Page 13 of Nobody Wants Me (Volkov Bratva #5)

V ictor

The knife whizzed right past my head and imbedded into the wooden pole of my shed. I grabbed the knife and turned to find The Butcher in my shed, arms folded. “The door was locked.”

“Please, I could have kicked your door down.”

“You could have missed,” I said, tossing the knife back in her direction, and not surprised as she caught the damn thing.

She tutted. “I didn’t miss. I hit exactly what I was aiming for.”

“Then why bother?”

“Killing you would piss off Ivan, and that is not something I want to do yet,” The Butcher said.

“You’re afraid of Ivan?” I asked.

She simply glared at me.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“You destroyed the quilt she made for you,” The Butcher said.

I rolled my eyes. “I should have known you were here for no good reason.”

“And yet, you’re in here moping because she won’t take your gift. You might also like to know, she is currently removing her fabric from the shelves as well.”

This made me stop. “What?”

“Yes, she is now seeing that you set the precedent. You don’t accept gifts and neither does she,” The Butcher said.

“For fuck’s sake.” This woman was pissing me off, and The Butcher was as well.

I went to walk past her, but she grabbed my arm. I twisted hers and had her pressed up against one of the wooden posts. She attempted to sneak out of my hold, but I knew all her tricks.

“Don’t even bother,” I said.

She tutted. “I suggest you let me go, otherwise you better hope Freya is already pregnant.”

That is when I felt it, the blade tapping against my dick. That, I hadn’t expected.

So, The Butcher did have a lot more tricks up her sleeve, which surprised me. I wasn’t expecting that.

I let her go, and The Butcher spun around. I waited to see if she would attack me, but she didn’t.

“I’m going to go and deal with my wife, or are you wanting to settle this score?”

“You and me, Victor, don’t have a score to settle. I like Freya.”

“Noted,” I said.

“You know, if you actually stopped being a dick long enough, you might find you like her.”

I was getting tired of this conversation.

“What do you want?” I asked.

She tutted. “I don’t want anything, but you know Ivan. He loves to play matchmaker, and I’ve seen the way you treat her. It’s like you can’t stand her.”

“Congratulations, you can read a situation.”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing. You can’t stand her, yet you spend many hours making her a cabinet because you know she needs it for her makeup.

You know enough about her to know she likes things clean.

This is why you had the bedroom cleaned without her knowing before she moved in.

It’s why you don’t allow anyone to go near her things. ”

“Your point?” I asked.

“You’re spending an awful lot of energy trying to convince yourself you don’t care. You’re attempting to put her into a box in your life she doesn’t deserve to be in, but you’re trying to do exactly that. You might want to figure that out, especially as I took out another two of The Grid today.”

This made me stop. “Two?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

I ran fingers through my hair. “Were they close?”

“They were looking for places to attempt a long-distance hit,” The Butcher said.

Okay, this made me pause. “That’s not taking her for organ donation.”

“There’s been a change. The Beast contacted me. It’s hunt to kill,” The Butcher said. “Ivan is on his way.”

“Fuck me!” I was getting angrier by the second.

Hunt to kill made this fucking harder. Anyone could try and attack the house. I had a lot of men in place, with a shit ton of experience, but they couldn’t always be there for a bullet.

I made my way toward my home, and just as I got to the bottom of the stairs, my cell phone went off. I didn’t even need to look to see it was Ivan.

“What?” I asked.

“You got the update.”

“Hunt to kill,” I said.

“There is nothing we can do to change it. I have discovered the brothers and they are currently in my and The Beast’s care. We will deal with them.”

“The father?” I asked.

“Still nowhere to be found. The fucking coward. The man will show up. Until then, The Butcher is making the arrangements for you and Freya to go to my private island,” Ivan said.

“A private island?”

“It is the only way you’ll be able to keep her safe. Hunt to kill is going to make it impossible to keep her alive. The Butcher is working on getting both of you out of there.”

“I can’t leave my territory with a bunch of fucking Grid here.” It would show weakness.

“You’re currently trapped within your own home. Let me deal with the few details. Your job is to keep Freya alive and put a child inside her,” Ivan said.

