Gabriel's Regret: Book 1 (The Medlov Men Series 2) (8 page)

“I’ll be back,” he had promised as he stood beside her. 

“Will you?” she asked. 

He bent to her body once again and kissed her inner thigh.  “I will.” 

Now, here she was, hoping against hope that he’d come back and finish her off, but after years of being with him first as his colleague and now as his wife, she had learned that work came before play, even when he was playing with her. 

Looking at the crystal chandelier above her, she heard the door knob turn.  She flipped to her side and watched as the door creaked opened and Anatoly appeared.  The somber look on his face told her everything that she needed to know. Growling, she threw herself back into the large sea of soft designer pillows.

“Ana!” she said, hitting the bed with her small fist. “Are you serious?” 

A gust of wind blew through the curtains as he closed the door behind him.  He looked at her brown temple and the stark contrast of her skin against the silver sheets. 

“Baby, I’m sorry.” 

One of her petite mahogany legs jutted from under the sheet as she rolled over on her stomach to pout fully.  He walked over to the bed and ran a finger down the back of her calf down to her diamond anklet.  “I can’t stay.  There’s work.”

“I know you can’t stay.”  She huffed into the pillow.  “I can always tell when you can’t stay because you make that same face and your shoulders slouch the exact same way…every single time.” Still, she knew she couldn’t beat him up for having a job to do.  “How long this time?”

Unable to resist getting close to her one last time before he left, Anatoly crawled into the bed on top of her.  Burying his head into her shoulder, he kissed her neck. “Five days at most.”

Renee was not surprised.  Voice still muffled into the pillow, she croaked, “Is this Gabriel’s fault?”

“No. It’s mine.”  He rubbed her bare side.  “But I will fix it.”  His manhood pushed against his zipper, aching to be released out of its hold.  “And then I’ll come back and finish what I started.”

Five days was a very long time.  Just the thought of being without him made her sad.  Renee rolled over and looked up into her husband’s blue eyes.  Touching the side of his face, she whispered sincerely.  “Be careful.” 

“I always am.” He inhaled her perfume and looked down into her bright eyes.  Feeling her rounded hips under him, he longed to slip out of his jeans and into her soft little spot.  He wanted her more now that he could not have her.

“Where are you going?” she asked, knowing he would never tell her.  

With his hands planted beside her, Anatoly bent to her brown nipple and sucked it slowly, savoring the taste of the perfume on her skin. “Gotta go,” he said, standing up.  “I love you.”

“I love you,” she said, sinking down into the sheets. 

***

Gabriel didn’t want to go back upstairs and say one more word to Briggy, but he knew that if he just left without an explanation, it would be one more thing he’d have to hear about later.  With haste, he rushed up the back stairwell and found her in the second floor media room, resting on the sofa. Now fully dressed in a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt, face washed of all makeup, she rested and watched television.   

As soon as he walked through the door, she turned and glared at him.  Her face was a mix of disappointment and hope, neither which he could understand. 

“You okay?” Gabriel asked, noticing that she looked peaked.

“Nauseated,” she answered. 

Gabriel threw himself in the chair beside the door and looked at his watch. Ten minutes had turned into five.  Might as well get this over with, he thought to himself.  “I’ve got to go again.”

Briggy turned down the television mounted on the wall across the room and looked at the floor. “Is it because of me?”

“No,” Gabriel answered quickly.  “It’s because I fucked up.  I have to go and make it right.”  If she had only seen the ass chewing he had just suffered at his uncle, she might have felt better considering she seemed to love him in pain.   

“Will you be long?” She turned to him and noticed that he seemed drastically different from when he first arrived. 

He shrugged. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be.  Days.  Weeks.”  His voice trailed off. 

“I wanted to talk to you about…” she struggled. “I want us to try again, Gabriel.  I want us to try for real this time.”  Her adorable overbite showed as she took a shaky breath.  Looking to him for understanding, she prayed that he would just give in a little to her desire to make things better between them.  “I said horrible things before, but I promise I didn’t mean them.”  Her brow furrowed.  “I was angry, but I had no right.” 

What a day?  Gabriel thought to himself as he shifted in the seat uncomfortably.  Even though he appreciated her kindness, he was empty for her inside and unfortunately that had not changed even with the time that they had spent apart.  “Briggy, I don’t want to fight.  It upsets the baby.”  He looked at her stomach and then up at her eyes, still red from crying. “It upsets you.”

