arrived and is waiting for me.

“I stay here for the exam,” Maxim barks.

I nod, walking over to the bed. I have been poked, prodded, and fucked by another man. If Maxim wants to be in the room for this exam, I am past being shy at this point.

The doctor is nice, a kind gentleman, and I spread my legs as he examines me.
All of me.

“You have had some sexual intercourse, but whoever it was, they were gentle enough. No scaring, no tearing. You look good,” he offers.

I nod once, screwing my eyes tightly, trying not to think about the way Gregori gently fucked me several times a day—
every day
. I try not to think about how his touch made me feel, how I yearned for it and waited for it toward the end—even felt as though I wanted it.

A whoosh, whoosh sound suddenly fills the room, and I pop my eyes back open. I look over to the tiny little screen the doctor is holding.

“This is your baby. Not much yet, about ten weeks, but here it is. That sound you hear is the heartbeat. Everything looks good. Make sure to drink plenty of fluids and eat healthy foods. See your regular physician as soon as possible, but everything looks really great.” He offers me a sad smile.

I thank the doctor before he leaves the room.

I face Maxim and realize he has been silent the entire time. His face focuses on me, but his eyes are unfocused.

“Maxim,” I whisper, wrapping the robe around myself tightly. Maxim’s eyes are dark and his face hard as granite; he is angry and his anger is aimed at me.

“The man who fucked you was gentle, no? He did not hurt you and you did not fight him?” he asks. I nod, knowing exactly where this is going.

“You told me you understood, that I was trying to survive,” I murmur trying to keep my tears at bay.

“Survive, yes, but I expect a man would force himself on my wife, she would fucking fight. Are you not a Lasovska?” he roars.

I want to answer; I want to scream and yell at him—tell him I had no choice but to accept my fate—a fate that was entirely his fault and not mine, but I don’t. I can’t because he is right. I liked it when Gregori touched me. I think after being alone in that room, in the dark, I would have even possibly accepted Boris’ touch. I was so terrified I would die, that my baby would die. I gave up — I gave up, and now, my husband is hurting because of my weakness.

“I was not born a Lasovska, Maxim. I was trying to survive.” I begin to cry—sob, really.

“You are not good enough to be a Lasovska. You are
blyad
,” he roars. I jerk back as though he has physically assaulted me.

“I am only a whore because that is what you made me, Maxim. You bought me, or bartered for me, or whatever sick deal you had with my family. You knew that as soon as we were married, I would be taken by that group and my child would be ripped from my body, trained to fight, or be sold as a whore.

“You knew they would whore
me
out until I was of no use to them. You knew all of this and I did not. You
made
me a
whore
, Maxim. That is on you, not on me. You fuck me at your friend’s house, where all your co-workers can hear, and then you are shocked that I am taken the next day and whored out? I am naïve, Maxim, but I am not stupid. This whole scenario is on you, not me.

“But if you really want to know the truth, yes, I liked it. It felt wrong because it wasn’t you, but he was gentle and he made me come. I’m sorry if that is not what you want to hear, but it is the truth. I am only the whore you made me to be,” I scream.

I am crying, full-on screaming, not caring if anybody or everybody can hear me. There are no secrets any longer. I am a whore. I am a disaster, and I didn’t even realize that Dimitri had been witness to the entire scene.

Maxim reaches back and backhands me. My face flies to the side, and I feel like it is about to explode when Dimitri holds his gun to Maxim’s temple.

“You hit your pregnant wife again, I kill you, Maxim.” Maxim turns to Dimitri and sneers.

“Of course, one whore sticks up for the other around here,” he spits out. Then he is gone, leaving Dimitri and me alone. Dimitri wraps me in his arms, a shocking gentle and out of character move for him, but I accept it.

“You will be all right, and he will come around. Now you know. You and I, we are not so different, little one,” he whispers, kissing the top of my hair.

“I didn’t want to like it, Dimitri. You have to believe me,” I say between sobs.

“I never wanted to like it either, Haleigh, but at times I did. I liked it very much. I felt so dirty afterward, so wrong. I was a whore in Moscow. My mother was a, what you call,
madam
, here. She pimped me out at a young age, so I understand the feelings. You are ashamed, but at the moment, when it feels so good, it is hard to feel that shame. You feel like you are on a high,” he confesses.

