48. Valentin

FORTY-EIGHT

Valentin

B urning flesh is a smell that's going to be stuck up my nose for the rest of my life. I don't mind it, it's sickly but there's peace in the scent knowing each chapter of their little club is going to become ash. I have the sense to scrub my skin and hair making sure that the smell doesn't cling to me before I go back to my woman and kid.

Viktor runs to me as I enter our floor but he doesn't seem angry. His eye is still swollen, he smiles up at me and pauses.

"Need a hug?"

I nod and he allows me to pick him up. He has his own motivations for doing it because he lays his head on my shoulder and whispers, "I'm going to stay with Nessa, she's sad because Vlad's not here. I'll take her to the horses."

He never tells me when he's sleeping on another floor, and I kiss his cheek. "Okay little man, no riding though."

He nods as I put him back down. The independence he has is annoying as fuck. He should be clingy and holding my t-shirt, instead he walks away to comfort an adult when he's a child. He must have inherited his emotional range from a stranger because there's no one who he's been around that has anything other than violence and cruelty.

I thought I'd become accustomed to my reduced lung capacity when he was a baby, but I don't think I ever will. There will always be something that he does that will knock the wind out of me. Fuck, I'm going to die if he ever moves out. Now there's two of them, both Dani and Viktor are responsible for keeping me alive and allowing me to breathe.

I go to my woman once our kid is out of sight and that fist around my lungs clenches. She tenses her shoulders to reduce the pressure on her back as she gets up from the bed. I soften my voice as I step fully into the room and ask, "How you feeling, baby?"

She doesn't look at me and looks around the floor searching for something. "Fine." She doesn't find it and audibly gulps before adding, "I'm going home."

I know she's hit her head, but the doctor said she didn't have a concussion just that she was in shock.

"Yeah? Where do you think home is?"

There's an edge to my voice despite how hard I'm working not to tie her ass up. She meets my eyes, and her defiance comes out.

"My apartment, where my things are."

She doesn't even have shoes on. She's dressed in my clothes, she doesn't need anything else. So, I dismiss it and gently hold her hips as I kiss the tip of her nose.

"You're funny."

I continue moving my lips around her face and kiss each mark on her skin with a promise that it will never happen again. But she presses the tips of her fingers to my chest and moves her head back.

"Did I make a joke?" she asks, voice hard and eyes narrowed.

My fingers tighten on her hips. "You better have because if you actually think you belong anywhere other than beside me you're crazy."

Her nostrils flare and she tries to push me away as I kiss her cheek and resist the urge to bite it. I love it when she's pissed, it's when she's the most truthful and she keeps attempting to push me away.

"Get out of my face, Val."

"Not happening. "

I press my lips to her pulse point, feeling her alive, breathing. She's such a liar and her fingers weaken against my chest.

"I don't want to be near you."

Bullshit.

Her pulse is humming under my lips, not because of lust but because of how hard her heart beats when we're together.

"Shame." I shrug. "I want to be near you."

She scoffs and spits out, "Are you a toddler?!"

I shrug and loosely band my arms around her lower back careful not to apply any pressure against her injuries.

"Everyone says I have tantrums like one."

She softens enough to return the embrace and I leave her neck to look at her beautiful face. Her voice lowers as she looks up at me.

"Why are you being weird?"

Is she fucking crazy? Or is she doing it to purposefully piss me off. It's one or the other and I can't control my voice.

"I don't know Dani, maybe it has something to do with the fact my wife and kid were taken from me, and I finally found something I'm afraid of."

She latches onto the wrong part. "I'm not your wife."

My voice lowers as I look between her eyes and ask, "Is there something so wrong with being mine that you constantly run away? I told you I'm not blaming you for shit, I've promised to give you everything you want, you kissed me first and I told you the truth that I'm going to marry you one day. But all you do is keep turning me down like I'm some piece of shit that's beneath you."

My sweet Dani softens, and sadness radiates from her. I know she's in pain physically and I pick her up so there's no strain on her bruised leg. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I don't let her leave my arms as she straddles my thighs and holds my face with both hands.

"Your son is my nephew, that's what's wrong. I'm not going to expect you to apologize, I don't want you to. It hurts, and it wasn't your fault. But it doesn't change the facts."

Fucking finally.

It has finally sunk into her pretty little head that I'm not going to apologize for shit. But I correct her.

" Our son. That bitch was just an incubator. "

Her bottom lip wobbles and I know I'm right. She's only hurting herself by denying it. I kiss her quivering lip and soften my voice.

"I'm a lot of things. I've fucked up with you both, but I will never take back a single thing that have you or Viktor in my life. You want to hate me? Do it while you're sleeping in my bed, wearing my chain and ring, and letting me love you openly. I don't give a fuck. But if you try to leave, it will just make it harder because I will drag you back kicking and fucking screaming if I have to."

She wraps her arms around my neck and lies so sweetly.

"I hate you for making me love you and forcing me into your shit. I always wanted a simple life and you're the complete opposite."

She's forgetting something and I push my hands into her sweats to hold her ass because I can't hug her without touching her back.

"You came into my life yourself. I would have found you if Tali didn't bring you home, but he did. And you don't want simple, you want me consumed and obsessed with you. You love knowing you own me, that you've had me in the palm of your hand since you were ten years old. You know that all those times you were lonely and had to scribble your thoughts in your sketchbook would never happen with me. I wouldn't allow you to be alone."