I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose. “What?”

“I told you, I want the next generation of Volkov Bratva babies, and the only way I am going to get them is by forcing you to do as you’re told.”

With that, Ivan hung up the phone, and I was pissed off. I gripped my phone tightly, but not too tightly. Why did this have to be so fucking hard?

Alone, on a private island. I didn’t even know if The Butcher was coming with us. The Butcher and my wife had gotten close.

I was so pissed off, but I didn’t let that detract me from what I had to do.

Making my way to my wife’s sewing room, I stepped inside, and sure enough, she was attempting to take the shelves down that I had made and put up on the walls.

She was red-faced from trying, and she wiped at her brow.

Her gaze landed on me, and she stopped, put her hands on her hips, and then glared a little more.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What am I doing? What are you doing?”

“I’m taking down your gift. You didn’t want to accept mine, so I have to stop accepting yours.”

“Stop!”

She growled and threw her arms up in the air. She looked so fucking cute doing that. I couldn’t help but smirk.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Like you are entertained with how this is turning out. This is not funny.”

“I am not laughing.”

Again, she glared at me, which I couldn’t help but laugh at. She was so freaking cute.

Freya shook her head. She had her hands on her hips, and I noticed how deflated her shoulders were. She looked so tired. I had caused this.

“I was wrong,” I said.

This made her jerk her head up.

I was not going to repeat myself.

“I should have accepted the quilt you made, and destroying it was wrong.”

“I worked really hard on that quilt,” she said.

I saw the tears in her eyes. “I know.” Staring at the floor filled with her fabric. “I won’t reject any of your presents again.”

“You won’t?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not used to this. I’m not used to having a woman in my house.” This made me sigh. I wasn’t going into details with her.

“This is new to me too.”

“I get that. We’ll work through it together. I get that you didn’t want to be married to me, but Ivan will not grant us a divorce. We’re going to have to make this work.”

Ivan wanted a kid, and I knew enough from the other Brigadiers to know there was no point in arguing. I had to make the best of this situation. I would do it, also knowing I would try to find any means of getting us our freedom.

“Okay,” Freya said. “So does that mean you’re going to stop yelling at me every time you see me?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “That would be good.”

“We also need to leave in less than two hours,” I said.

“What? Why?” She frowned.

“The threat to your life has just been upgraded and we can no longer stay here.”

“Where are we going?”

“A private island.”

****

F reya

I always figured not leaving my dad’s home was my choice. I never went on vacation or did anything so ... extreme. However, leaving Victor’s house was a real struggle. I didn’t want to leave the sanctity of my sewing room.

The Butcher came and helped me pack the items I would need for an extended stay. After leaving his home, I felt like my heart was going to rip right out of my chest. It didn’t. We made it to a private airport, where The Butcher actually flew us to the island.

All of this went down under the cover of darkness.

When we arrived, I didn’t get chance to see Ivan’s home.

We walked in, dumped our bags, and went to sleep.

The Butcher didn’t stay. She was heading back to the city, to help out with Victor’s territory.

She would stop by from time to time with an update.

Victor had the cell phone, but other than that, there was nothing. No other source of Internet. We were cut off. There was a television, but it didn’t have streaming channels. There was a large collection of DVDs there. I even spotted some old-school VHS tapes, which was surreal to me.

There was no way for the outside world to get in, other than if they flew, and no way for us to get out. We were surrounded by ocean, and I couldn’t help but think of all the big sea creatures lurking beneath, and that alone terrified me.

Waking up in the morning, the sun was shining, and there was a slight breeze coming in through the open window.

Staring at the curtains that blew back and forth, I watched them for several seconds before sitting up in bed.

The sheets beneath me were so soft and dreamy.

The bed itself felt like I had slept on a cloud.

Taking a deep breath, I thought about making the most of this time with Victor. The thought of my husband didn’t exactly fill me with joy. If anything, it did the complete opposite.

I didn’t know if it was possible for me to be happy.

We had a truce. But I didn’t know how this was going to work.

Running fingers through my hair, I rubbed at my face, trying to clear the last of the sleep from my brain. I could do this.