I know exactly what he is referring to. I cry a bit harder for the child that Dimitri was. How many countless people used him for money, and to know his mother pushed him into it? I cry for Dimitri and I cry for myself, feeling sorry for myself all over again. There is no winner in this situation.

Maxim, Dimitri and I, we are not winners. We will never be normal people, but hopefully, we can find peace. We may have to be alone to find that peace, but all I want is for it to wash over us.

“I am so sorry for what happened to you,” I whisper, burying my head in his chest.

“I would not be who I am today without my past, Haleigh. We cannot regret everything in our past because, without those experiences, heartbreaks, and our shattering pains, we would not be who we are today. You are strong, little one, and Maxim will come around. He loves you, very much, and though this experience has been horrendous on you, it has also been hard on him.

“He is a man, your man, and he could not protect you. Also, he knows very much that it is his fault. He is trying to deal with his guilt, his part of the kidnapping, and your rape. With time, you will heal and so will he. It will be a hard road, but once you find your way back to each other, it will be a beautiful future for the two of you,” he whispers into the dark room as silence falls between us.

“Sshhh,” a deep voice says from behind me. I feel the strong, familiar arms of my husband wrap around my body.

“Let me hold my wife for one more night.”

Maxim’s cryptic words worry me but sleep takes over. When I wake, the harsh reality of his words slap me in the face.

Maxim is gone.

His clothes are gone.

His office empty.

There is only a note on the kitchen counter.

Golubushka– My Little Dove,

You are correct in the blame for what happened to you. It is my fault. I take full responsibility, and I will take care of it. Gregori and I have teamed up to find the bastards who are in charge and kill them all, as I should have done years ago. I do not know when I will return. We will be traveling to Moscow. I haven’t been back in years, and I had hoped to bring you with me. Going with Gregori was not in my plans, but neither was you being taken for my foolish vows as a poor, hungry child in the streets of Moscow.

Dimitri will be there to watch over you. He will be better able to help you heal; he has been through the same types of things I am sure you experienced. You have unlimited access to my accounts and credit cards, buy whatever you need. Make sure you go to the doctor and take care of our baby.

You owe me nothing. I hope you will keep the life inside of you, but if you decide to rid yourself of the burden of carrying my child, I will not be angry with you.

I want you to know that I fell in love with you. I may have bartered for you, forgiven a debt, and accepted you as payment, but it was because once I saw you, I could not imagine my life without you. Now, I am stuck with that reality anyway. Life is, as you call it in America,
a bitch
.

I hope that one day you will be able to forgive me. I never imagined this would happen to you. I truly am sorry for everything. I hope you will be happy. Find someone to love you the way I never could.

Be happy. Be free.

All of my love, my life, and my soul.

-Maxim.

I pick up the, no doubt, expensive vase that is sitting on my desk where the note was neatly tucked underneath, and I throw it at the wall as I sink down to the ground.

That bastard
—he ran.

I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle what happened to me, but I never imagined he would run from me. I figured he would make me leave, but nothing could have prepared me for the heartbreaking fact that I am now alone. Pregnant and alone. My husband doesn’t want me, but he claims he loves me.

My life is truly fucked.

I crawl back to my bed, and I fall asleep.

Maybe I can just fall asleep and never wake up?

As morbid as that sounds, it is currently what I crave because I now face the reality that I am all alone.

Maxim was more than just my husband these past months. He has been my best friend. My confidant. My lover. Now, he has ripped my heart out and run away from me. How can I cope with raising our child alone? How can I ever be strong enough to be the mother and father our baby needs? I am so weak. I have already proved my weaknesses.

F
ORTY-TWO DAYS.

That is how long it has been since I have seen my beautiful wife. I imagine her belly is quite swollen with my child these days, and it makes me ache straight to my core. I will never see my child grow inside of her. I will never see her hold my child.

The harsh reality is that I will probably never even
see
my child. That makes me want to kill someone, and I aim to do just that, when I find out exactly who is in charge
.