Savage Crown II

14. Fourteen

Natalia

As Zoey slept peacefully nestled between me and Callum, I couldn't help but study his facial features. Four years had passed and he was still as handsome as ever. His eyes heavy from the lack of sleep the past couple days and the exhuastion from such a heavy crown of leading an organization as big as his. His eyes slowly opened revealing the ocean in them. He reached over with his arm pulling me in closer so that we were huddled together with Zoey fast asleep between us.

"Why couldn't you stop looking for me Callum? You got the empire you wanted without me being at your side, me and Zoey were safe" I whispered.

He stared off at the ceiling giving a large sigh, " not a day went by where I didn't think of you Natalia. I meant what I said when I proposed to you four years ago on that rooftop." He turned his head giving me a pained look, then turned back up to look at the ceiling he asked, " did you ever think about reaching out to me about Zoey or did you intend to hide our daughter from me forever?"

"Plenty of times, I thought about you and tried to gather the courage to tell you, but given the fact you tried to do that. I never did reach out... I was afraid you'd finish your plan or remove us
both after realizing your firstborn is a girl. Or worse take her away from me"

"Do you really think that little of me Natalia?... That I would do something so horrendous to you and our child after everything we've been through? Did you ever stop and think that maybe I wasn't in my right state of mind that night you walked in on me in my office?"

"Right state of mind? I saw how you were that night" I said as I tried to pull away from his arm. "And your office? That building belonged to Declan."

Callum let out another sharp breath as he turned to face me again with his free arm pulling me back in and lightly tracing circles on my shoulder with his fingertips, "just have a little faith in me love, that's all I'm asking for. I promise everything will be cleared up back home."

"Why not now if you're so innocent?" I rolled my eyes.

"Because I know you better than anyone else Natalia, and after seeing what you saw you need more than just words to believe me." He chuckled softly.

I laid there in silence knowing he was right. Everything I saw and heard that night was too heartbreaking. Our marriage didn't come to fruition in the traditional sense to begin with. It had all been arranged between our fathers after Callum and I met at his club.

I went out with Nora that night willingly and knowing that Pulse was Clarke territory but that didn't stop me. I wanted to have a night where I wasn't under my family's watch nor the Lombardi's. I was upset that night after an encounter with an enemy in disguise Luciano Marquez. We walked into Pulse not knowing the bartender for the night was Callum himself heir to the Irish Mafia. He and his family had always been notoriously private in life and were richer than fucking leprechauns from what Gio and Papa said. Of course rich in the sense that their funds were cleaner than ours. So I never expected him to be working the bar that night at his own club. Callum had led a private life unlike his brother Declan who loved the publicity, so no one ever really knew what Callum looked like.

Callum and I clicked instantly that night at the club. I didn't know I was flirting with the enemy as he posed as a simple bartender but he knew exactly who we were and didn't harm us. After he revealed who he was to me he still kept things between us polite and calm. He never threatened me or Nora who danced on the dance floor oblivious to the fact that our little cover was blown.

Instead he told his men to stand down as his guests of honor in his part of town, after exchanging a couple words on his private roof top he gave me a night of dancing with him. Both of us feeling the gravitational pull that night that led to us making out on the dance floor in front of his men and a couple of Bratva spies that worked for Alexei Novikov. Other clans thought we were making a power move between the two families causing them to start forming alliances behind our backs trying to take us down in fear that we'd be more powerful together.

In order to keep the other clans at bay there was a marriage agreement and an alliance fortified in blood oath between my family and the Clarkes. In the agreement it was written that once we had handled Santos and the Novikov I was to go back home to my family and the Clarke's would privately handle the damage control on our marriage but things didn't end that way. In those months alone of being married, I had fallen for Callum something I never had anticipated but it happened.

Things went south fairly quick after we discovered Luciano Marquez was actually Iván Santos the snake we had been on the hunt for. He had my mother kidnapped and that's how I ended up on suicide mission with Alejandro to save mama from being shipped off to Russia.

I was able to save mama but I was captured by Iván. Callum was the one who found me and put a bullet in Iván's head. I ended up in the hospital after taking a bullet to my thigh and my hand where my wedding ring once rested was broken. I was out for days in the hospital and Callum never left my bed side waiting for me to wake up after I caught a nasty blood infection from the bullet.

Since we had never really had a proper engagement and a wedding that wasn't forced  , two months  after I was released from the hospital Callum proposed to me on the rooftop of where we had met. That time it was not as a duty to our families but because we were in love. I thought we had it all and felt on top of the world after that night.

That is until on a cold Chicago evening I went to fetch some papers from his brother Declan's office as a favor, where I found Callum's former receptionist he used to fuck sucking his cock and laughing about his plans to kill me after I gave him an heir. That's where my life shattered and my heart died inside. It served as a reminder that in our world its not always love. Especially when it started off as a power move.

He was right I would need more than words to convince me otherwise.