Page 35 of Nobody Wants Me (Volkov Bratva #5)

V ictor

I don’t know how The Butcher had found Freya, but she had. Running into that dark exit, at the unknown, I didn’t know what I would find.

Ivan was behind me, as was The Beast, but neither of them could stop me.

I heard the grunts, and something soft and feminine, and I charged toward the sound.

That was where I found Freya. Hands wrapped around her neck, she pressed her fingers against the man’s eyes as she tried to fight back, and the man screamed.

I didn’t wait. Pulling out my knife, I went to him and slid the blade right across his neck. He dropped to the floor, and I didn’t have time to hold back, as another came rushing through. With Freya at my back, I sliced my blade down as The Beast and Ivan joined us.

Two men came.

Three.

Four.

It was like they were never ending, but then there was another explosion and there was no time to waste. This cave was coming down. The Butcher had sent the explosion and had warned Ivan he only had a short amount of time to get here.

I didn’t wait, and grabbed Freya, cradling her in my arms as I ran.

She didn’t fight me, and I knew the fight had long since left her.

There was nothing there. She was almost weightless in my arms, and I was aware of the blood coating her jeans.

Freya had taken a beating. My wife, who had admitted on more than one occasion that she couldn’t stand pain, had taken a beating.

I didn’t know where The Butcher was.

My wife was all alone, and the walls had started to crumble as we ran out, and just as we made it out, a cloud of smoke, along with rocks and debris, hit me in the back, and I fell to the ground, holding Freya.

I held her, marveling at her in my arms, and I didn’t want to let her go.

I loved her so damn much. Silence fell between us, and then I don’t know, she pulled out of my arms and looked at the locked-up cave.

No one was getting in. No one was getting out.

I saw the helplessness in her eyes. She looked at that wall, and I knew The Butcher hadn’t made it out. She had sacrificed herself for my wife.

Freya gasped and I saw her hands clench, and then she charged forward, and tried to attack the stone and boulders, but it was no good.

“Baby,” I said, going to her.

“She’s in there, and she can’t be in there. She can’t be dead,” Freya said. “She ... saved me.” She sniffled, and then slammed her hand against the boulder. “No! I refuse to accept this. She can’t be dead. She can’t be.”

“She knew what she was doing,” Ivan said.

Freya turned to him. “No, no, that can’t ... she is a good person. She is ... so much more. This can’t be happening. No. This is not fair. She is a good person, and she doesn’t ... no, she came for me. She came for me, and she killed him, and ...”

“She’s gone,” I said.

Freya looked at me. “But I’m not worthy of that sacrifice. I’m nothing. I’m no one. She ... shouldn’t have done it.”

And I pulled her into my arms, she fell apart and sobbed.

I had never truly listened to heartbreak.

I had felt it from my mom and my sister, but I’d rather go through that pain again than listen to the pain my wife was feeling.

She was hurting. I didn’t want her to hurt.

All I wanted to do was protect her from what she was feeling.

The Butcher had saved my wife. She had died for her.

Looking at the boulders and rocks, The Butcher had known where Eric The Tool kept his bases. She had known every detail. I don’t even know how she had known, but Ivan had told me she had a score to settle. This was her settling that score, but it had come at too high a cost.

My wife was broken, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt, The Grid and the debt was over. And I had The Butcher to thank for that.

I don’t know how I was going to make this right for my wife. I only knew the pain was not over yet.

****

F reya

One Month Later

Wounds healed. Bruises faded over time.

But there was nothing for the mind. The mind was a cruel place to be. I hated mine more than anything in the world. I couldn’t stop replaying that moment as we were fighting to survive. The Butcher told me to go. She begged me to leave, and I ran.

Staring out across the frozen lawn, I’m aware of the gazes that stare at me. Victor had the house rebuilt and changed. Security was even tighter. The threat of The Grid was gone.

I don’t know the details and if I was honest, I didn’t care. I could go out in the garden, and I did, but I didn’t go to sit with Rafael, or to walk with him.

Instead, I sit on this bench, stare across the grass, and try to think. I try to understand what happened.

It all moved so fast. The Butcher came for me. She knew where Eric was, where he had taken me. I don’t know every little detail as to how she knew everything, just that she did.

