Page 65 of Wicked Vow

“She promised I could see the baby once. When she’s ready, after–”

“That once is probably all you’re going to get.”

“I know.” I can feel my shoulders slump. “Believe me, I know. But I have to try. I have to be there in case. And if she does change her mind–then she’ll know I’ve been waiting. That I’ve been working on being the kind of man that she can be with, and that I’ve made sure that I’m ready for a life with her, if she decides that’s what she wants.”

“You’re really sure about this, aren’t you?” Levin looks at me curiously. “It’s not what I would have expected of you, that’s for sure. I was the first to tell her that there was some good in you, Mikhail–but there’s plenty of bad, too. You and I both know that. But you’re just going to turn it all around? Go straight so you can wait on a woman who might never want you again? There are plenty of bosses that would be glad to have you working for them. Viktor might even recommend you if it was somewhere that would put you far enough away from this side of the country for his comfort.”

“I know.” I’d thought of it, that’s for sure. There’s no shortage of jobs in the mob world for a man like me. I could have found someone in the mafia, the Bratva, another Kings’ table–hell, I could have gone to fucking Mexico and gotten a job with one of the cartels. I still have a personal contact that’s a Yakuza boss in Los Angeles.

But all of it pales in comparison to being near Natalia and our child. To creating a life that she would feel comfortable being a part of, if she ever changed her mind.

“I can’t go back to that life,” I tell Levin quietly. “Not when I know it means losing her forever. So yeah–the kind of job I’m looking for in Boston is going to be one that means going straight. Security, bouncing at a club, some shit like that. Something that pays well enough, but that means I’ll be working a normal job. The kind where I fill out a W-2 and pay taxes and shit.”

“I never thought I’d see the day. It’s not for me, that’s for fucking sure,” Levin says with a snort. “But I still have some trust in you, Mikhail. More than Viktor does, that’s for sure. So if this is what you’re sure you want to do, I’ll see what I can find for you.”

“Thank you–” I start to say, and he holds his hand up, his eyes narrowing in warning.

“I’m going to need a promise from you, in exchange for that,” he says quietly. “Your word that you won’t ask more of Natalia than she’s willing to give. That you won’t stalk her. That you’ll let her live her life until she chooses otherwise.” He pauses, his voice deadly serious. “You know as well as I do that I take that kind of promise seriously, Mikhail. And if you break it, you’ll prefer Viktor’s brand of justice to mine.”

I do know that, extremely well. I know the kind of violence Levin is capable of, though he doesn’t take the same sort of pleasure in it that I have. And I know that as much as I consider him a friend, he wouldn’t hesitate to follow through onhispromise if I break mine.

“I promise.” I look at him, speaking firmly. “I won’t follow her, and I won’t push her. I won’t ask her for anything, until she comes to me. I swear.”

Levin lets out a long sigh and nods. “That’s where we’ll leave it, then.”

—

It feels like a special kind of torment once I arrive in Boston, knowing that Natalia is so close–and further away than ever. But I’d made her and Levin a promise, and I had to keep it.

Otherwise, all of this would be for nothing.

I’d thought that I’d done difficult things in my life. But nothing compares to waking each day, knowing where she is, and resisting the urge to go and see her, follow her, make sure that she’s safe and happy. I won’t see her until the baby has been born, and I’ll miss seeing her start to show, the sight of her visibly pregnant with my child. I’ll miss all of it, and every time I think of that, it makes something in my chest ache that I’d never known was there. A desire that I could never have imagined having before this.

It hurts more than I possibly could have ever thought that it would. And as far as I can tell, that’s my penance for what I did–the mistakes that I made. It’s the only way I can reconcile it, the only way I can force myself to keep away from her.

Levin follows through on his promise to find me a decent job–two of them, actually, which I’m certain is a ploy to keep me as busy as possible, with as little time as possible to think about Natalia. He finds me a position working security at a casino and a gig working as a bouncer at one of the nightclubs a few nights a week on top of the casino job, and it keeps me as busy as I know Levin hoped it would.

It’s not the kind of job I’m used to, not by a long shot, and the sort of people I answer to now isn’t the sort I’m used to putting up with. The pay isn’t what I’m used to either, but it’s enough for me to get by and save as much as I can, thinking of both what I can find a way to send Natalia now, and what I might be able to do for our future–if there ever is one.

During my time off, when I’m trying to keep my mind off of how close Natalia is, how easily I could go and see her, I think of that future instead. I spend my time doing something that I’d never thought I would do–I look for houses, saving the addresses, and walk past them, imagining the life we might build together in one. I find myself, day after day, standing on a sidewalk as I imagine the rooms inside or walking through open houses and filling them with imaginary memories.

Natalia, holding our child, standing in the middle of a nursery. Her face on a pillow next to mine, looking at me sleepily in a ray of sunlight. The smell of breakfast in a kitchen, us side by side at a counter, cooking with each other. Her sitting cross-legged with our child in her lap, her hair over her shoulder, a mirror of the family that I once lost. A chance to do it right, to make right all my mistakes of the past.

I was never this kind of person before. I never cared about finding someone to love or a family other than the one I’d had–a family that I’d kept at a distance, even then. But something has shifted, and though I can’t put a finger on exactly when that change happened, I know I can’t go back.

There’s nothing about my old life that makes me want to any longer. And though I’m technically free, though Natalia and I aren’t together, there’s not a single night when I consider taking some other woman home with me. There are plenty who try, especially at the club, but every time, all I can see is her.

I go back home, night after night, and bring back every memory I have of her as I close my eyes in bed and grip my cock, longing for her touch on me instead of my own. I trace every inch of her body in my mind, every slender curve and crevice, remembering the softness of her skin and her hair, and her mouth. I remember the last night especially, the way she tasted, the way she’d moaned my name, the way she’d felt around me, and I come, night after night, moaning her name the same way.

It feels like torture, thinking that might be all I have for the rest of my life. That I might never taste or feel her again, never slide inside of her and hear her gasp, never feel her nails biting into my shoulders as she arches beneath me, begging me for more.

It’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, to stay away from her.

But I keep my promise.

And I keep my distance.

Natalia

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