INSATIABLE CRAVINGS
Insatiable Cravings – Episode 134
Subtitle; {Loving You Is A Loosing Game}
TAGS: Age-gap, Mafia, Forbidden Love, Drama, Tragedy and Betrayal.
Settings: United Kingdom, Russia and others.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
~ Genevieve ~
Mine: I’m done here, so I’m heading back to London. Please, Genevieve—please—don’t ever, and I repeat, ever stray from your security’s path.
I stared at the message for what must have been the hundredth time in the last ten minutes. Six hours had crawled by since he’d sent it, and I hadn’t known a single moment of peace since. The words sat heavy in my chest, like lead pressing down on my ribs, as if they might crush me if I read them one more time.
I’d been told not to call or text him. And that was exactly what I was doing—not calling, not texting. That was the only thread of self-control I was clinging to.
But my patience had worn thin, and my nerves were fraying like overused string. I couldn’t do this anymore. I had to hear something—anything.
Tapping the contact icon, I scrolled through my list, pausing over Dominic’s name. My thumb hovered, shaking slightly. I didn’t know if I should call him. I didn’t know if I could. The ache in my chest tightened. In the end, I forced myself to move, settling on Rory instead.
The dial tone hummed in my ear, sharp and loud in the suffocating quiet of my flat. Each ring pounded through me like a ticking bomb. I bit my lip, pacing the room, my heartbeat in my throat. I nearly hung up just as the final ring began—
Then Aurora answered.
“Hi.” It was short. Simple. Hollow. Her voice was drained, stripped of its usual spark.
“Um… Dominic. Is he back?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said, her voice tight, clipped. “He got back about five, maybe seven minutes ago. He doesn’t look happy.”
Oh.
A cocktail of relief and dréad churned in my stomach. He was safe—that was good. But the fact that he wasn’t happy? That could only mean one thing: whatever he’d gone to Turkey for, it hadn’t gone to plan.
“Have you tried talking to him?”
I heard a low, humourless laugh. It scraped across the line, brittle and worn. “Yeah. He flashed me one of the fakest smiles I’ve ever seen in my life and went straight upstairs. Slammed the door.” I caught the faint echo of her footsteps, then the soft click of a door shutting behind her. “He won’t speak to me. But Benji—one of the men who went with him—said the whole thing was a bust.”
“A bust as in… they didn’t find the lead? Or they found him, but he didn’t say anything about Viktor?”
Aurora’s sigh dragged through the phone, long and weary. “The second one.” Her breath crackled quietly in my ear, brushing my skin like a ghost of her presence. “Gen, I’m scared. I haven’t seen him like this since… since Ivan. He’s properly shaken.”
“I’m scared too, Rory. Who wouldn’t be in a situation like this?” That infuriatiñg voice in my head was rising again, loud and insistent, smothering reason, drowning out sense. “Do… do you think finding Blade will really get us to Viktor? I mean, this one didn’t talk. What makes us think Blade will?”
“I don’t know. Right now, I don’t know anything, and I hàte it.” Her soft, bitter laugh filled the silence. “You’ll probably think it’s silly, but part of me is… proud of him. Blade, I mean. He’s hiding fúcking well.”
A quiet laugh escaped me, though it caught in my throat, rough around the edges. “You’re not wrong.”
I drifted to my bedroom, the floorboards cool beneath my feet, and pushed the door shut behind me. The familiar scent of my lavender candle still clung faintly to the air, though it had burned out hours ago. For the first time all day, I was completely alone.
“Want to know what’s even sillier?” I asked, curling up on the edge of my bed, phone pressed to my ear.
“Go on.”
“I still think Blade’s innocent.”
On the other end of the line, Rory sucked in a sharp breath. I’d braced myself for laughter, for disbelief, but instead she surprised me. “Me too.”
Two words.
Just two, but they hit me like an avalanche.
“Nic will lose his mind if he hears us say that. But I can’t ignore what I feel.” I pressed my palm flat against my chest, trying to steady the frantic hammering of my heart. “This is Blade we’re talking about. He absolutely hatés people. He glares at anyone who comes within, what, five inches of him? How’s he supposed to sit there and have cosy little chats with Viktor?”
“Exactly. He loves the Bràtva. I just—” I swallowed, my throat tightening. “I can’t believe he’d ever do anything to… to déstroy it. I can’t. It doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“Yeah… yeah, he really does love the Bràtva.” Rory’s voice wobbled slightly, like she was trying to hold herself steady but couldn’t. “And there are so many people here who love him too. I just—” she faltered, breathing out hard, “I don’t see how he could ever betray us. But what if… what if we’re wrong? Or better yet, what is his plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Aren’t you one of the clever ones?” There was a bite to her words, but I couldn’t tell if she was teasing or bitter.
