49. Dima

FORTY-NINE

Dima

E veryone's whispering is pissing me off.

"Do you know who her mother is?" Tali asks in the corner of the waiting room.

Val shrugs at his brother's question and he turns as if that stops anyone from hearing him.

"I don't even remember him being around anyone when we were kids. I thought he was a virgin when he married Inessa."

Fucking idiots, both of them are dumb fucks. My shoulder burns as I remove the shitty sling and throw it in the seat beside me. If they hit me in the chest, I would have happily died if she was kept safe.

Inessa walks into the shitty family room and gives me the weakest smile in existence. She keeps her voice low as though disturbing the air can tip the scales of fate.

"You can go in. I took the gun off him, but I don't know if he has another one."

Dumb and dumber stop their whispering and I stand like a robot, forcing my feet to move slowly rather than the run they want to. The warning was necessary because Vlad already has a weapon pointed at me as he sits by my hellion's side with his chin by her ear. He's taken the only seat, but I need to stand to feel less useless.

He doesn't shoot me as he continues staring at her, and his voice is low, yet holding the same violence.

"You don't love her. If you did nothing would have stopped you from sitting with her. You're weak and you stayed away."

The first person that hears those words from me is laying in the bed, it's not going to be said to him to try and prove myself when his opinion doesn't mean shit to me. I still dispel any notion that I would ever leave my hellion in case she can hear me.

"No, I didn't come in because she doesn't deserve to be around anything negative. Also, if you shoot, what do you think happens to the oxygen tank beside you?"

He doesn't move back as he remains unblinking, staring at her eyes.

"This is the last time you'll be around her," he says as though anyone gives a fuck about what he has to say.

"Not happening. It's her decision not yours."

My refusal seems to get his attention and he smugly sits back as he keeps his gun on his knee.

"I knew you didn't love her. You'd leave her either way when she deserves the best. Not someone who wouldn't fight for her or can't even fucking protect her."

He's an obtuse prick and I lower my voice to prevent my hellion hearing our argument.

"I'm not going to betray her confidence, even though she tells everyone about her life, but she hasn't been given a choice. In anything. So, if you make her choose and I'm not the one she picks, I'll respect it because it is her choice. Not because of you or anyone else."

He assesses me and loosens his hold on the weapon. His voice is strange as he stares me out. "You'd leave the Bratva?"

"Yes."

"You'd stay by her side even though I'll kill you?"

"Yes."

"Would you die for her?"

"I tried, but she's too stubborn and wouldn't allow me to."

He opens his mouth to try and find another point to prove my worthiness, but I cut him off.

"I don't give a fuck whose daughter she is, or what anyone says, the only person who can make me walk away is laid in this bed."

"You don't even say her name, it's Vanya," he argues something pointless. "Not her, or she, or woman. It will always be Vanya."

"To you. If you want me to make some bullshit promise to you, it's not going to happen. The only person who deserves an oath is the woman who has full control of my life. She might be your daughter but?—"

"She is."

"Like I said, she might be your daughter, but she is my everything. You don't scare me, you never will, she does. And when she opens her eyes and chooses a name that she wants to be called, whether it's Ana, Vanya, or fucking Princess Appleknees the Third, that is what I will call her."

He stares at her with a soft smile and corrects, "Princess Olive Appleknees the Third." Before looking back at me and standing. "Good, I hope she slits your throat instead of her own."

I'd happily lay my head on a block for her which is what he doesn't understand. I wouldn't run from her like he did to his wife, I would never abandon her or allow anything to come between us unless it's what she needed because she has never been given the simple respect of an option.

He has blood all over him and it's clumped his hair together, so I say, "Go shower and change, she doesn't need them fuckers around her anymore."

It makes him move and he rounds the bed to stop beside me.

"If anything happens to her again, I'm holding you personally responsible."

A scoff works up my throat and I look him in his eye as I let him see my hate.

"I was ready to give my life for her revenge, so she could have peace, but she's even more stubborn than you. She has your worst trait times a hundred. That whole sacrificial demon persona you have where you refuse to allow anyone to help you is the reason she's laying here, because she wouldn't allow me to do what I needed to, so if you want to blame someone, blame yourself."

He hardens but I can't stop my anger.

"I fucking detest you for passing it on to her because I would die a thousand deaths as long as she was safe and happy. I have never once broken the promise I made to you for helping Katya, I fucking helped you raise your brothers so you could chase that bullshit power you needed, but I would burn it all to the fucking ground for my woman. And now look, all that power, the fear you instill in people, does it fucking mean anything?"

"Fuck you," he grits.

"Fuck me? For what, being fucking truthful?" I turn, facing him fully and the latch on my anger has disappeared along with any sense of duty. "I might have been afraid of you when I was a boy, then I came to respect you because you were doing the same shit as me — raising your siblings. But all of that? It's fucking gone."

Dried blood flakes off his head, littering the floor at his feet, as he scrubs his hand through his hair.

"You don't know shit." He shakes his head and if my woman didn't have dreams of having a family, I'd kill the prick.

