Page 17 of Nobody Wants Me (Volkov Bratva #5)

V ictor

The generator kicked in as soon as the electricity went out. Ivan did think of everything. I can’t believe I lost my temper with him, and Freya heard the conversation. She wasn’t supposed to hear anything.

Damn it. I was just being a little bitch.

I wanted to be back in my territory, defending it.

I wanted to be the one to kill the fucking Grid, for daring to accept a reward for the death of my wife.

I’m not used to being cast onto a beautiful deserted island, just sitting on my ass doing absolutely nothing.

This is not who I am. Never did I sit around waiting for shit to happen, and it was pissing me off to do so now.

“Do you think it will pass over?” Freya asked.

I don’t know if she even realized she had been screaming with her sobbing.

It had been heartbreaking to watch. Seeing the look of pain and anger, and .

.. I don’t know what else. There was a lot going on in Freya’s head.

Shit I didn’t even understand, and from what she yelled at me, I know I had caused a lot of her grief, and that made me feel like a piece of shit.

I didn’t want to hurt her, and yet the irony was, I tried to keep my distance.

Once again, when it came to my wife, I had fucked up.

I didn’t know how the other Brigadiers did it.

They were all happily married, but I didn’t know if they had fucked up, even just a little.

Women hadn’t been important to me. Not since my mother and sister.

Sure, I loved to play and fuck, and there had been plenty of women who liked to do exactly that.

It had been a long time since I did that.

I was not going to step out on my wife. Our vows meant something. I had given my word to Freya. It was fucked up, even in my own head, because I had promised to love, honor, and cherish her, yet I hadn’t done either. I’d been fucking cruel.

Freya was sitting on one of the sofas, holding onto one of the pillows. She looked terrified.

“You don’t like storms?” I asked.

“I’m not a fan.”

I nod. I didn’t care about storms. Moving in close to her, I sat down and she tried to wriggle away, but I wrapped an arm around her, stopping her.

“You can fight me all you want, but you’re not going to fucking win. Stop being a pain in the ass, and let me comfort you.”

She opened her mouth and I don’t know why, but I felt she was going to have some wiseass statement.

“Shut the fuck up, and just accept that I can help you right now,” I said.

This silenced her. And for that, I was fucking grateful.

She sunk against me, but I also felt how tense her body was. She clearly didn’t want to be close to me. I didn’t care, at least that is what I told myself. Holding onto her, I felt her tense with every rumble of thunder. I didn’t mind the storm.

It felt good to hold Freya, even if she would prefer to kick my ass than let me hold her. I didn’t stop. Stroking her arm, I felt this sense of calm wash over me. It felt good. And then, I started talking.

“To show my loyalty to Ivan Volkov, I had to kill my father,” I said.

“But I didn’t care. There was no love between my father and me.

I was just the son that could get the job done.

His heir who he was training to take his place one day, anyway.

He wasn’t a good dad. I had a mother and a sister, and Ivan showed me a tape.

My dad had a temper, now I thought he saved that anger for me.

I was happy to take it. After all, this is what I was training for—to be able to handle pain, to withstand anything that was thrown at me.

Only, my dad didn’t just hit me. He killed my mother and my sister.

Beat the shit out of them, and it was caught on camera, and what was worse, he lied about it.

He told me there had been a break-in. Had me running around in circles trying to find a ghost that wasn’t there.

My mother and sister were two of the sweetest people you could ever meet.

I don’t know how she ended up married to my dad, but she did. That’s what killed her.”

I stopped, taking a breath. Even though it had been many years since I saw that damn video, and I only saw it one time, I could see it playing right now, as if I was seeing it in the flesh.

My mother begging, trying to stop him from beating my sister.

They were no match for his rage. He killed them and didn’t stop.

A couple of guards were killed at the same time.

“Why are you telling me this?” Freya asked.

“I made a vow to myself,” Victor said. “I would never get close to any other woman ever again. I couldn’t save my mom or my sister, and both of those women were innocent.

They did not deserve to die, but my dad killed them anyway.

This life is not a good one. I’m not a good man.

I will not hurt you, Freya, but I also will not fall in love with you. I won’t.”

