But it never went further than that.
I noticed she still didn’t change in front of me. Her outfit changes always took place in the bathroom. It was strange because I’d never given her the impression that I’d tear her clothes off and bend her over the bed. I was always delicate now, and I would never pressure her unless she explicitly told me that was what she wanted. So changing in the bathroom seemed a little excessive.
But I didn’t dare complain.
I was in my office at the bank when Damien walked inside. Unfortunately, we had to deal with each other often. It was always uncomfortable, always tense. But we usually said whatever needed to be said and went on about our day.
Damien approached my desk, his eyes guarded and his hands in the pockets of his suit. “How’s Sofia?”
I noticed he only asked about her. He hardly asked about me. “Better.”
He gave a slight nod. “Good.”
I was still used to telling him everything, so I wanted to tell him what Sofia had accused me of last week. She actually thought I was sneaking around behind her back. She actually thought I went to a whorehouse or picked up a woman at a bar. It was ludicrous, because I would never find a woman who compared to her.
When we had nothing else to say, Damien spoke. “I got a good list of his distributors. I sent the guys out to take care of it, but it’ll be a while before we get them all.”
“I’m available if we need more hands on deck.”
“I’m already getting my hands dirty. I think you should stay home with Sofia. She needs you right now.”
That was a valid point. When I was gone just one night, she assumed I was having an affair. She probably couldn’t sleep unless I was there. I didn’t know what her sleeping arrangements had been with Maddox, if she had been forced to sleep beside him every night. I suspected that wasn’t the case because Sofia would’ve killed him with her bare hands. “True.”
“The guy doesn’t have a single person he cares about. Just drugs and money. Doesn’t even hit up the whorehouses. The only person he has some kind of vested interest in is you. If that weren’t true, he would’ve killed you.”
“So, if he knows I am the one who’s compromising his livelihood, he’ll probably be provoked.”
Damien nodded. “Yeah. Who knows what he’ll do. He might even knock on your front door.”
Maddox was definitely unpredictable.
“Ash offered to help.” Damien pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s crazy to think he hated you, and now he’s doing everything he can to help you.” He stared at me like he expected me to say something to that.
“What are you trying to say?”
He shook his head. “Things change…”
18
Sofia
I was in my office when Damien stopped by.
He didn’t verbally announce his presence. He just stepped inside, dressed casually in jeans and a sweater. He helped himself to the chair in front of my desk.
I closed my laptop so nothing obstructed my view.
He stared at me with wide eyes for several seconds. “You need to tell him.”
Guilt washed over me. Several weeks had gone by, and I was getting bigger and bigger. It was a miracle Hades hadn’t figured it out by now. Maybe he just assumed I was gaining weight and didn’t dare act like he noticed.
“Sofia, it’s been long enough.”
“I know…”
“The longer you wait, the more he’s going to be blindsided. And if you decide you don’t want to keep the baby, you’re running out of time for that too.”
“That’s not an option.” I was aware of the life living inside me, the little person developing in my womb. This was a real entity to me, and I could never live with the guilt of taking its life away. If I really didn’t want to raise the baby, I could give it up for adoption. But I didn’t think I could even do that.
“Either way, he deserves to know. This is your husband we’re talking about. That man has been nothing but good to you, and it’s ridiculous to think that would ever change. I know you’ve been through a lot, but his feelings are no different than they used to be.”
For the last few months, I’d felt uneasy. I wasn’t sure where I belonged, if my value had changed. My emotional instability prevented me from reading the truth right in front of me. Hades hadn’t changed…I had.
But this was totally different.
I was still afraid he would leave once he knew the truth.
And I couldn’t blame him if he did.
Damien continued to watch me. “I’ve kept your secret, but I can’t do it much longer. When I look him in the eye, I feel like a traitor for not telling him this. It needs to come from you. So, do it soon.”
I had been dragging my feet because I knew it would change everything. I didn’t want to accept my fate, accept my future. Would we survive what was about to come? I was already afraid Hades would walk out at any moment.
“Don’t be scared.”
“You have no idea what I’m going through…”
“No,” he said. “But I know your husband better than you do.”
Damien’s words pierced my conscience. Whether Hades was the father or not, he deserved to know what was going on. He wasn’t just a man I was seeing. He was a man I’d pledged a lifetime to. What happened to me happened to him.
It was too cold to sit outside on the terrace, so we sat at the table inside. We finished a great meal Helena had prepared for us. There was always a basket of fresh bread, and I ate more of it than I usually did.
Because now I was eating for two.
Wine was always poured, but I never drank from my glass. Thankfully, Hades didn’t seem to notice.
Our dinner was spent mostly in silence. We were closer than we had been before, but not back to normal. There was a distinct distance between us, like we each had our own secrets. Now was the right time to tell him…but I didn’t want to.
It would change everything.
It would make this real.
In a couple months, I would be a mother. And I had no idea who the father of my child was.
I took a deep breath, and when I finally found the courage to come clean, he spoke instead.
“Damien and I are working on Maddox.” It didn’t matter if it was deep winter, he preferred his shirtless attire, his sweatpants that were low on his hips. He wasn’t back to weight training or his previous exercise regimen, but he was still strong. His chest muscles were like two slabs of concrete, and his stomach was so tight you could grate cheese on it.
The mention of my greatest enemy made me forget what I was about to tell him. “What does that mean?”
“It means we decided to hit him where it hurts…his business. That seems to be the only thing he cares about. We are going after his distributors, the guys on the ground that sell his drugs on the streets. He has bigger partners that ship his product to the rest of Europe. I’m taking those guys out too.”
That sounds like serious business. “That sounds like war…”
He wore a brooding gaze, like he could snap at any moment. During quiet moments, he seemed to be the angriest. He probably relived the terrible things we both endured, and it pissed him off all over again. His eyes returned to mine. “It is war.”