I step back to the edge of the room and soften my voice as he follows. "I can figure out the circumstances she came into this world, I'm not a dumb fuck, but this shit isn't my fucking fault. The same way that it isn't yours. It's that bitch who had her, so direct your rage at Yulia instead of me. But nothing you do will take my woman from me, even if you kill me I'll patiently wait for her in any dimension or plane."

I ignore the anger that's being directed at me as I sit vigil at my hellion's bedside. Vlad can fuck himself with a rusty blade before I leave her. I've read her chart after each rotation and it's all bullshit vitals while we beg her to open her eyes. It's even more fucked up that this is the most at peace she's ever been, there are no nightmares tormenting her or memories pulling her back.

Hearing the doctors try and say she's lucky is bullshit. She pushed a knife into her neck without a fucking care for her own life, but she didn't slide it across, because my woman wants to live. She'll live and have to wait to be able to get the tattoo she wants and it'll cover the scarring, so we'll never relive this shit again.

As though she can hear my internal thoughts, my hellion murmurs and her heart rate changes as the drugs work their way out of her system. Standing so I have something to do, I grip her hand tighter while her dad opposite me strokes her hair.

"Open your eyes, solnyshkuh."

The cunt doesn't move away from her face, monopolizing all of her while I can only hold on to her hand.He can have this moment to reunite with the daughter no one knew he had because as soon as she's ready, we're leaving and I'm going to glue myself to her side.

It's enough to feel her pulse and I nearly fall on my ass when she slowly blinks, waking up with those beautiful eyes opening and fluttering closed straight away. I don't know how long it takes for my woman to fully come back but when she does the croak scrapes my gut.

"Dima?"

I can't speak as relief courses through me and squeeze her hand. She slowly turns her head towards me and sinks into the cushions.Slow-motion relief spreads across her face and I help her sit up so I can feel her against me. Vlad makes himself useful, pouring her a glass of water, but he's a prick, making her sit up in the bed rather than against me.

"Take small sips, solnyshkuh."

He increases the incline of the bed and I know he did it to make me move. Fucking petty asshole. The croak lessens but it's still present in her voice as she looks at me and asks, "Can I go home? I don't like hospitals."

Her father walks out on a mission to go bully whoever he needs and we're finally alone.

I gently sit beside her, and my entire body relaxes, having my woman back in my arms.Kissing the top of her head, I repeat the words she screamed over when she refused to hear my selfishness.

"I love you more than life."

Her head is resting on my shoulder, the dressing on her neck is exposed to the room, and there's no response as she drifts off back to sleep. She doesn't know that she was born into the most overbearing, needy family in existence, and she misses it as the room fills back up with every Vartanov.

No one tries to take her from me, and I keep my lips pressed to her crown. When she slowly wakes up again, she stares around the room, surprised at the faces. Tali is the first to speak and asks, "What do you want us to call you?"

When she doesn't answer, I whisper into her hair. "Vanya or Ana?"

She nuzzles into my chest, ignoring the way Vlad stares me out, and groggily says, "Not Ana, that was Yulia's name."

Everyone fills with rage at the mention of the cunt, I'm not telling Vanya that she's alive and it's the one thing that Vlad and I both agree on. Until she's back to fighting fit, Yulia will stay locked in the warehouse with nothing but her own piss and shit for company.

Inessa is the only normal person as she grabs Vlad's arm and winks at me before she looks up at him and softly asks, "I'm tired, can you take me home?"

His hand automatically goes to her bump, and he looks at Vanya in my arms as he issues his threat.

"If anything happens to her?—"

My hellion cuts him off despite her throat being sore as she hugs me tighter. "Go away, and don't talk to Dima."

Her eyes are closed so she doesn't see the reactions around the room and Inessa pulls her raging husband away.

Val and Tali don't leave, they wait until she's asleep to bitch in front of me like they're children again. The youngest starts and he just stares at his niece.

"Did you know he had a kid? She's only a few years younger than me."

Val shakes his head and then they both look at me. I keep my voice low, so I don't disturb my beauty as I say, "No one knew, don't ask too many questions."

It's not my place to tell them about the shit their parents made Vlad do and it doesn't take a genius to work out that's the reason he had a daughter when he was a child. I won't let the truth hurt my woman or mess with her head. As much as Vlad's a prick, he'll never do anything to hurt her either, unless Vanya tells me to kill him he's still family.

Val and Tali both nod and I gesture to the doors. "Make sure no one comes on this floor, they were talking to someone when they thought I couldn't hear them."

They both stand, losing the confused expressions, and without a dumb joke they leave to stand directly outside of the doors. As soon as the doors close, my hellion snaps her head up and stares around the room wide eyed. She relaxes when she sees me and drops back down to my chest, her cheek pressed against me as she mumbles, "You're not on Venus."

I pull the sheets tighter around her as I press my lips to her crown and hug her closer, careful to make sure there's no strain on her neck.

"No, lisichka. Neither are you."

She nods and gently strokes the tips of her fingers down my chest as she mutters, "Fixed you, not open." A small smile lifts her lips as she continues rubbing my chest. "Not melted, just mine."