She scoffs and brings up my fuck up. "Yeah, is that why you were fucking anything that looked in your direction?"

"I'll apologize for that. I shouldn't have. I should have waited for you, but I was a dumb fuck who used anything to hurt everyone that made you feel like shit."

"Oh, so you fucked my bullies to make me feel better? How nice of you. Let me know when I can do the same."

My fingers flex against her ass and I fall back so she has to look at me. I can't be rough with her because she's hurt but it takes over my vocal cords.

"Try it and I'll burn them alive. Answer me honestly, does the thought of anyone being close to me piss you off? Not the past, I'm talking about now."

Dani is a head fuck; she's just admitted that she's mine. She can hate me all she wants but there's love mixed in with it too. Yet she continues to argue with me.

"That doesn't mean anything. "

"Yes, it does. You fuck with my head, you make me fucking crazy, you're the first person I never wanted to hurt, it is only you and Viktor who naturally have that care. Everyone else, I have to make a choice. There isn't one with you, I adore you, I need you and yeah, I've fucked up but so have you. You left me and I forgave you."

"After punishing me for it," she mumbles.

"I seem to remember you enjoying the punishment."

"You only want to fuck me."

"I want to worship your body because it holds everything of the woman I love. I want to fuck you so we can have another kid. I need to fuck you because it's the only way for me to be a fraction of the depth inside of you that you're in me. You think I don't love you? Ask me for anything other than leaving me and I'll give you it."

She finally relents and lays her head on my shoulder. Her voice is softer and makes patterns on the side of my neck with the tips of her fingers. "Okay tell me something true, something no one else knows."

I give her my biggest secret and something that was always meant to die with me on a whisper. "I thought about running away when Viktor was a baby. I was tired and since the first moment I knew he existed there's been this band, a fist, inside my chest stopping my lungs from fully inflating."

She softens as my voice lowers and I rest my forehead on hers feeling the same turbulent emotions as when he was a baby.

"He cried all the time when he was teething and I was a teenager. I didn't know shit, some nights I would take him to Vlad just so I could breathe. And others, I'd sit there planning a new life. One where he was looked after, and I was far away so I couldn't fuck him up. Vlad and Dima would've raised him, they were doing it in front of me anyway, so I thought about it, and I was invested in the plan enough to get fake papers with a new name. I know it makes me a shitty father, but the thought of me hurting him wasn't an option."

I'm not helping my case by telling her how dark those thoughts were. But I was lost, there's no regret over my decision to stay in my kid's life which just makes the shame of the thoughts that much deeper. I was going to abandon him, leave him and start a new life.

Soft lips brush my jaw with an equally gentle claim.

"You're a good dad, he loves you. "

I look down and correct her, "He treats me like a sibling because I was an idiot and I've let him do whatever he wants, I still do it now. Vlad had to teach me how to change his diaper, Dima potty trained him, and I copied the instructions he showed me. I was just there doing dumb shit to make him laugh because every time he cried it was like someone was stabbing me."

"How is that a bad thing? He knows you'll always be there for him, that he can ask or tell you anything and you won't abandon him."

The way she says it makes it a positive when I know the next kid we have is going to be raised differently. That shit isn't fair on Viktor, he's my first kid and he should have gotten the best too.

The elevator pings and Dani lifts off me so I can check who it is. I don't expect to see Viktor walking towards me with his eyes closed and my heart cracks at the unease in his voice. "Dad?"

I lower my voice and walk towards him. "Yeah, what's wrong?"

He shakes his head and squints. The color has gone from his face and he winces with each movement.

"Nothing, I don't feel good, can we watch movie?" I pick him up and I know he's bad when there's no heat in his voice. "I can walk."

Pressing my cheek to his temple to test his temperature, I make circles on his back. "I know you can, I just miss when you were little, and you'd sit on my shoulders everywhere I went."

He smiles but doesn't open his eyes as I walk into my room.

"I remember that. You'd let me fall asleep there too and you wouldn't move until I woke up."

I hum and sit back against the headboard as I fully relax and dim the lights. "You'd drool in my hair, it was better than you pissing on me though."

Dani's face melts and she just blinks up at me as she lays on her side while Viktor gets defensive.

"I don't drool."

He taps the back of my head lightly, so I keep making circles on his back. "You do, I have to swap your pillow out in the middle of the night because it's full of spit."

His eyes are still closed but he's not tired as he issues a threat.

"The next time you need a hug I'm not going to do it and you can hug the spit pillow. "

My phones buzzes and Tali's message comes through, forcing me to split my time.

Tali:

Inessa just threatened to shoot me if I don't let her go look for King Crazy ??

If I lock her in her room do you think she'll actually do it?

She's got shit aim but crazy women can get superhuman strength, right?

I think she's going to get Ana to do it, they keep whispering to each other. Is she a good shot? I've only ever seen her with a knife

I kiss his head and lay him down beside Dani. "Pick a movie little man, I need to help Tali with something."

He sits and slowly opens his eye. When he sees Dani, he smiles and ignores me. "You want to watch a movie with me Dani?"

She nods and speaks gently, "Yeah, maybe something that isn't loud though."

Fuck, my heart grows ten sizes watching them together like they should be. My family is complete, and I know my son. He's the only person both intelligent and manipulative enough to get Dani to admit the truth.