Page 29 of Nobody Wants Me (Volkov Bratva #5)

“So much has changed. I miss your home. I would give anything to go back there. Even have you shouting at me again, and me trying to avoid you.” She smiled.

I winced. “Yeah, that was not my finest moment.”

“No, it wasn’t, but we all do what we have to.” She sighed. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, I’m just, you now, trying to tell you what I would like. You know, I didn’t want you yelling at me when it happened, but now I’d give anything to go back to that time.”

“We will fix this,” I said.

“Victor, it’s been over four months. Longer than that if you include the time on the island. Six, seven months, and nothing has changed. You still had to kill someone today.” She sighed. “I’m afraid one day our luck is going to run out, and something bad is going to happen to you.”

“I won’t let it.”

“Victor, you can’t control everything.”

“You’re right, I can’t, because if it was me, I would go back home in a second, and I would kill every son of a bitch that came close.”

“Then why don’t you?”

I hadn’t heard The Butcher approach, but I did hear the unmistakable sound of a body thudding to the ground. I spun around and watched as The Butcher came out of the darkness.

“You just killed one of them?” I asked.

“Yep, she had been following you since you left the hotel,” The Butcher said.

Freya let out a squeal and rushed to The Butcher. I watched the two embrace. I had no idea how the two had become friends.

“I think Freya’s right, and what you just said is right,” The Butcher said.

“You do?” Freya asked.

The Butcher was looking at me. “Running like this is making us pretty stretched. If we put you back in Victor’s territory, it would make things a lot easier. Especially if you didn’t make a run for it. We could check the perimeter, and it would just be easier.”

“I thought this was easier for you?” I asked, looking toward The Butcher.

“It was, because it helped us check out other locations. Harris, right now, is gone. Ivan and I got a possible hot spot three weeks ago. It was close to Ivan’s island, but just as we were about to land, the whole place exploded, so we know Harris was there. He was on the move.”

“Wait, you’re saying Harris could have been close to us the whole time we were on the island?”

“That is a chance. Harris has private islands. We’ve been able to locate a couple of them, but he’s on the move, and with The Grid behind him, he is able to move a lot quicker than we like.”

I see this has pissed off The Butcher. Between The Beast and The Butcher, they were notorious for finding their targets. No one escaped their wrath. Yet Harris was proving to be a very trying target. I didn’t like it.

“There is only one clear choice right now. You go back home. You don’t fucking leave that house. Victor goes back to doing what he does best, and he leaves your protection detail to us,” The Butcher said.

“Us?” I asked.

“Me and The Beast.”

“I didn’t think you two worked together?”

“We do, when the occasion calls for it,” The Beast said, stepping out of the shadows.

Seeing the two of them together, they were like chalk and cheese, and yet I couldn’t help but admit they looked pretty damn good together.

I had seen them at Niamh and Peter’s house not too long ago, playing with the kids.

They had become a part of Ivan’s crew. It had surprised me how normal the two could react.

Both of them could stand out in a crowd and at the same time get lost in it.

I looked toward Freya, who actually seemed hopeful and even happy. It was the first time in a long time I had seen her this happy.

“Is this what you want?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Yes, it is.”

I looked toward The Beast and The Butcher, and knew I was done arguing.

“Let’s make this work.”

****

F reya

Three Months Later

I stared down at the stick in my hand, which shook.

We’d been having sex for a long time now, and each time hadn’t exactly caught.

I don’t know when that had changed, but I had felt a difference in my body.

Also, my latest cycle was late, and I was as regular as clockwork.

I also didn’t take the contraceptive pill.

Looking over the leaflet that came with the test I had asked The Butcher to sneak in for me, I glanced at the results.

This was positive.

I was pregnant. With Victor’s baby.

The last three months had been a whirlwind, but we were back in Victor’s home.

I was back to sewing whatever I wanted to sew.

Life was happening. I had moved into Victor’s bedroom.

He had also created me a spot in his closet, as well as bringing in the cabinet he had made for me. Everything was going great.

There were a few troubles. Nothing The Beast and The Butcher couldn’t take care of. They had become houseguests since our return. Ivan had accepted the suggestion of us returning home, although he had done so reluctantly. I couldn’t blame his reluctance. This was risky.

Members of The Grid still came, and I was still alive. I didn’t leave the house all that much. Just enough to stand with Rafael, but then either The Beast or The Butcher would move me along. I got to at least live a semblance of a normal life. I was not allowed close to the windows.

The Butcher would randomly come and ask me to move around the house.

They were constantly checking security to make sure they didn’t have any weaknesses.

So far, it was all working. Yet, I had a horrible feeling something bad was going to happen.

I had overheard Ivan telling Victor I had already survived longer than any other hit on The Grid.

I didn’t know if this was just plain luck, or if someone was pulling some kind of card, or what was happening.

Either way, I was still breathing, and now I was pregnant.

There was a knock at the door.

I did not take the test inside my and Victor’s bedroom. Instead, I went to my old room and used the bathroom there.

Opening the door, I saw it was The Butcher.

She looked at me and then down at my shaking hand. “Good news? Bad news?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“So, this is good news, right?”

“I don’t know what kind of news this is.” I felt my stomach twisting.

I started to pant.

