Chapter 6

I glance out of the window and see Officer Wilbert climb into the cop car parked in front of our house. It has been a week since we talked with Detective Andrews. My parents declined our offer to live with us for the time being until the threat of Adrian is over. My father feels he can protect himself. But just to ease my mind, I asked them to divide the two officers between our house and my parents' house. Detective Andrews was not keen on the idea, but after a lot of persuasion on my part, they agreed. I just want to know that everyone I love is safe. Lissa and her family have the whole second floor to themselves and I really like having them here. I see Officer Wilbert get out his car again and shine his flashlight off into the distance. Does he know something that we don't? Do they have any news on Adrian? I jump up slightly as two arms wrap around my waist.

"Stop staring." Dimitri whispers into my ear. I roll my eyes at him, as if I would be able to be all calm and collected at a time like this. I turn around in his arms and lay my head on his chest.

"I can't. He got into his car and a few minutes later, he got again and got his flashlight out and I…"

"He is just doing his job; he will let us know if something is going on." Dimitri reassures me. I let out a big breath. He is right. Obviously, he is. When is he ever wrong? I just need to relax but it is really hard to do. My babies can feel the pressure in the house, the stress rolling off of me and it is really upsetting them. They are not sleeping well and barely feeding. I honestly don't want them to suffer because of all of this.

"Let's go to bed my sweet girl." He gives me a kiss on my forehead. I start to follow him up the stairs when I hear Lissa call for me.

"I'll meet you up there." I give Dimitri a smack on his behind and send him up the rest of the stairs. I walk to the room where I heard Lissa call. She is sitting on the bed with her twins in front of her.

"What's up?" I ask her as I take Eric into my arms. He yawns, stretching his tiny mouth open wide.

"I appreciate you letting us stay here until this situation is resolved but I think we are going to move back into our house." I look at her with wide eyes. I thought everything was going great. It was fun being under the same roof as her again and we carpooled to work. I am a bit blindsided by this.

"Why? I just want to make it a bit easier for the officers to keep an eye on us, all of us." I say to her. Lissa places Luke into the bassinet next to the bed and takes Eric from me.

"I know, but it is just… I love being here but I miss my own house. Plus, we don't live far. Literally right next door. It's not such a long distance to cover for the officer. Please understand." She pleaded with me. I understand, I really do. I would also miss home if I had to be away for a long time, especially with kids. But I want her to be safe. That is my main concern. I fear not only for her life, but her kids and Christian. If anything happens to any one of them, I would never forgive myself.

Never.

I take her hands in mine.

"I do understand, but I just want you to be safe. Just stay one more day. If nothing happens, then I will help you move back into your home." Lissa smiles at me and nods her head. I guess seeing the cops at my house and me never really being alone is making Adrian stall his plans.

"I'm going to head to bed, sleep well." I give her a quick hug and leave her room. I pass Christian as I head to the stairs. I wave goodnight to him with a smile.

"Lissa wants to move back to their house." I inform Dimitri as I get ready for bed.

"Well, it has been a week Roza. I am not saying that there is no danger, because there is, but life needs to go on. Detective Andrews promised me that they are actively looking for Adrian." I climb into bed and cuddle up close to him. What they are saying makes sense. I know it does, but my fear is bigger than my sense of reason at the moment.

"I know. I asked her to just stay one more day. Just to be safe." Dimitri tightens his grip on me as if reassuring me that he is with me and that he will never let me go.

XX

"That is all of it." I say as I put down the last box of baby toys. Lissa stayed an extra day but now it is time to get back to our normal lives. It had to happen sooner or later. I just wish it was later.

"Thanks Rose. And don't worry, they will catch him and this nightmare will be over." I give her a small smile but I don't really believe her. We thought all of this would be over the first time he went to jail. But that was not the case. Who says it won't happen a second time? What if we do catch him and he gets thrown into jail again and just escape again. I can't keep living like this. I need to feel safe again. I need to be able to go on with my life without the fear of Adrian Ivashkov. Maybe we should move to another country. Maybe a new start is the best thing for us. But Adrian could just track me down again. He has a lot of money and he was a detective. He searched for people for a living. And mix his ex-profession with the obscene amount of money he has, that is a deadly combination. He has proven that he can buy people's loyalty as well with Mason. I honestly don't know when this whole thing will stop. The only way this will stop is if one of us is…

Dead.

I shock myself by that thought. I have never wanted anyone dead before. I know it is not right and that stooping to that level is dangerous. But what else can we do? What other option do we have? Nothing. I feel totally exhausted. Mentally and physically drained. I don't know how we are going to get through this.

