Chapter 22 - Natalie

Swapping my dress for a pair of loose linen shorts and a camisole is a welcome relief.

Although it's fun to get dressed up every now and then, it's even better to strip down and crawl into bed at the end of a perfect night.

Leon is out on the terrace, the doors closed behind him as he paces up and down, talking on his cell phone. He is still wearing his tux, but his jacket is open, and his tie is undone and hangs loosely around his neck. The top three buttons of his shirt are open, revealing a bit of his fine chest hair.

Desire pools between my legs as I watch my insanely handsome husband, but there's been something nagging at the back of my mind since tonight's performance.

When he said he did some ‘investigating,' he quickly led me off-topic. Something about it didn't sit right with me.

Once again, it was the wrong time to push him to tell me more about my family, but I have a feeling there"s more about the past than he"s willing to say.

I bite the inside of my cheek and look back and forth between the door and the bedside table.

The other night, when Leon thought I was asleep, he had taken a small photo album from his bedside table and gone out onto the terrace. He stayed outside for hours with a bottle of beer, flicking through the pages until the sun came up.

I should have asked him about it right away, but something in his body language told me it would be a better idea to stay away. He seemed to need the moment to himself.

He knows more about my life than I do, and I know so little about him. What has made him the man he is today?

I take a deep breath and glance at the door before sitting down on his side of the bed.

As I open the drawer, my heart races. This is wrong. I should just talk to him, but part of me still doesn't quite trust him. I want to find out for myself.

Our relationship is based on a terrible event in the past. He took everything from me when I was little, and now, it seems, he wants to give me everything and more. Is guilt the reason he is so possessive and protective of me?

And the strange thing is that I really liked him and succumbed to his charms the night he became my ‘hero,' but we were destined to find out about our past. This was never a one-night fuck, even though I thought it was.

It is time to peel back the layers to the core and find the truth.

I take out the small photo album and turn to the first page. It's an old photo, torn at the edges and creased. Three little boys are sitting together, staring at the camera with big grins. All three look so much alike, from the shape of their faces to the clothes they're wearing.

One of them is Sergey. I recognize him by the expression on his face. The same stern look he gave me when we spoke at the wedding.

The other is Leon. The shape of his mouth and his full lips were the same then as they are now.

It's the third boy in the picture that I don't recognize.

I leaf through the book and try to find more pictures of Leon, but there are only pictures of adults I don't recognize. I assume relatives no longer alive.

Sighing, I flip back to the first page and hold the album closer to my face to get a good look at the third little boy.

There is a third brother.

That's the only explanation I have. I would think the boy is one of Leon's cousins, but he looks nothing like Maxim.

I look at the photo again and notice how Leon has put his arm over the third little boy"s shoulder and is leaning closely into him.

I put the picture back in its sleeve as the door opens. My spine stiffens, but I know it's pointless to hide the album.

Leon stops in his tracks. "What are you doing?"

I turn to him, and my stomach tightens into a tight knot. "I saw you sitting on the terrace the other night with this album. I wanted to know what you were looking at."

He clears his throat, walking over to the bed. "Why?"

"I thought I might find some more information about your family that you haven't shared with me. And maybe something about me, too. Leon, I need to know more."

"So, you decided to snoop around instead of just asking me?" His voice is hollow as he sits beside me on the bed and stares at the album in my hands.

"I am sorry. I know you don't want to talk about the past, but it's time." I turn the picture to him and try to lighten the mood. "Look how cute your little chubby cheeks were back then. What happened to you?"

He snorts and rolls his eyes as he moves closer to me. "I"ve become ruggedly handsome."

"Well, maybe you're right about that."

He can't look me in the eye even if he jokes with me. There's a sadness that makes me feel like I'm looking into a bottomless pit in the middle of the ocean.

There is so much despair that I wonder if he will ever let me in, but I'm not giving up now.

My heart aches for him as I lean against his side and put the album down to take his hand in mine. "Who was the third boy in the picture? I know the other one was Sergey, but there was a third one I didn't recognize."

His Adam"s apple bobs up and down. "That's my younger brother, Pavel."

"Why wasn't he at the wedding?" I ask softly as my thumb glides over his scarred knuckles. "I"ve met many of your family, but not him."

Leon takes a deep breath; his shoulders slump inwards.

For the first time since I"ve known him, Leon looks like a man who has experienced the worst that life has to offer over and over again. The lines on his face seem more profound than ever as he kicks off his shoes and flops back onto the bed.

He pulls his hand out of mine and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Your father killed him fifteen years ago."

