Chapter 6
1016 Words
VIKTOR'S POV
I stood at the compound gates long after the taxi disappeared around the corner, my hands clenched into fists so tight my knuckles had gone white.
She is gone.
Isabella Volkov, the woman I loved more than my own life, the girl who'd looked at me with her storm-gray eyes full of trust and devotion is gone. And I'd driven her away with the cruelest words I could find, each one calculated to wound, to destroy, to ensure she'd never look back.
"I hope your fear keeps you warm at night, Viktor Konstantin."
Her final words echoed in my head, mixing with the memory of her tears, her broken voice, the way she'd looked at me like I was a monster.
I was a monster.
"Boss?" Alexei's voice came from behind me, careful and cautious. "She's gone."
"I know." My voice sounded dead even to my own ears.
"Do you want me to..."
"No." I turned to face him, and whatever he saw in my expression made him take a step back. "You don't follow her. You don't track her. You don't even speak her name. Understood?"
Alexei's jaw tightened. "Boss, with all due respect, she's nineteen years old and..."
"She's safer without me." The words tasted like ash. "Sokolov and every other enemy I have will use her against me if they know she means something. So she means nothing. She never did. That's the story. That's the truth."
"Is it?" Alexei asked quietly. "Is that the truth, Viktor?"
I want to hit him...to rage and scream and destroy everything in sight. Instead, I walked past him toward the compound, my footsteps heavy.
"It's the only truth that matters."
I made it to my bedroom before the control finally shattered. The vodka bottle went first, thrown against the wall with enough force to explode into a thousand glittering pieces. Then the lamp. The chair. The mirror.
Anything to drown out the sound of Bella's sobs that still echoed in my ears.
Anything to stop seeing the look on her face when I called her a child, when I told her she meant nothing, when I destroyed the light in her eyes with deliberate precision.
My knuckles were bleeding by the time Alexei forced his way into the room. I'd punched the wall so many times I'd left dents in the plaster, and red smears marking each impact.
"Enough!" Alexei grabbed my arm before I could swing again. "Viktor, ENOUGH!"
"Get out." I tried to pull away, but he held me firm.
"You're bleeding."
"I don't care."
"She's gone. Destroying yourself won't bring her back."
"GOOD!" The word tore from my throat in a roar. "She SHOULD be gone! She should run as far and as fast as she can and never look back!"
"Is that really what you want?"
I shoved him away, breathing hard. "It's what she needs. What I did...what happened last night...it can never happen again. She's Roman's daughter. She's nineteen f*****g years old. And I..."
"You love her," Alexei finished quietly.
"Don't." I pointed my bloody finger at him. "Don't say that. Don't even think it."
"Why? Because it's true?" He crossed his arms, studying me with those knowing eyes. "Because loving her makes you vulnerable? Because Sokolov taught you that love is a weapon your enemies can use against you?"
Elena's face flashed through my mind...a beautiful, laughing Elena, who'd loved me despite knowing what I was. Then Elena with a bullet hole in her forehead, her eyes still open but staring at nothing, and blood pooling on the pavement while I screamed my heat out.
"She died because of you, Viktor. Because you were weak enough to love her. Learn from this. Love makes you a target."
Sokolov's words, whispered over Elena's corpse five years ago.
"Love gets people killed," I said, my voice hollow. "Elena died because I loved her. Because Sokolov knew hurting her would hurt me. I won't let that happen to Bella."
"So you hurt her yourself first?" Alexei shook his head. "Viktor, that's not protection. That's cowardice."
My hand was around his throat before I'd consciously decided to move. I slammed him against the wall, fury burning through the numbness.
"Say that again," I growled. "Call me a coward again and see what happens."
Alexei didn't flinch or struggle. Just looked at me with pity.
"Bella already did. And she was right."
I released him and stumbled back, the fight draining out of me as quickly as it had come. He was right. She was right. I was a coward hiding behind noble excuses, pretending I'd pushed her away to protect her when really I was just protecting myself.
Because losing Bella would destroy me in a way even Elena's death hadn't.
"Find her," I said quietly.
Alexei rubbed his throat. "You just said..."
"I know what I said. But I need to know she's safe. I want a discreet surveillance only. She never knows about it. And if anyone...ANYONE...shows interest in her, if Sokolov's people or any other family starts sniffing around..."
"You want me to eliminate the threat?"
"I want you to burn them alive." I met his eyes, letting him see the monster beneath. "Anyone who touches her dies screaming. Understood?"
"Understood." He headed for the door, then paused. "For what it's worth, boss? I think you made the wrong choice."
"I know." I sank onto the edge of my destroyed bed, my head in my bloody hands. "I know I did."
The door closed, leaving me alone with my guilt and the ghost of Bella's perfume still clinging to my skin.
I'd done this to protect her. To keep her safe from my world, my enemies, the darkness that lived inside me.
But as I sat in my destroyed bedroom, with dried tears on my face and her absence like a physical wound in my chest, I couldn't escape one terrible truth:
In trying to protect Isabella Volkov from the monster I was, I'd become the monster who hurt her most.
And there was no redemption from that.
- Writer
