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Just then Jey's wife walks into the kitchen. She looks at me and rolls her eyes. Then she walks over to Galina and gives her a hug. Shit just got a million times more awkward and I guess as they should. She thought I was gone and now I'm back. Surprised bitch.

"So, my husband called a family meeting and you're here, so what's going on?" She asked.

"Takecia, don't interrogate her, we will find out why soon enough."

"I just don't understand why she's here. I thought you broke up with him." She asked

"I did break up with him, but he came and found me because he's in love with me and he wants to be with me." I said, only to try to hurt her.

She laughed. "Girl, I told you I would gladly give him to you. You don't need to try to make me feel jealous because I'm not."

"T, I have to say, you giving her shit isn't necessary. We are all here right now because of your husband, your husband that you're separated from and he brought his new chick here. I don't think you should be talking shit right now when we don't know what's going on."

"Well, I know you know what's going on Galina." She said, "I know you do. So just spill it."

"Yeah, I do know, but I'm just waiting till everyone finds out and then we'll discuss it."

"So everybody is on her side now?" T shouted.

"On my side? What are you talking about? Everyone hates me. They think I'm the fucking side piece."

"You are the side piece and you'll always be the side piece." His soon to be ex wife shouted.

"You don't even want him." I shot back.

"I'm not gonna sit here and listen to this bullshit." Galina said. "It's obvious he wants to be with her because he's going through all of this. She's here, T. You have to get over it. She ain't going nowhere. And Hazel you have to learn to get along with her because like I told you earlier she's not going anywhere either. If you guys can get on the same page, everything will be fine. T, she's right, you don't even want him. I don't understand why you are being like this."

"It's the principal." T said.

"Yeah, it's the principal but nothing's gonna change. You can be mad all you want to, but that's not gonna make your situation better." Galina told her.

"She's right." I said. "I don't wanna fight with anybody. I'm not even that person. Your feelings are valid and I would hate me too, but I need you to know that I didn't know anything about you in the beginning. I stand by that and regardless, if you believe me or not is the truth."

"Sure. Whatever you say." She says and then rolls her eyes.

I was about to say something to her, but I was instantly silenced when I saw Joe walking into the kitchen. He had a serious look on his face.

"Let me talk to Hazel." Joe said, and I froze.

His wife didn't say anything and neither did T. They both got up pretty quickly and left the room.

I was so uncomfortable. It's like the temperature in the room got colder and I felt like I was frozen in one spot. I didn't wanna move or look at him. I felt like it would upset him in some way and he would hurt me again.

Joe sat down at the island cater-cornered from me and smiled.

I swear, I see the devil in his eyes.

"How you been? You look pretty." He said, upbeat.

I didn't say anything. I looked down at my hands.

"Look," he took a deep breath and exhaled. "I know we got off on the wrong foot. I want to officially apologize for that. I didn't wanna hurt you, but given the situation, my hands were tied."

I remained silent.

"Josh told me about your situation and I promised him that no harm would come your way and you'll be under my protection now." He said.

I still didn't want to say anything to him, so I didn't, and Joe looked at me as if he was waiting for me to say something to him.

"Are you not speaking to me?" He asked, then waited for my response and I just continued looking down at my hands. I felt like if I looked him in the eyes that I would get possessed or some shit. He truly gave off evil vibes and I didn't want any involvement with that.

"It's fine, you're still upset with me. You'll get over it." He said. "I was looking for you after you broke up with Josh. I wanted a crack at you myself. I figured I'm the better option. Better looks, better everything, big dick, more money if that's what you're into. I heard you can spend some money. I'm married too but my situation is different. My wife is okay with me having someone else." He chuckled. "What do you think about that?"

I finally looked up at him. I was confused by what he was saying because what the fuck is he talking about, but more importantly, who is this person sitting in front of me?

"I don't want you." I said finally having the courage to speak. "Why would you ever think I would after what you did to me."

"I figured that'd get you talking. It's all true but I wanted you to speak. And come on Hazel, I told you my hands were tied. I was ordered to deliver a message, I did that. I'm sorry." He said.

"Why are you so evil?" My question took me by surprise. I was thinking about it, but I wasn't intending on saying anything out loud.

"Evil?" He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. "I'm not evil. I'm sorry you feel that way. But you know what?" He perks up and smiles. "We're gonna change your opinion of me. I'm going to get you to like me too. You're going to be my favorite, I can tell."

I don't know what the fuck that was supposed to mean but it sent a chill through my entire body and it wasn't a good chill. It was a chill like I'm scared as fuck. His favorite. I don't want to be his favorite. I want to be as far away from him as humanly possible.