Silence met my declaration. I expected her to pull away from me, to talk about us telling Ivan.

“Okay,” she said. “But you’ve got to stop yelling at me. I can accept that you won’t love me. No one ever has and I don’t expect anyone to start now.” She licked her lips. “But, unless you tell me Ivan will magically allow us to go our separate ways, our marriage will stand, right?”

I nodded my head.

She pressed her lips together. “So, how about we learn how to be friends?”

“Friends?”

“Yeah. We don’t have to have a marriage based on love, but we could at least be friends. I don’t want to be married to a man I hate.”

“We need to have kids...”

This made her nose wrinkle. I really had been a piece of work on our wedding night.

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” I said.

“Victor, I don’t think ... maybe you could, like, do it into a cup, and then I somehow insert it into my vagina.”

I accepted that my ego needed to take a beating. After all, I had hurt her. This was the punishment I was being given.

“No,” I said. “I want you to ... let me have sex with you.”

She frowned.

“In time,” I said. “I’m not saying right this minute, but if I can get you to trust me, then I can finally show you that sex can be good between us.”

I couldn’t believe I was having to negotiate this. This was my fuckup. Not hers.

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure, but I guess, I don’t know, it might be easier than me trying to do it myself.”

“It will be much, much better, that I promise you,” I said.

“Then we’re in agreement?” she asked.

I don’t know how we had been able to get ourselves to this point, but I was actually thankful. Freya was not a bad woman.

She was right. We were going to have to make this work, and the only way to do that was as friends.

****

F reya

“Victor’s back home?” I asked.

“Yes, just for a few days, and you get my charming company,” The Butcher said, sitting her ass on the sofa. “Nice. Ivan knows how to pick a good seat.” She gave a little wriggle.

The Butcher had come to take Victor back to the main city and then returned. She wasn’t saying anything else. We were in Ivan’s home, and I didn’t know what to say.

During the storm, which lasted a couple of days, Victor and I .

.. got closer. We were not in love. I got the message loud and clear.

He had no intention of ever loving me, and that was fine.

More than fine. I could accept not being loved by him.

But what I couldn’t accept was spending the rest of my life hating him.

Hate was an awful emotion and a terrible feeling.

So, against all the odds, we somehow spent the last couple of days in peace. It was unexpected.

The storm terrified me, and as a result, Victor wouldn’t allow me to sleep alone.

I ended up sleeping with him and waking up in his arms. That was a new feeling.

Also, I happened to feel his morning erection.

He told me he could make sex good, but I did have doubts about that.

Sex was not going to be good, I mean, like, ever.

I didn’t believe him, but at least we were friends.

Now, Victor had gone back to “real life,” and I was still here, alive but alone with The Butcher, who was still wriggling her ass against the furniture, which made me smile. I had missed this woman. Even though I didn’t know anything about her, not even her name, I liked her.

“This is like making love to my ass,” The Butcher said.

“You’re partial to a comfy seat?”

“Life is way too damn short to settle for anything less.” She let out a sigh. “I have got to get me one of these.

Rather than stand awkwardly and watch her, I dropped into the seat beside her and sunk against the comfort of the sofa.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m stranded on a deserted island, because a bunch of people I don’t know are trying to kill me. Good times.”

The Butcher patted my leg. “It will all be good.”

“How is everything back home?” I asked.

“Good,” The Butcher said.

“Just good?”

“Do you want me to go into detail about people I killed?”

“So, you have killed people?”

“Yep,” The Butcher said.

“How can you be so calm?”

“Easy, I’ve killed a lot of people, and if I didn’t kill them, they would eventually kill me.” She shrugged. “It’s the damage that happens in this line of work.”

“How did you learn?” I asked.

“I had a good teacher.”

“They taught you how to kill?”

I turned to look at The Butcher, and she glanced at me. I wish I could read her expression, but it was like she was completely blank. This woman was a master at everything. There was nothing I could do to even come close to competing.

“They taught me how to take care of myself. I’m who I am today, because of them,” she said.

“Do you think you could teach me?” I asked.

“To be like me? Hell, no.”