Briggy hung her head in defeat. “So that must mean you don’t want to try.”

“No,” he answered honestly.  “I don’t.  I just want to find you a safe, nice place where you can start over again. You deserve that.” 

“Then why bring this baby into the world at all?”  Tears as big as jewels dropped from her long lashes and streamed down her hot cheeks.   “Why do this at all?”

Gabriel had asked himself that same question a thousand times, but he had no answer.  “It’s always been your body, your decision. I’ll support you no matter what you decide, but it is pushing 20 weeks.  Pretty soon, I imagine that option won’t be on the table either.”

Briggy knew her heart, if she knew nothing else, and she knew that her threats were idle.  She would never hurt the baby inside of her, not only because she had made it out of love for him, but also because of how great he or she would be considering the family that it had come from.  There was no question that this child would be superior to any that had ever been born to her family before it.  However, it was painful to know that he wouldn’t fight her for it, to save it, to save them.  Tucking her knees under her on the sofa, she turned away from him in pain.  “Just go, please.  Just leave.”

Not realizing that he was up against time constraints that pulled his attention elsewhere, she trembled when she heard him actually stand up. 

Gabriel rubbed his head.  “If you need anything, just call.”

Her voice sharpened.  “What I need from you, you won’t give me,” she sobbed.  As she watched him prepare to bail out of the door, she spoke one final time. “I hope that you find what you’re looking for out there in the world, Gabriel.”

Surprised by her kindness, he turned to look at her.  “Thank you.”

Inhaling a breath, she wiped her face.  “And when you’ve found it, I hope it crumbles in your hands, destroying any hope you ever have of loving anyone ever again.  Then you’ll feel how I feel inside for you.” Her eyes had turned to ice.  Biting her lip, she turned from him and turned the volume up on the television. 

Gabriel stared at her back and shook his head. “Wow.” Walking out of the door, he turned his thoughts from her to the job at hand. 

***

Only four hours after he had left the jet, Gabriel boarded it again, this time with Anatoly, Boris and his usual bodyguards.  However, this time, he wasn’t in the best of moods.  Taking his normal seat, he kicked off his shoes and took his drink from Diane with a lot less humor and flirtation. 

This time, he didn’t sip the drink; he gulped it down and called for a second.  Pulling down his window covering, he grabbed his remote and resumed the show he had been watching when he fell asleep earlier today.
What a day? What a fucking day?
  He just wanted it to end – the drama with Briggy, the bad deal, the shit with Dmitry.  How much was a man supposed to take anyway? 

Worlds more relaxed than his cousin, Anatoly sat across from him on the sofa, looking at the pictures of his daughter on his phone. Noticing Gabriel’s mood, he finally threw his feet up and put away his phone.  “Want to talk about it?”

“No.”  Gabriel glanced in Anatoly’s direction. “Not unless you’re going to tell me how to stop fucking up in every part of my life.” He rolled his eyes. 

“What happened with Papa today was a life lesson, da.  You learned something.  So now, move on.”

“Of course I learned something,” Gabriel snorted. “I learned that even when I do everything the way that I’m supposed to, it’s not good enough for my uncle. And I learned that no matter how civil I try to be with my new
baby momma
, she’s going to hate my guts.”  He slapped the pillow behind him and curled it into his neck.  “I learned I can’t catch a fucking break.”

“Self-pity is not a good look for you my friend,” Anatoly said with a chuckle.

Gabriel eyed Anatoly.  “Sure, it’s easy for you to pass judgment.  You’ve got Renee for a wife, and Dmitry happens to be your father.”

Anatoly twisted up his lip. 

“Let me guess, I said something else to offend someone else…” Gabriel chided.

“No,” Anatoly said, resting his head back on the pillow. “I feel sorry for you.  That’s all.”

Gabriel rose up. “What?”

“You’re spoiled, Gabriel.  All you’ve ever known is private schools, rich momma and daddy, rich uncle, good life.”  Anatoly glared at him without contempt though he deserved it.  “But you’ve never had to truly battle for anything, sacrifice anything, work for anything. It’s all been given to you.  Your father gave it to you. My father gave it to you.  You’re handicapped.”

Gabriel had heard enough.  “So I’ve been told all my life. Do me a fucking favor, will you? Don’t be a broken record.”  He turned his face away from his cousin.  “I’m sick of hearing how I’m not good enough to be Vor.”