Staring across that grass, I wondered if she was still alive. I had seen it in her eyes. She had known she was going to die, yet she had come for me anyway. Why had she done that? She deserved to live. I didn’t.

Ivan hadn’t left. The Beast also hadn’t left. For the past month, they had been at the house, doing whatever necessary.

Victor was always there for me. In the middle of the night when I woke up screaming, he was there, holding me. I needed his warm grip more than anything.

The Beast wanted a ceremony to honor The Butcher, but I couldn’t do it. Ivan also hadn’t allowed it. Neither of us could accept that she was dead.

At the sound of crunching grass, I turned to see the man himself, heading toward me.

I didn’t say anything. He didn’t need me to.

Brother and sister with nothing to say to one another.

It was kind of ... normal. We hadn’t really gotten to know each other.

There was nothing to really know. Our lives had crossed by some twisted shift of fate.

I was married to one of his men, of his choosing. There was nothing else to talk about.

“It hurts?” he asked.

I turned toward him. “Don’t you feel it?”

“In more ways than you can imagine.”

I looked at him. “Did you love her?”

“Not like that. She was a good woman. Complicated. Strong. She was ... feral.” He laughed. “She had my back all the time.”

“She didn’t deserve to die,” I said. “You should have made her stop.”

“No, there was no stopping her. Once she made the decision, she was coming to save you, but she knew we wouldn’t make it, if we all went in together. She did what was best.”

Tears filled my eyes. “She is so much better than me. She should have been the one to live.”

“Don’t,” Ivan said. “You do not honor her by saying stuff like that.”

“Honor her?”

“She died so that you could live. She loved you, Freya. You were a friend to her, and trust me, she did not have many friends. She did not trust easily, but she was willing to die to save you. That’s why she went in in the first place, to save you.

Do you think she would be happy with you right now?

Sitting around in the cold, catching your death, or trying to? Do you think she would want this?”

I hated the burn in my throat.

“The Butcher would accept that you are hurting. She would. She wouldn’t like it and I can guarantee she would hate what you’re going through, and probably tell you to fucking stop.

She made her choice, and now it is time for you to make yours.

Stop taking this life for granted. She died so you would live. So, live.”

“She’s not dead.”

Ivan looked at me, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I turned my body so I could stare into his eyes, and I just knew. “You don’t believe she’s dead?”

“Are you going to listen to me?” he asked.

“Tell me?”

“I have my suspicions,” he said.

“You’re like me, that’s why you won’t have a funeral for her.”

“I will not bury her without a body. If she is alive, I will find her, and when I do and she is dead, I will give her a place to rest,” Ivan said.

I threw my arms around him, because knowing he believed like I did that she wasn’t dead, meant everything in the world. She couldn’t be dead. I refused to believe she was.

“Now, there is a man who misses you and is desperate to know his wife is okay,” Ivan said. “I suggest you go to him.”

I nodded my head. I’m not exactly sure, but I suddenly felt excited, like all my feelings were entirely justified. The Butcher was not dead. I believed it right through to my soul.

Ivan was not going to give up. The Butcher had earned that.

Getting to my feet, I walked across the lawn, wrapping one of the quilts I had made around myself, and made my way toward the main house, toward an uncertain future. Toward my husband.

I stepped over the threshold, and a strange sensation came over me. Like I was entering another part of my life. Sealing off the past. Throwing that behind a closet within my mind that was completely locked away and would not be allowed to see the light of day.

I knew where my husband was going to be, and I walked to the doorway of his office.

He stood by the fire. Winter held our territory within its grip.

With everything going on, we hadn’t had time to enjoy Halloween or Christmas.

There had been no time for celebrations.

Not even the New Year. All we had been able to do was survive.

“This is cozy,” I said, stepping into the room.

Victor looked over at me, and there was a sad smile on his face.

“Yeah, it is.” He lifted a glass of amber liquid to his lips. “The last of the work was completed today.”

“That’s good,” I said and moved up close to him, while still holding the quilt.

I’d been back home for a month, and I hadn’t told him. The pain of losing The Butcher had been too much, and I realize now how selfish that made me. How cruel.

“I love you,” I said. The words just spilled right out of my lips as I looked at him.

Victor stared at me, and for several seconds, there was just silence. Neither of us spoke. It felt good to finally say them.