"I don't want to get to know you. I don't want to like you." I said bravely.

He stared into my soul when I made that comment. "I'll fix that. What's your size?" He asked as his eyes grazed over my body.

"I'm not telling you my size." I look at him like he's crazy.

"Listen, Jey already agreed to this, so lighten up."

What does he mean, Josh already agreed to it? What the fuck did Josh already agreed to?

"What do you mean?" I asked

"I told him I wouldn't harm you, but I also told him I needed access to you." Joe said, with a serious face.

"Access? What's that mean?"

"That means, we're gonna get to know each other." He smiled.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What the hell is going on.

"Wanna know something funny?" He asked but I didn't say anything so he continued. "I have a weird fetish for pregnant women. I found that out when my wife was pregnant with our second child. Pregnant pussy is the best pussy." He said, laughing. I almost felt like he was taunting me.

What the fuck is this man talking about? I hope he doesn't think I'm going to have sex with him. What the hell did Josh tell him?

"And IIII knooow a seeecrrreett..." he taunts. "....Jon said you tasted good. He told me all about it as soon as it happened. I have to admit though, I was a little jealous you let him eat it..twice."

"Are you fucking kidding me." We both hear a woman yell from behind us.

We both turned around to look at who entered the kitchen and just as I laid eyes on Jon, who I'm assuming was his wife, slapped the shit out of him. Jon quickly grabbed her wrist.

"I knew something happened with her—." She yelled but was cut off by Joe.

"AYE!!" Joe yelled, standing to his feet. His voice shook the entire house. "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK HOW YOU FEEL. TAKE THAT SHIT OUT OF MY HOUSE"

"So you fucking everybody?" She yelled at me. "Why is everyone so obsessed with this bitch?" Trin asked, mad as hell.

"PUT A MUZZLE ON THAT BITCH!" Joe shouted at Jon. Jon picked her up by her waist and took her out the house.

Joe watched as Jon handled her for a few seconds then he came back over to me.

"Come on, follow me." He didn't wait for me as he started to walk out of the kitchen. I didn't move. I wasn't about to go anywhere with him. We may be talking right now but I still don't trust him.

He must've noticed I wasn't following because he stuck his head back into the kitchen.

"I just want to move this conversation into my office where that can't happen again. Come on, I wanna show you something." He disappeared behind the wall.

Against my better judgment, I slowly stood to my feet and followed him. Once I got to the hallway, he was standing there waiting a few feet from the entrance of the kitchen, like he knew I would follow him or something. He didn't even turn around, he just started walking. We turned the counter, then he opened a door. The door led downstairs.

"Come on. Nothing is going to happen to you. Everyone knows you're here." He said, making his way down the stairs without turning around.

He's right. Everyone does know I'm here, including Josh. He isn't going to let anything happen to me.

I started down the stairs. Joe waited for me at the bottom. Once I got there I looked around. We were in the basement of his house. It was actually a very nice, finished, basement. Seemed like it was his space, the man cave.

This room had an elegant, upscale vibe, perfect for relaxation or entertaining. The centerpiece was a beautifully designed pool table. It had a dark and sleek finish, making it the focal point of the space. There was a modern light fixture above it that shined softly, casting a warm glow over the room, making the scene feel both intimate and luxurious. It kinda didn't seem like Joe's style, but I don't know the first thing about him so what do I know?

Surrounding the pool table were low, comfortable looking couches in neutral tones. I'm sure this is where he hosted sports watch parties and probably spent most of his time when he was home.

There was a well-stocked bar with high stools. The wall behind the bar showcased an array of premium alcohol on glass shelves, and the cabinetry underneath was sleek and dark as well, matching the overall color scheme.

As I continued to look around, I could feel Joe's eyes on me. I didn't want to seem too into this space but it was indeed gorgeous.

He began walking again and I followed. We passed a gym and directly across from that was a theater. Then there was a bedroom, I briefly looked in and instantly went numb when I saw what was sitting in there.

"That was the cage I was going to put you in." He casually points out, walking by as if what he said wasn't a serious matter.

That made me uneasy. 

We finally made it to his office and again, I was taken aback at the luxury of it all.

Dark and sleek, brick walls, dark brown leather furniture. There was a huge cherrywood desk in the middle of the room, with two big monitors on it. A massive bookshelf stretched from the floor to the ceiling behind his desk, filled with books and expensive-looking trinkets. Everything in the office screamed power and control—both of which Joe clearly liked to assert.

There was a plush rug underfoot, deep burgundy with intricate gold patterns that added warmth to the room, but it didn't do much to make me feel comfortable. The entire space felt intimidating, like walking into the lair of someone who saw themselves as untouchable.