“You are a Vor,” Anatoly reminded. “But it’s not enough for me to see it, not enough for Papa to see it. You’ve got to see it. More importantly, you’ve got to live it.”

“Aren’t I?” Gabriel sat up in his seat. “Fuck!” He rubbed his large hands over his face. “I’m so sick of hearing this same shit.  Let me tell you something. My life has been no crystal stair.”

Anatoly grinned.

“What’s funny?” Gabriel asked, incensed.

“Just your analogy,” Anatoly said, calmly. It would not have been his choice of words.  “I grew up in a house with many sisters and brothers. My mother worked many hours and we were very poor. Little food.  Little anything.  When I came this country, I worked in restaurant for my father, did his dirty work, cleaned up bodies, and killed who needed to be killed.  No questions asked. No opinions.  Kept my mouth closed.”  He swallowed hard as he looked at the hull of the plane. “No crystal stair.  No stairs at all, my friend.”

“So I have to be poor to understand?  Is that it?” Gabriel asked sincerely. He truly wanted to know.

“You have to know what it’s like to live in mud, to trek though slop, to get dirty.  It helps to understand what everyone is fighting for.”

Gabriel looked over at Anatoly, who was now lying on the sofa with his hands locked over his chest.  “And what would you say everyone is fighting for, brat?”

Anatoly smiled. “Not to ever go back.”

Chapter Four

Facing Our Fears…

Donetsk, Ukraine

Valeriya could not believe her eyes. Despite the reality of what was right in front of her, she simply could not accept this hard truth.  It was too much at the moment, like a heavy weight planted firmly on her chest, making it impossible to breathe. 

A quiet hysteria raged in her mixing with raw emotions of fear, sadness and the unhinged desire to fight.  She tried to blink and swallow against her dry throat, but as she did the tears flowed freely, making it hard to see.  Streams of hot tears.  So much agony.  So much pain.  How was she to bear it all?  How was she to survive? 

What she wouldn’t give just to turn back the hands of time. 

Somehow between believing in a dream of a free country and fighting for their future, she had lost one of the most important things in her life.  Family.  That loss had instantly changed her perception of her purpose and in that change came more resentment then she had ever anticipated. 

This feeling was like nothing she had ever experienced.  It was impossible to hide it.  It was impossible to fight. It was impossible to run from it.  It sucked everything out of the room and forced her into an impossible position. 

Drawing in a ragged breath, she stood staring at the lifeless body of her brother, Alexei, lying on a long wooden table in the back of a dilapidated hotel as a thunderstorm roiled through the city. A shaking hand rubbed over his cold face, covered in dirt and blood.   He was still in the same clothes that he had been murdered in – his body riddled with bullets, gaping holes in his chest cavity, down his torso, and in his legs.    

Those bastards even shot him in his legs!

Her mouth began to water and suddenly, she had fight back nausea as the room blurred.

Quietly, she took a seat on a metal chair beside the table where her brother lay, holding his large hand, cradling it in her own, afraid to let go.   She knew that once she did, she would have to let him go also.  But there was no way to continue if she didn’t.  And too much was depending on her.  The resistance had to continue, despite the losses, no matter how great they were. 

Still, this loss was somehow greater for her than all before it combined.  Her head tilted as she studied his features.  He was so young.  Cut down in his prime at only 31 years old with dreams that would have carried him well into his nineties.  But now, she would have to live those dreams for him. 

The thought was unnerving. 

Repressed sobs down in her diaphragm pushed up to her throat and poured out of her mouth as angry moans.  The sound of her wailing carried through the back of the building.  Bending over, she trembled inside.  God, she was so afraid.  So damned AFRAID. 

Alexei. 

His name drifted through her thoughts with memories of their childhood, memories of their promises, memories of his smile and his strength and now his end.  

Just 24 hours ago, she was speaking with him in this very room, warning him to be careful on his trip to Slovakia, going over what they needed to do to move forward on pushing the Russians out of the city of Donetsk.  Just 24 hours ago, she was laughing with him and their little brother, while talking about how different things would be if they could just succeed.  Just 24 hours ago, she was just a lieutenant in the war, not its leader. 

Alexei had been their leader. But even more than that, he had been her rock, her protector, her trailblazer, and now he was just a memory, another young martyr who had died for the cause. 