The urge to throw up rises quickly. I hold a hand over my mouth, forcing the bile back into my mouth as I jump up. My vision blurs as I look at my husband on the bed. His eyes are a million miles away as he folds his arms over his chest.

"My … my father?" I stammer in utter disbelief.

Leon sits up, gets off the bed, and paces from one side of the room to the other. "You were born Natalya Reyes to a man named Antonio Reyes. He was the bastard who killed my brother. He took my best friend in the entire world away from me without so much as a second thought."

A chill runs down my spine. I reach for him, but he pulls his hand away.

The way he flinches back from me stings, but I can't blame him. If I were faced with the memory of my brother's death, I wouldn't want to be touched either.

I"m doing my best to stay calm because making a scene now wouldn't help either of us. I want to give him the space to feel everything he's going through.

"I'm sorry about your brother. I didn't know my father was a murderer." I say quietly.

He shrugs and pauses to look down at me, but his skin is pale, and he looks like he's seen a ghost. "You didn't know. You were just a kid then."

"And why didn't you kill me?"

We both pace the room and my body trembles. Leon runs a hand through his tousled locks in despair. It's my first time seeing him look anything less than perfect. Even when he's half-naked in bed and the sheets tangled around his body, he still looks perfect.

And now it looks like the pieces of his life are tearing themselves away from him. Every single brick that built him up is beginning to crumble.

"Fuck Natalie, you were just a kid. And I was spent after … I had nothing left in me," he says, his voice gruff. "You came out of the basement with Boris and looked at me like you were daring me to kill you, too. You were only five years old then, but you were willing to fight me even though you didn't understand what was happening."

I force myself to smile a little, even though tears run down my cheeks just thinking about what he's been through. "Wow, it sounds like I used to be a badass."

The corner of his mouth twitches as he looks at me. "You still are. And promise me you"ll never stop fighting."

My lower lip trembles. "I wish I"d known that Pavel was the reason you killed him. I thought you were a cold-blooded murderer, but you were justified in killing him."

His eyes widen. "Do you really mean that?"

"I am new to this world, but I know that if a man kills your brother, you have the right to avenge your family." A lump catches in my throat as I try to continue speaking. I take a deep breath and try to get the words out. "I'm sorry you have to think about that every time you look at me. Why are you punishing yourself by being with me?"

To my surprise, he comes closer and holds my hands. "I don't see that every time I look at you. I see a fierce woman who would do anything to protect her family."

"Yes, but imagine how things could have been if we were two normal people from two normal families. We wouldn't have to look at each other and be reminded of the deaths that took place between us."

He sucks in a sharp breath. "I've thought about it a lot."

"In another life, if things had been normal, we might have fallen in love instead of just trying to find a way to survive together."

"You wouldn't have loved me either way, Natalie. I lied to you for weeks about who you were. I had you hunted down, even though you thought walking straight into the lion's den would be a clever idea. I taunted you with what I did to your family and tried to hurt you even though I still wanted you."

I cup his face in my hands, forcing him to look me in the eye. "I'm still here despite all that."

"I didn't give you a choice. I threatened to kill the people you love. I kept you caged when you're meant to be free."

"You've opened the door to that cage. I have all the freedom I want, and each night, I return to you because I know it's where I belong."

Leon blinks slowly like he's having difficulty processing what I've just said to him.

Some of the pain clears from his eyes, and he puts his hands on my waist. "You really mean that, don't you?"

"I do. If things were different, I could have fallen in love with you without fear or guilt, but I think the adventure we're embarking on together is more exciting. Because if we weren't the people we are now, we wouldn't have a baby together."

His hand drops to my stomach, and he smiles. "I guess you have a point there."

"I know I do." My thumbs smooth over his jawline as his head dips closer to mine.

"In another universe, I would have held you in my arms all night on the first night just so you couldn't run away."

My heart threatens to leap out of my chest as I lean against him. He holds me tight and sways us to the sound of the waves coming through the open window.

When he stops, his eyes fall on my mouth.

He smiles against my lips, but the salt of my tears lingers there, a weight that presses heavily on my heart.

Now I know what made him the man he is today. A tough, ruthless man who was born into the life of the mafia and learned that pain is not a weakness but a shield that protects him and everyone around him.

As Leon's lips move against mine, I toss all thoughts of another life out the window.

The life we"re living right now is deeply flawed, but it"s the life I was chosen to live.

With Leon and our baby and a whole history of disasters behind us, we are both still trying to cope with.