Off to the other side of the room, there was a wall full of monitors showing camera feeds from all over the property and some that looked like other properties too. There had to have been at least 30 monitors there. It was a little weird but I tried to ignore it.

"Have a seat." Joe said, taking a seat at his desk, in a huge brown leather chair. "Sorry about that." He said, "I can assure you that you will be respected around here. You will be treated as a wife."

"But I'm not." I said.

"You will be. We're gonna get him divorced, and once that is finalized, we're gonna get you two married." He said, sitting up and flipping through papers on his desk. "After you have the baby of course. No one wants to be pregnant on their wedding day."

"I don't want to marry him. What are you talking about?"

He pauses and looks up at me. "What are YOU talking about? Josh said that was you guys' plan."

"I didn't agree to that."

"You don't have to agree to it, it's happening whether you like it or not." Joe said, resuming his search.

"That's not fair. I don't want to marry him."

"Oh, you don't?" Joe stopped and looked at me again. He had  somewhat of a shocked face.

"No." I confirmed.

"Why does he think that?" He asked.

"He came and found me at my friend's house, I agreed to talk to him, my friend told him I was pregnant. I had no intention of revealing that information. We talked and one thing led to another and now, I'm here, but I told him we weren't back together though. I made that clear."

"So you never told him you would marry him?" He asked.

"Back when we were together we talked about it and yeah, I wanted to....then." I answer honestly.

"So what do you want out of this? Why are you here?" He asked

"I don't know. Jey wanted to come tell you guys the news but—."

"You didn't want to." He finished my sentence.

"No..."

Joe leans back in his chair. He looked as if he was thinking as he sat back, resting his chin on his hand, rocking back and forth. "So what do you want to do?"

I shrugged. "I don't know."

"You know, because you wouldn't have made that clear to me. You seem adamant about it." Joe leans forward. "Look, I'm here to help. Whatever you want to do, I'll enforce, but you have to tell me what you want." He said, staring into my soul.

It was all a little uncomfortable but why did I feel like I could trust Joe at that moment? I really felt as if I could. I felt like he was going to do whatever I said. I could be wrong but it seemed like he was serious and genuine.

"If I said I didn't want to marry him, what would happen?" I asked.

He doesn't move from his position. "If you put your trust in me then I'll make sure it won't happen. But if not, I can't guarantee anything."

I looked at him and tried to quickly decipher what he meant by that. Not going to lie even though I don't like him, he kinda seems like the type to tell you the truth if you ask. The brutal honest truth. I'm sure he gets pleasure out of hurting people's feelings when he does it. I feel like he would tell me the truth about all of this. I hope I'm right. I'm going to go out on a limb and ask.

"What do you mean by putting my trust in you?"

"Well, what do you mean if you said?" He asked.

"It's more of a hypothetical because I'm not 100% sure but..." I trail off. I don't even know why I'm about to even open up to him, knowing this is probably gonna backfire in my face. "I don't know if I wanna marry him at all."

He nodded, "Okay. I mean exactly what I said, if you put your trust in me I'll see to it." I said. "I know you don't like me very much because of what I did to you but I've offered an apology and I mean it. I don't apologize if I don't mean it. I don't say shit don't mean. What I said was true that day, I went easy on you because I thought you were cute. I didn't want to hurt a pretty woman so I let up. I hope you can understand that. I had orders to kill you that day. If you were pregnant, I was told to stand down, but that was the plan coming into that situation. I got in trouble because I didn't follow through."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to see that I did something nice for you and that I'm trustworthy."

"Because you didn't kill me."

"Yes." He said. "I got a lot of shit for that."

"Well...thank you for that." I didn't know what to say to him.

"So why don't you know? He was talking about how in love you guys were. When I came to the house that day.... " he trails off. "All of that doesn't matter, what matters is right now you tell me what it is that you want, because he's telling me that you guys wanna get married and he wants to divorce his wife for you."

"That decision about him wanting to divorce his wife was made long before I even came into the picture. I don't have anything to do with that decision. Well, maybe now that I'm pregnant. It makes things a little bit more permanent, but I don't want the two to go hand in hand. Their two separate situations."

"I understand that now." He said. "But tell me something..." he said, looking for me in engage in further conversation.

Again, I don't know why I'm opening up to him. "If he didn't come looking for me, he would not have known I was pregnant. I didn't want to tell him."

"Oh, so you weren't even gonna tell him you're pregnant?" Joe said.

"No, but now we have to deal with this." I said.

"So you're telling me that you just wanna have his baby and that's it. You don't want to get married to him, you don't wanna be in a relationship with him, none of that?"