“One of, Rory.”
“Well, where are the other clever ones? We need them. Now.”
I didn’t have an answer. The silence between us stretched long and heavy, as if we’d both sunk beneath the weight of it.
After a beat, she spoke again, more quietly this time. “I think Echo feels the same. But she won’t say it. She’s still too húrt by him.”
“I actually don’t blame her at all. She was closest to him—well, apart from Sal and Dex, obviously.”
“Yeah. She was one of the very few people he genuinely liked. And he never glared at her—not even once.”
A soft chuckle escaped my lips, only to dissolve into a sigh. “He never glared at me either. Never really smiled, but… I don’t know. I suppose I earned his trust,” I said quietly. “And he earned mine.”
“So we both know Blade didn’t do it. He hàtes people far too much to have willingly sat down with Viktor and discussed Nic’s dównfall, right?”
I nodded instinctively before remembering she couldn’t see me. “Right,” I said quickly, the word slipping out before I could second-guess it.
“Good. I’ll talk to Sal and Echo—see if they’re on our side. Then we’ll work from there.”
“Got it.”
“Alright,” Aurora chirped, a hint of brightness echoing in her voice. “Please talk to Dominic. Make him better. You’re the only one who seems to have that effect on him now.” I could practically hear her smile—tinged with sadness, but genuine all the same. “And congratulations on your engagement, Sister-in-law.”
Sister-in-law?
Well. I quite like the sound of that.
“Thank you, Rory.”
“You’re welcome, Gen,” she sang lightly. “Byebye.”
“Bye.”
I ended the call and immediately opened Dominic’s contact—Mine—my finger hovering uncertainly above it as I debated whether to give him space or call now.
Unfortunately, my finger was far too quick for my mind. It tapped the screen before I’d even made up my mind. I could’ve hung up… should’ve, maybe. But I didn’t. I just stared at it as it rang, silently praying he’d answer.
He didn’t.
All the hope that had fluttered in my chest collapsed like a house of cards. I stared at the phone’s dark screen, waiting for it to light up with a return call—but it never did.
I suppose he really does need time.
Maybe I should give him a bit of space.
And yet… I lit the screen again. My thumb tapped his name almost of its own accord.
This time, he answered—on the second to last ring.
“Hey, Dom. How are you?”
“Not alright, my love.” His voice was hoarse—heavy with exhaustion and steeped in despair. “I don’t know what else to do to find Viktor. Every blóody step I take feels like I’m back at square one. I’m tired.”
“You’re doing your best, and it will pay off. It’s just… taking time. Maybe that’s what Viktor wants—wants you frustrated, defeated, worn thin—so he can strike when you’re vulnerable.” Speaking sense to someone when you’re drowning in your own chàos is no easy feat. But I had to do it—for him. “You need to stay alert, baby. He’ll come out eventually. I mean, how long can he hide for?”
“Yeah…” His voice was softer now. Warmer. “God, I wish I could hug you right now.”
“Me too,” I murmured. “You’re probably exhausted. Try and get some rest—we can talk later.”
“Alright. Take care of yourself.”
“Sure.”
✷✷✷✷
As it turns out, I didn’t take care of myself at all.
It’s been five blóody weeks since Dominic returned from Turkey, and in that time, I threw myself so deep into work I nearly forgot who I was. Anything to keep my thoughts off Viktor. Off Blade. Off all of it.
And to be fair—it worked. Perhaps too well.
When I wasn’t buried in my own case, I was assisting Cora with her renovations or nose-deep in a book. I gave my brain no room to breathe, no space to wander. I drove myself into the ground, let exhaustion drag me down until my body began to scream in protest.
“Genny!” Cora’s voice tore through the room like a siren, despite the fact that I was barely eleven feet away. Her shout drilled through my eardrum like an uninvited guest with heavy boots.
“What?” I snapped, eyes fixed on my laptop screen.
“Why didn’t you touch the food?”
She was referring to the generous stockpile of meals her mother had brought over—the same woman who firmly believed that feeding someone until they were on the brink of explosion was the sincerest form of affection.
“Wasn’t in the mood,” I said with a nonchalant shrug.
“To eat?” she asked, as if trying to measure the sheer absurdity of my response. Disbelief tinged her tone.
“Yes.”
“You’re going to starve yourself at this rate.”
“I’m not skipping meals.”
Alright, so I didn’t eat dinner yesterday, and all I’d had today were two small loaves of bread and a banana. But that didn’t count as skipping, did it?