"Okay. I'll be on my way then." I give Lissa one last hug before I leave her house.

"Hi Ms. Mazur. Lovely evening today." Officer Wilbert says as I pass him. I stop and turn to him. He seems like such a nice guy. His eyes are a deep blue color and it really stand out against his deep tanned complexion. He is built like a bull as well.

"Hi Officer. Yeah, it is. Would you like something to drink? You have been out here all day." He smiles at me and nods his head. I motion for him to follow me into the house. Dimitri took the twins for a drive to get them out of the house for a short time. I think he also wants to get out of the house for a while. This last week we did not really do much. Dimitri kept his classes to a minimum and I tried to only book a few studio shoots. I did not want to be too far away and be too busy.

"Something hot or cold?" I ask Officer Wilbert. I notice him scanning the house.

"Whatever you are having. You have a very lovely home Ms. Mazur." I motion to a chair by the kitchen island and he takes a seat. I pour him a class of iced tea.

"Thanks Officer, please just call me Rose. And thanks so much for being on our protection detail. It must be very tiring having to keep an eye on a house the whole day." He takes a sip of the iced tea and makes a sound of enjoyment.

"It is honestly my pleasure. I like making people feel safe." He says with a chuckle. I sit across from him with a glass of my own iced tea.

"How long have you been an officer?" I ask him. He pretends to count on his fingers.

"One, two, three… I'm just joking. About two years. I am working up to be a detective soon." He has a very easy-going air around him. He seems very fun.

"That is great. Is that why you took on this case or was it assigned to you?" I ask him.

"Well, it was open to anyone and yes it will give me a bit of an edge toward being detective, but like I said before. I take my job seriously and I enjoy doing it." We sit in silence for a few seconds just enjoying the silence and sipping on our iced teas. I honestly hope that after they catch Adrian, my life will go back to being semi-normal. Like hopefully I won't be so surrounded by police officers and detectives. It's not that I am ungrateful for all the help we have been getting from them and if I actually became a lawyer, I would have been in their company a lot more, but normal people don't deal with them this often.

"Can I ask you a question? It might not be very appropriate." I nod my head signaling that he may ask his question.

"What are you expecting to be done with Adrian Ivashkov?" I am taken back by his question. A lot actually. What does his question mean exactly? What is he expecting me to say? Does he want me to tell him I want Adrian dead? Does he want me to tell him I will feel safe if he is behind bars again? It is a very odd question.

"What do you mean? I want you guys to catch him and I want to be safe. I want my family to be safe." He is silent for a short time and I am almost afraid that I gave him the wrong answer, but I will never admit out loud that I want Adrian dead. That is not who I am and it is really not who I want to be.

"Well, considering that he escaped the first time, who's to say he won't do it again?" He makes a good point, I know that.

But I still won't say it.

Why is he bringing this up? What does he want to achieve with this line of questions?

"Obviously I know he could just escape again, but this time, we would need to make sure he is kept under lock and key better." I mean that is all that we can do, right? Officer Wilbert nods his head.

"I guess. But we could always ensure he never gets to you if…" His words were cut off by the sound of the front door opening. I am very curious as to what he wanted to say though. Was he going to say that we could kill Adrian? Is that what he thinks will get him the detective role? Dimitri walked into the kitchen with our babies in the stroller. He looks a bit better than he did before he left. Fresh air really does work like a bomb.

"Officer Wilbert, hello." Dimitri says sounding a bit surprised. Officer Wilbert downs the last of his iced tea and makes his way towards us.

"Hello Mr. Belikov. Thanks for the drink, Rose. Will you walk me out?" I give Dimitri a kiss on the cheek and then walk out with Officer Wilbert following me.

"Look, I am sorry about earlier. It was silly of me to bring any of that up. Please forgive me." Officer Wilbert stares deeply into my eyes. His eyes, so blue and so deep, it's hard to look away. Almost like staring at a tornado coming right at you and you can't run away. All I can do is nod my head. He gives me a slight smile and then leaves the house. I stand still for a few minutes more in the same position. I am so confused right now. Why bring this up in the first place? What did he want to gain by bringing this up? He basically suggested that the only way to make sure Adrian does not get to us, is if we kill him. He is a cop, why would he every suggest that? It just does not make sense. Nothing makes sense anymore.