There were so many implications in his death, so many shifted responsibilities that now rested squarely on her shoulders, and she knew that she’d have to be strong, but there was something - deep beneath layers of thick skin grown over time to heal the scars beneath them - that cried out like a little girl for her loss. 

First her parents.  Now him. 

How many had to die? 

How many had to suffer?

“
Miy dorohyy brat, Zakhyshchu tebe,”
she whispered, promising to avenge him. 

While self-pity tried to set in, there was something else that rejected it.  Voices of the fallen whispered to her, demanding that she not give up, not give in, not roll over and play dead. 

No.

She needed to be strong.  She needed to use this moment, never forget it, and never forget him as he was now.  In the days ahead, she’d need to remind herself of why giving up was not an option.  Making herself look at her brother once again, she felt the strange metamorphosis happen.  Ice raced through her veins.  Hate filled her heart – hate for weakness, hate for inequality, and hate for disenfranchisement.   And suddenly, she was fueled with determination for if nothing else, reciprocity. 

The sound of rain water dripping from the ceiling onto the rotted floor drew her attention away from her sobs for a minute.  Sniffling, she wiped her face and looked across the room at her baby brother, standing in the shadows watching her. 
How long had he been there watching her?
  She rose up, hand still holding her brother’s and called out for him. 

“Andriy,” she said so softly until she did not recognize her own voice.  “Come here,
dytyna
.” 

His brown eyes glared at her with hesitation. 

It was then that she knew he was afraid.  But how could he not be?  He had lost everyone in his family, but her. Over his young years, Andriy had seen many dead bodies, but it was different now what it was his brother.  He nodded and stepped further back in the corner.  “I don’t want to see,” he said, voice squeaking in pubescent turmoil. “If I don’t see, maybe it won’t be real.” 

Valeriya looked down at her corpse and bit her lip. 
This was as real as it gets.
  “We have to bury him soon.  Come see him now.  Stand with me, brat.” 

She could hear his large, awkward steps moving across the room toward her.

The smell of his unwashed body wafted to her nose.  Taking his trembling, clammy hands in hers, she turned to him and looked up into his eyes.  It was important to her to let him know that he still had someone he could count on.  So she said the same words that Alexei had whispered to her when their mother and father were killed in mortar attacks by the Nazis several years ago.  “Our rock is gone.  I am your rock now.”

Andriy, a young 15 year old boy with big brown eyes and deep brown chocolate skin, glared at her.  “I just can’t believe that Alexei is gone,” he said, dropping his head.  “Why did they have to hurt him so bad?”

“Because they are monsters,” Valeriya said, growling.  She lifted his chin. “Don’t ever forget what they do, Andriy.  Don’t ever believe that we can give up.”

Andriy pursed his cracked lips.  “They will be coming for you now,” he whispered, afraid for her.  

“No,” Valeriya said, refusing to show weakness in front of him.

He looked at her confused.

“Now, I’m coming for them,” she said in absolution.  “My promise to you is that one day in your lifetime, you will not be afraid to go out as a Black man in your own country, you will not hear the sound of mortars in the night, and you will not be a prisoner in your own land.  The reason that I can make that promise to you is because of what I’m going to do to them.  All of them.” 

Andriy looked in his sister’s twisted face and felt the tears subside.  Even with his brother lying dead beside them, he believed her. 

***

Toward the front of the hotel in an interior room with intact insulation to buffer the sounds of the heavy baritone voices, a room of four men gathered in the dark under candlelight – some to conspire, some to inquire.  No matter the intention, the issue at hand could not wait until later.  With Alexei dead, they needed a new leader and the next person rightfully in line for the position was grieving the loss of her brother just a few hundred feet away. 

A dirty blonde man in his mid-30s, wide and large in stature, was the first to speak, but this was nothing new.  He was a known politician when it came to matters of diplomacy, always twisting words and meanings to fit his murky intentions.   “My brothers, we cannot lose our position with our local militia and those who are supporting us,” Faddei said, arms folded across his mountainous chest.  “If we are going to choose another leader, it has to be now…tonight.”

The tension in the room grew thick. 

“Why do we need to choose another leader?  Valeriya is our leader now,” Taras said, running a hand through his dark, long beard.  His arctic blue eyes narrowed.  “What has she done to make you decide otherwise?”