Honestly, I was too knackered to skip anything on purpose.
“Genevieve.” Cora’s tone had changed—sharpened. It was firm, scolding, enough to make me look up at her. “You’re going to faint from hunger, or worse. Do I need to ring your parents before you start behaving?”
My jaw dropped. I stared at her, absolutely gobsmacked by her nerve.
She caught the hesitation in my eyes and smirked in victory. I stood up far too quickly, stumbled back, and collapsed straight onto the sofa again.
A wave of light-headedness washed over me. My limbs felt leaden, my stomach hollow and aching.
Okay. Maybe she had a point.
Cora was at my side in seconds. “Are you alright?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t. Not remotely.
“I think we should go to a clinic. Just in case.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need a hospital.”
“But you clearly aren’t fine.”
“As you said, I just need to eat. That’s all.”
“Gen, come on. Let’s just go to that small clinic nearby—they might give you something to help with the exhaustion and—”
“Cora, no.”
“If you don’t go, I swear I’ll call your parents. And Everett. And Dominic.”
I shot her a glare, but she simply raised a brow, as if daring me to challenge her.
With a defeated sigh, I gave in. “Fine. Let’s go.”
“Good.” She grinned, turning to grab her keys.
••
The hospital smelt faintly of antiseptic and something metallic—clean, but cold in a way that seeped into your skin. I sat on the edge of the bed in a pale-blue gown, feet bare against the cool linoleum floor, a scratchy blanket draped around my shoulders. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly overhead, too harsh, too bright for how utterly exhausted I felt.
Cora sat nearby, perched on the edge of a plastic chair, her brows knit in worry. She hadn’t said much since we arrived, just kept casting me these half-scolding, half-concerned looks that made me feel like I was twelve again and had been caught sneaking biscuits before dinner.
A nurse had taken blóod samples, checked my vitals, asked questions I barely remembered answering.
Now we were waiting. The stillness made me feel heavier than before.
Moments later, the door opened with a soft creak and a woman in a crisp white coat stepped in. She looked to be in her forties—calm eyes, firm voice, clipboard in hand. A doctor. Obviously.
“Miss King,” she began, tone polite but professional. “We’ve reviewed your tests and run a few checks.”
My stomach tensed. I didn’t know what I was bracing for. Maybe something dramatic—anaemia, an ulcer, one of those scary phrases that sound manageable but always come with leaflets and medication.
“You’re severely dehydrated and your blood sugar levels are worryingly low. Your body’s showing clear signs of stress and exhaustion. That, in itself, is serious, and you’ll need to start eating and resting properly—no arguments.”
“Right,” I murmured, already feeling the sting of Cora’s ‘I told you so’ gaze drilling into the side of my head.
But the doctor didn’t stop there.
She glanced down at her clipboard again, then looked back at me—slower this time, more deliberate.
“There’s something else. It might come as a bit of a surprise, but your bloodwork also confirmed… you’re five weeks pregnant.”
Silence.
Utter, pin-drop silence.
I blinked. “Sorry… I’m what?”
“Pregnant,” she repeated gently, as if softening the word might make it less earth-shattering. “Roughly five weeks along.”
My mouth opened. Nothing came out.
Pregnant?
Five weeks?
I stared at her, hoping—ridiculously—that I’d misheard. That she’d said ‘present’ or ‘pressured’ or something else entirely. But her expression remained soft, steady, and painfully certain.
Pregnant.
The word hit like a gust of wind to the chest.
I wasn’t even sure what emotion was trying to surface first—shock, disbelief, terror… joy?
I pressed a trembling hand to my stomach, which until now had felt like any other part of me. Ordinary. Unremarkable. But now it held something. Someone.
“Is it… is everything okay?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“Yes,” she assured me kindly. “Everything looks fine. No concerns so far, but we’ll need to schedule a follow-up and ensure you’re looking after yourself—proper nutrition, hydration, rest, all of it. Especially now.”
I nodded numbly.
The doctor offered a brief smile, gave a few more instructions, then left us to it, her footsteps quiet against the sterile tiles.
Cora sat frozen in her chair, her eyes wide and glued to me.
“Genevieve?” she said slowly, her voice threaded with disbelief. “Are you okay?”
I laughed. A short, breathy, disbelieving sort of laugh. “No,” I said, covering my face with both hands. “No, I’m not okay. I’m pregnant.”
Pregnant.
The word echoed in my head like a bell toll.
I wasn’t just tired. I wasn’t just stressed.
There was a tiny, secret life growing inside me. Dominic’s child. My child.
Oh God.
TBC📖✍️