"This is the thing, I told him that I would come back here to talk to his family, and we would go from there. I never guaranteed us getting back together because of this. I made that clear so I don't know where that's coming from. Especially all the marriage talk."

"Is it time that you need to think about things?"

I shake my head from side to side. "I don't think so."

"Do you love him?"

"Of course, I love him."

"You just feel you're not ready."

"Right." I agreed.

"You wanna date other people?"

"No. I just don't want to marry him right now."

"Right now." He said, then he leaned forward and rested his arms on his desk. "This is what we're gonna do..." he doesn't finish his sentence, he starts gathering papers together in front of him.

I patiently wait for him to finish what he was going to say but he doesn't. I watch as he looks through the papers, then place them in a nice stack in front of him.

"Here. Come look at this." He scoots back, giving me room to step between him and the desk. Big mistake.
Joe placed his hands on my hips and I froze. He then ran his hands down my sides. "Those contracts give a timeline of what your relationship with him is going to be for the next year. I need you to sign it."

Joe stands up and presses his body against mine. He pushed my hair behind my ear and started talking.

"This business we're in...there's a lot of shit you'll see. A lot of things you'll hear. I need to make sure you won't go run your mouth to anybody. There's section for that as well." I nodded my head.

I felt uncomfortable with his hands on my hips and him talking in my ear and him just being so close to me but I tried to focus on what the bold sections said, tuning him out.

Confidentiality...
Granted access...
Obligations...
Consequences...
Responsibilities...

Granted access? There's that access word again. If this is basically an NDA, how would that tie into this contract. And why would I have responsibilities? This seemed a little off. I knew I needed to read this thoroughly. I wasn't going to sign this today.

Then I felt his hands on my ass.

"I just wanna plant my face so far up your ass and just motorboat it." He shakes as if he got a chill all over his body. "Damn, I'm getting hard." He laughed to himself.

Dude is nasty.

I kinda elbowed him back. He barely moved but his hands went back to my hips.

"I'm not signing this." I said, trying to turn around. He held me in place.

"So you're willing?" I felt his hands tighten on my hips.

"Willing what?" I asked, but then I saw Josh walk in.

"What the fuck is you doing?" Josh yelled. I don't know if he was talking to he or Joe but he could probably see how uncomfortable I was, so I know he wasn't asking me.

"What do you mean what I'm doing?" Joe said, stepping back.

"Hazel, don't sign shit. Come here."

I squeeze my way out of Joe's grip and walk over to Josh. I still had the papers in my hand. I really wanted to know what he wanted me to sign.

Josh pushed me behind him as they started arguing.

I tap Josh on his shoulder to get his attention. "Babe, it's fine. Let's just leave." He completely ignores me.

Josh walks up on Joe and Joe muffs the hell out of him. Josh comes back and punches Joe in the face. I ran upstairs to go get someone to break them up. I found Galina in the kitchen.

"They're fighting." I said in a panic.

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!" She yelled, pissed off, storming towards the door to the back. "THEY FIGHTING AGAIN!" She yelled out to the rest of the guys.

A couple seconds later a few of the guys come running in and downstairs.

"I'm so sick of this shit!" Galina said, slamming down a utensil she was cooking with.

"Does this always happen?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, yes. More so a lot more recently because of your whole situation and for some odd reason, Joe's gotten it in his head that Josh is doing some outside business that doesn't include the family. I don't know."

I watched as Galina paced the kitchen, clearly frustrated with everything going on. It seemed like this wasn't the first time tensions had exploded between Joe and Josh, and it probably wouldn't be the last. I felt a wave of guilt wash over me, knowing that I was somehow part of the chaos, even though none of this felt like something I had asked for.

"I didn't mean to cause all this." I said softly, almost more to myself than to her.

Galina stopped her pacing and looked at me, her expression softening just slightly. "I know, Hazel. It's not all your fault. This family's been dysfunctional for a long time. You just happen to be the spark this time around. But trust me, these things have a way of working themselves out... eventually."

I didn't know what to say, so I just nodded, feeling out of place. My mind was still on what Joe had said to me down there, the way he had touched me, and how confident he was in manipulating everything. He acted like I was just another pawn in whatever game they were all playing. It made me feel sick.

The sound of footsteps coming back up the stairs pulled me from my thoughts. One of the guys emerged, followed by Josh, who looked like he had taken a punch to the jaw but wasn't too badly hurt. Joe, on the other hand, didn't come back upstairs.

"Let's go." Josh said, his voice low and angry.

I glanced at Galina, who gave me a small nod as if to say, go ahead. Without another word, I followed Josh out the door, leaving the tense, chaotic house behind us. I knew this wasn't over—not by a long shot.

*

To be continued...

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