"Why was he in the house? Did something happen?" Dimitri asks as he comes up to me by the front door. I finally close the door, feeling like I am closing the door on the conversation I had with Officer Wilbert as well.

"No, nothing happened. I just invited him in for something to drink. I wanted to get to know the guy that is protecting us." Dimitri wraps me in his arms and rests his chin on my head.

"That is nice. You know what else is nice, some family time. Let's take the twins and go have a picnic in the park or we can go to the pool and they can have their first swim." I pull back a bit to look him in the eyes and raise my eyebrows.

"Swim? They are barely six months old." I am a bit shocked that he would suggest that. A lot of accidents happen by water, especially with babies.

"My mother had me in the water when I was two-month-old. It's the same as a bath, just… fun. We can even ask Lissa to join us." I get that it's the same as a bath, but they have a lot of chemicals in community pools and it's not very sanitary. I don't want my babies getting sick because of dirty water.

"It will be fun Rose. Remember that thing? Remember what fun is?" I laugh a bit because he is right. We have not done anything fun in a while. The last fun we had was with his family in Russia.

"Get the twins' bags and I will call Lissa" I give in. The smile Dimitri give me is contagious.

Yeah, this is going to be fun.

XX

Lissa and I start to set up the area we will be sitting at next to the pool while the men bring all the things in the car. Rosalie's eyes stretch as wide as saucers at the sight of the blue water. I don't think she has ever been to a pool or such a large amount of water. She keeps giggling and jumping up and down.

"I am going to take her in for a bit, will you keep an eye on the boys?" Lissa asks me. I pull their stroller closer to me and nods at her. I watch as she slowly takes Rosalie closer and closer to the water. Her excitement grows with each step she takes. It is actually so adorable to watch her. The giggle she gives each time Lissa splashed some water her way was really magical to watch. It's amazing how little ones can find joy in even small things like water. I can't wait to see the kids when we take them to the beach for the first time. I remember how I enjoyed the beach when I was younger. The water was so infinite to little me and the sand was so enthralling because it could be a big hole or a sand castle or a massive wall. You could do so much with it. Things my little brain back then could not even think of yet. And learning that there was actually fish in the water fascinated me to no end.

"Ready to put our babies in the water?" Dimitri asks as he places the toy box we packed in for the kids. Christian takes my seat with his sons and I pick up my daughter. Dimitri takes Alexei and we head to the water where Lissa is.

"Just don't let water get into their ears please." I say to Dimitri. He rolls his eyes. I know he knows that but it won't hurt to just say it again. I gently ease Valerie into the water. Her eyes stretch wide for a several moments and then a breathtaking smile spreads over her face.

"Oh, you like that, don't you, my baby." I coo at her. She starts waving her hands and kicking her feet making the water splash in her face and that causes her to kick and splash even more. I look over to see Dimitri doing the same thing with our son. Alexei looks like he is enjoying the water just as much as his sister.

"They are so cute. This was a really great idea." Lissa says as she wets Rosalie's hair.

"I know. We should take them to the beach soon. I think they will love the sand. But I think the twins should be at least one year old." Lissa nods her head in agreement.

"I want to grab one of the boys." Lissa says as she gets out of the water. I watch as she hands a very unhappy Rosalie to Christian and take Eric from the stroller. Much like Valerie, his face went from shocked to very happy. He splashed around and made very adorable giggling noises.

"Alexei is getting a bit grumpy. I'll take him out and watch over Rosalie then Christian can bring in Luke." Dimitri says to us.

"Maybe he is just hungry. I'll take him out." I say to him. We swap kids very carefully and I leave the pool with my son.

"Take Luke in, I'll watch her." I say to Christian. He takes his son and joins them in the water. Rosalie still is not very happy. I undress Alexei to get him into some warm clothes. I don't want him to get sick. I honestly can't handle that stress as well. I pumped some bottle for the twins before we came to the pool so that I did not have to breastfeed in public. After getting that photo from Adrian, I don't feel comfortable doing that in public areas anymore. Once I see that Alexei is secure, I nudge Rosalie gently on her shoulder to get her attention.

"What is wrong sweetie?" I ask her. She has one tear slowly rolling down her pink cheek. She lets out a small huff before she looks at me.

"I wanna swim." She sounds so unhappy. I push her hair back out of her face and tap my finger on her nose.

"I know my sweet. You will get another chance to swim. Just give mommy and daddy a chance with your brothers." She is normally so understanding, even at her age. Sometimes we forget that she is only one and a half years old. It's hard to forget such things when your life is constantly in danger. Or when there are constantly things that require your full attention.