Faddei frowned and drew his brows together.  “She is a woman, Taras.”  Shaking his head in disbelief that he was even forced to state the obvious; he motioned toward the door as if Valeriya was there in front of him.  “She is a
Black
woman.” 

“Alexei was a
Black
man.  And he was a strong leader.  What is your point?” Taras asked, forcing him to actually speak his bigotry aloud. 

“To be both though,” Faddei rolled his eyes in frustration and gasped.  “It is unthinkable.  The men won’t follow a Black woman now that her brother is dead.” He raised a long thick finger.  “Now… she can continue to be a lieutenant – it’s good for our image, but she cannot lead this revolution.  Yes, we fight the Nazis, but many who are opposed to their organization still have their reservations about race; they still have their own beliefs.  That cannot be ignored.”

Taras had never liked Faddei but up until this moment he had at least respected him.  “Well, my men will follow her, and I will follow her.”  He looked around the room.  “And my men make up most of the militia outside of one other faction.” 

Osip cleared his throat and tried to find common ground.  “I see both of your points.  Both of you are right.  There are men who will follow her and there are men who will not follow her.  But she is the next in line and she has her own men, over 100 in total across the city.  Without her, we cannot win this fight.  Without each of you, we cannot win. There are only five captains to lead this revolution here in Donestk.  Valeriya and the four of us.  If we tell our men to follow her, they will. If some of them choose not to, then they don’t really care about our cause anyway.”  He looked at the only silent man in the room demanding that he speak up. 

Symon was a quiet man with fire red hair and sterling gray eyes who looked more like an accountant than a freedom fighter with his thin silver wire framed glasses and lean build, but he was one of their best strategists and fighters.  He raised his head from his hands and rolled his neck.  “I just put my best friend on a table in the back room.  We grew up together.  My family worked for his in this very hotel before it became just another concrete hovel.  He died trying to protect all of us, our children, our women, our families.  And now you want to forsake the only family he has left because of personal ambition.  What I think is that this meeting is a waste of time.  We have bigger issues and we already have a fucking leader.”

Faddei scoffed. “Stop being so dramatic, Symon.  No one wants to forsake her.  We simply have to choose someone who is better suited to be our leader.”

Symon looked down at his bloody clothes.  “Have we even asked Valeriya what she wants to do?  Have we given her that much respect, brothers?  Or are we too busy plotting for the coveted position?”

On cue, Valeriya pushed the door open and stood in the threshold.  “No one has asked me, brat,” she answered.  “But thank you for bringing it up.”  Her eyes scanned the room.  Why was she not surprised that there was a meeting of the captains…every captain but her.

She stepped inside with her lieutenant and little brother following closely behind her.  “Wait here for me.  I have something to discuss alone with them,” she said, closing the door and leaving them outside. 

Faddei twisted around in his chair and looked at her. “Valeriya, I know right now you are in pain.  We all are, but we must…”

“Shut the fuck up, Faddei,” Valeriya snapped as her words curled around her full lips. Brow raised, she hissed at him.  “Don’t you dare use my brother’s death as a reason not to invite me and my men to a meeting that I am, by right, the head of in the first place.  And my grief is nothing in comparison to my responsibility.”

The quiet agreement by those in favor of Valeriya could be heard around the room. 

“Whether you admit it or not, you know that many men will not follow an emotional woman driven by her heart.  We need a man.  You are welcome to retain your position as a lieutenant. You have done well in that capacity, but your men need a new captain.”

“A White man?” Valeriya asked.  Wiping her face free of the residue of tears.  “You want me to promote someone over my head to lead us simply because that person is a White man?”

“Not just anyone.  Some of your better men are great leaders already,” Faddei insisted.  “Pick one that you trust.  Think of your country and our revolution.”

Valeriya pushed herself to not focus on the outright racist comments Faddei threw at her to get her sidetracked.  For her, it was all strategy to show the other men that she was vulnerable, but her brother had taught her well.  “Our agreement when we formed this paramilitary group to lead the fight with the Ukrainian army - who already is underfunded and torn in their orders, leadership and loyalties - was that the captain who brought the most men to the table would lead us…always.   The last time I checked, my brother brought the most men to this war against those Russian bastards and those Neo Nazi fucks.  Now that he is gone, I am captain and I have the most men.  And I lead.  Or the rules change for the Black people now that my brother is not here to speak for them?”