“Okay, we’re in panic mode.” The Butcher grabbed my hands and moved me to sit on the edge of the bed. “It’s fine, Freya. Take some deep breaths. It is all good. You are fine.”

I took several deep breaths, feeling the tears fill my vision. She cupped my face and forced me to look at her. I just wanted to throw up. I was pregnant.

I had a mark on my back. I was as good as dead, and I was pregnant. How careless and selfish could I be? That was all that kept ringing in my head. I wanted to scream at everyone.

The man I had once called Father had done this to me.

What did I ever do to him? He was the one that had taken me from my mother.

Killed her, and kept me. I don’t know if he intended to use me as some kind of leverage or what.

Either way, I was in this situation and it was all his fault.

All of my life, I had hated him. Now, that hatred had a new passion.

I wanted to hurt him, make him suffer.

I could do none of those things, as I was pregnant with a mark on my life.

That was when I felt the hard slap right across my face, drawing me back from the edge of my panic attack. An explosion rang out at the back of my head, and I cried out.

“Ouch!”

The Butcher had slapped me right across the face, and she hadn’t been gentle either. It fucking hurt.

She shrugged. “You were panicking.”

“I’m not allowed to panic now?” I asked, wanting to touch my face because it really fucking hurt.

“No, you’re not allowed to panic or freak out. I think it is highly unacceptable.” She put her hands on her hips. “So, what we’re now going to do is come up with a game plan.”

“Game plan?”

“Ivan knows doctors and we’ll get one of those pregnancy doctors who can monitor you.”

This made me laugh, only it wasn’t an entirely entertained laugh. I was on the verge of hysteria. There was nothing about this situation that was funny. It wasn’t entertaining. It was damn scary.

“What’s so funny?” The Butcher asked.

“I can’t bring a baby into this world.”

“Sure you can.”

I shook my head. “No, that is insane and I am not going to do it. That is just crazy talk.” I put a hand to my stomach and The Butcher sighed.

“You know, women bring children into this world in all different ways. Not every option is a good one.”

Tears filled my eyes as I looked toward her. “I’ve got a death sentence,” I said.

The Butcher sighed. “And you have defied the odds. People are turning their backs on The Grid. The Beast and I are keeping them at bay. You have to trust us.”

“I do trust you guys. You know this, and I am so grateful for what you are all doing, but I’m pregnant. Don’t you think there has to come a point when we stop fighting? When we give up?”

The Butcher looked at me, and her hands moved from her hips to across her chest. “Fuck, no. You never give up. You never stop fighting. Not as long as your heart is beating and you’ve got air in your chest, you do not give up.

You keep fighting. You keep living, and you make sure those bastards regret even thinking about you. Do you understand me?”

Her expression was hard. She did not accept me giving up. She didn’t accept anyone giving up.

“Do you think this is the hardest situation I’ve ever been in?” she asked.

“What?”

She took a deep breath. “When I was a little girl, I lost everyone. My sister was taken from me. As were my parents.” She moved to sit beside me.

“I had absolutely no one. My dad had no other relatives. I had no grandparents that I knew of. But my mom had a brother. A man that no one spoke of at all. I didn’t even know I had an uncle, until someone received a letter.

It turned out my mother had strict instructions that in the event of her death, my sister and I were to be shipped off to my uncle.

The moment I entered my uncle’s world, The Butcher was born. ”

I had no idea she had a sister.

“What happened to your sister?”

The Butcher sighed. “The short time we were in foster care, she got taken. I would later learn that some of the people who worked the foster system found girls that matched certain descriptions, went to ... bad people. I should tell you this now, but you know that woman you talk about? That one you saw doing the sewing?”

I nod.

“That was my sister. Harris acquired her. She was trafficked from pimp to pimp, until Harris caught sight of her. She died at his hands.”

I looked at her, and I was shocked.

“You now know more than anyone else,” she said.

“Anyway, my uncle trained me. He saw my anger. My parents had been killed in a drug battle that had gone wrong. He told me the truth right from the start. I was a horrible little five-year-old brat, and he gave me a choice. He offered to find me a home, somewhere to go, or I could become one of the scariest women the world has ever known. Guess which one I chose?”

This made me smile.

“And so, I trained. Even when life got hard, he would not let up, even when I begged him for no more, he made me go another round. At the time, I hated his guts, but after I took that other round and got to my feet, he would pat me on the shoulder and congratulate me. I miss that man more than anything. He was a good man. Some people would say he was a monster for exposing me to this life. I thank him for it. I’m not a scared little girl worried about every single bump in the night.

He taught me that even when all is lost, you fight. ”

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“He kept fighting until the end,” she said. “He was killed, but even as he was dying, he had his weapon in his hand, and he kept fighting. With his final breath, he set off a grenade, killing all those that had tried to kill him.”

The Butcher sighed.

“Fight until the end, Freya. It’s all we can do.

This life is hard and it is fucking painful, and it will break us if we let it.

It is happy to keep us down in the dirt, and it doesn’t like those of us that keep rising and begging for more, but trust me, you keep rising up, and one day, no one will dare mess with you.

The Grid, Harris, they will all be a distant memory, and you will hold your son or your daughter and remember this day. ”

And with that, The Butcher got to her feet and left.