"How long?" She asks me with big pleading eyes.

"I don't know Ro. Maybe ten more minutes." I say, holding up ten fingers. She lets out a sigh and turns back to watch her parents play with her brothers in the water. I look back to Alexei, seeing that he is slowly falling asleep with the bottle still in his mouth. I don't think he is going back into the water today. But it looked like he had fun when he was in the water. That is what I want my kids to remember, that we had fun together and that there was a lot of love going around at all times. I don't want them to grow up with fear of Adrian. I don't want them to always look over their shoulders.

Especially Alexei.

Adrian threatened to kill him because he is Dimitri's son. I am hoping that he won't hurt Valerie because they share blood but I won't put anything past him. He would hurt her just to hurt me. Would he really go that far? I don't have a clear answer to that question. He killed Mason when he got in the way. Now, I know Mason was not family or related to either of us like Valerie is, but he still had no remorse when he killed him. And unlike Valerie, Alexei is not his blood. I know he will not hesitate to hurt him or Dimitri. I would not survive if anything happened to my kids or Dimitri. Maybe if…

No.

I am not going to let Adrian ruin my day with my family. He ruins a lot of things, but I won't let him ruin this. I can worry about him tomorrow. He is not here right now so he is not a problem right now. I look to Alexei again and see him sound asleep. Rosalie is still watching her parents with those sad big eyes of hers. The rest of my family is in the pool having a great time. Lissa catches my eye and gives me a look, like she is asking if I was okay. I give he the brightest smile I can showing her that I am fine.

And I really am. For now.

XX

"The kids really enjoyed today." I say to Dimitri as we walk down the stairs to the kitchen. We just put the twins down for the night and I think a glass of wine is needed.

"I agree. I told you it would be fun, didn't I?" Dimitri has that 'I told you so' smirk on his face. If I wasn't so happy right now, I would have knocked that smirk right off his face. I hate to admit when I was wrong but I was this time. Not that I would ever tell Dimitri that. He would never shut up about it. Dimitri pours us both a class of wine and we sit down by the island. The wine is refreshing after a day in the sun. I pull the pile of mail we placed on the island when we got home closer to me. I slowly start to look through it. It is mostly subscriptions or bills. Dimitri's phone starts to ring and it nearly give me a heart attack.

"It's Ivan." He says to me before he answers it. I continue going through the mail. There is a large white envelope with only our address on the front and my name. I am about to open it when the doorbell rings.

"I'll get it." I say to Dimitri before he can stand up. He is still on the phone. I walk to the door with the white envelope still in my hands. I open the door to see Officer Wilbert standing on the porch.

"Hi Officer Wilbert." I say to him. He gives me a slight nod.

"Evening Rose. Just wanted to inform you Officer Jeffreys will be taking over in the next ten minutes but I will be on my way now." They normally inform us when they switch just so that we don't get nervous when we don't see the patrol car in from of the house. Officer Wilbert is taking the week off for a wedding out of state and he is getting replaced with another officer.

"Thanks. I hope you enjoy the wedding." I say to him. He gives me another nod and start to turn around but I stop him before he can start walking away.

"About when you said earlier…" I start out feeling very unsure. I am not sure where I am going with this but I just need some more information.

"What did you mean, make sure he doesn't get to me?" I ask him already knowing the answer.

"Well. It's not very ethical or even legal. But for a certain amount, you could make sure he never gets near you or anyone you love. Permanently." For a certain amount? Is he talking about paying someone to kill Adrian? I did not know that is what he meant. I thought he meant the police force would use any method necessary to keep him away if that is what I wanted. Not that they would just go around killing people if you asked them too. But what he was suggesting was wrong. Was this a trick? Did he want me to agree and then they would lock me up for attempted murder or something? No, I doubt that is why he mentioned it. He looks very serious.

"Oh, no. That won't be necessary. I have full faith in the police force to bring justice." I say to him.

"Sure. Forget I mentioned it." He says and turns away from me and leaves. I watch him get into his car and drive away. I lock the door behind me and just stand with my back resting on the door. That was weird. He is an officer who wants to become a detective but he just told me hiring a hitman is okay. I shake my head to try and get rid of that conversation. I remember that I have that envelope in my hands. I open it and pull out the papers that is inside.

It's photos.

It's photos of me.

It's photos of me by the pool. Today!

He was there! Or at least someone he paid to keep an eye on me was there. Nothing and nowhere is safe anymore. This needs to end. And it needs to end soon.