Chapter 13

Victoria

 

 

 

Every part of my body that could hurt, did.

I barely had the energy to get back into the compound and up to my room before I fell into bed and just laid there, staring at the wall. I knew I should have gotten up to check my blood sugar. At the very least, I needed a shot of insulin.

But I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I didn’t want a shot. I didn’t want to feel better. So what if the diabetes won this time? Who would care if I let my glucose levels get out of hand? Who would mourn me if I just gave up and let it take me?

Maybe it would put an end to this empty feeling in my chest. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have to wake up in the morning to the millions of shattered pieces that were my heart.

Maybe.

I didn’t know what time it was, and I really didn’t care. It hadn’t even been midnight when I had finally gotten back from Adrian’s apartment, and I had no sense of time passing. It could have been an hour, a day, or even a fucking year that had gone by. And still, I just stared at a spot on the wall.

It was free of pictures, but there was a smear in the paint, as if whoever had painted this room had stuck their hand in the paint by accident. I could almost make out the little swirls of his fingerprints. My eyes traced over it, counting every micro ridge.

Firm, but soft hands touched my arm. I barely paid my sister any mind as she took blood from the middle finger on my right hand then cursed at whatever number showed up on the meter she had just used to check my glucose levels. I didn’t feel the prick of the needle as she gave me a shot in my belly or even the feel of her hands as she stroked my hair back from my face.

I didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink. Just lay there, staring at the same spot on the wall.

My eyes began to feel heavy. Without realizing it, my lids lowered and sleep consumed me …

The sound of birds singing outside my window pulled me out of a deep, dreamless sleep. I laid there for a long while, the events of the day before pressing down on me like hundred pound weights. I hadn’t closed the blinds or the curtains the night before and now the sun was streaming through, brightening the room as if every light was on.

My head felt fuzzy and ached like I had a hangover. The hurt in my chest made me feel hollow, but as it all came back into focus, I grew angry at myself for the way I had let everything pull me down the day before.

This was my fault. I had let a guy get too close and attach himself to something vital within me.

I couldn’t blame anyone but myself.

As the anger grew, I remembered how I hadn’t cared if I had died the night before. How I had wanted to give up on everything and everyone, screw the consequences because I wouldn’t have been around to deal with them. That was the coward’s way out.

I did have people who would mourn me. My twin would have been left feeling only half-alive without me, just as I would feel without her if something took her away from me. And Cristiano … Fuck, I couldn’t leave my brother behind. He was a hardass, yet I knew he loved me more than life itself.

I rolled over in bed, only just then realizing that Scarlett must have tucked the covers up around me after giving me an insulin shot the night before. My fingers tangled in the softness of my comforter, my anger growing into rage.

And the real icing on the cake?

I had let Adrian see me at my lowest. Had let him see just how broken he had made me.

Fucking fuck, fuck.

I couldn’t let this bring me to my knees, even if that was where I had been the night before. I was made of stronger stuff than that.

For the first time, I actually wanted to be more like my mother. Everyone had always assumed I was just like her, but they didn’t understand that I had tried so hard not to become like her darker side.

Whenever Aslinn’s rage was sparked, it produced more than just fireworks in my mother. I had heard the horror stories. Like how she had planted a bomb in a pregnant woman’s car when she had thought the woman had been flirting with my father. Or the time a friend had reneged on a friendly bet that Aslinn had won, and she had burned her friend’s house down as payment instead.

Right then, in that moment, I wanted to embrace the darkness that was my mother’s legacy to me. I wanted to make Adrian Volkov, the wolf of the Russian crime world, hurt as he had made me hurt. As I still hurt.

I wanted to tear his heart—his fucking soul—from his body and feed it to his wife. Everything he held dear, I wanted to destroy.

Forcing myself out of bed, I walked into the bathroom. After checking my glucose levels then giving myself a shot of insulin, I showered. The water was hot, but I welcomed it, imagining it scalding away the imprint of Adrian’s touch. As steam lifted from my skin, I pictured the mark he had left on my body, proclaiming me as his, fading into the air with it.

My face had never needed makeup more than it did that morning. My concealer was needed in abundance with the dark circles that made my eyes look bruised. Eye drops helped with the redness, and I had a special, and very expensive, serum to help with the puffiness from where I had cried so much the day before.

By the time I was done, my face didn’t reveal the tolls the events of the day before had taken on me. My face looked young, refreshed, but the smile I normally wore was long gone. I didn’t think it would ever grace my face again.

Adrian had killed something inside me with his lies, his games that he had sworn repeatedly the night before he wasn’t playing. I hadn’t believed him.

I wasn’t going to believe a word that came out of his lying, cheating mouth ever again.

I dressed in one of my newer outfits, a gray dress that had a lace overlay. I smoothed silky, thigh-high stockings over my legs and pinned them in place with a garter belt. A new pair of open-toed heels completed the outfit.

When I looked at myself in my floor to ceiling mirror on the back of my closest door, I had to admit, I looked hot. However, I took no satisfaction in my appearance.

For a single moment, I simply stood there, examining myself closely. Was there something in my appearance that suggested to the world that I really was brainless? That I was an airhead who would allow anyone to play with my emotions and turn me into something as degrading as a man’s mistress?

I clenched my teeth and shook my head, my sweet smelling and perfectly styled hair falling over my shoulders. It didn’t matter if I appeared like that or not. No one was ever going to make me feel that way again. No one was ever going to get close enough to even try.

I picked one of my favorite purses, a metallic silver handbag that I easily put all the things I needed inside with room to spare. My insulin and glucose meter, extra syringes, and a few packets of alcohol swabs that I knew I would need were on top so I wouldn’t have to search the deep bag for them later. Pulling the strap over my shoulder, I grabbed my phone, ignoring the full-screen of alerts to missed calls and messages, and left my bedroom.

Downstairs, I told my usual security detail that I was leaving after I had breakfast, and then I walked away before they could so much as nod. I knew they would get the car ready and be waiting when I left the house.

Papa and Cristiano were in the dining room, their murmured voices ceasing when I entered. I didn’t pay either more than a flicker of a glance as I went over to the long buffet and poured myself a coffee before sitting at the table with them.

“Going out, sweetheart?” Papa asked as he pushed away his empty breakfast plate.

“I have a few meetings with my charities, Papa. We’re organizing a get-together at an art gallery to raise money to help provide inner city children with iPads for school,” I told him without looking his way, instead turning my attention to the platters of food set out on the table.

There was bacon and sausage, eggs three different ways, buttery croissants and toast, even a few fruit-filled pastries that my brother preferred. I took a slice of toast, buttered it lightly, and then nibbled on it between sips of coffee. I could feel both his and Cristiano’s gazes on me, trying to read me, but my face was completely emotionless. That in itself was cause for their concern.

I was normally so happy in the mornings. Hell, all the time really. Scarlett had once likened me to some Disney princess who sang so gaily the birds would fly through my open window and perch on my finger.

Right then, there wasn’t a single drop of happiness inside me.

“Are you feeling okay, tesoro?” Papa asked with concern darkening his eyes.

“I’m fine. Really,” I assured him when both he and my brother continued to watch me.

Wiping my mouth with a linen napkin, I stood then walked around the table to kiss first my father then Cristiano on the cheek. “I’ll see you both later. Play nice.” I tried to smile down at them, but my face felt tight and ready to break from the pressure of using muscles that didn’t want to work.

Ignoring their continued frowns, I grabbed my purse and headed out.

As I left the dining room, my phone went off with an incoming text. I didn’t bother to pull it from my bag as one of the guards opened the front door for me. I felt like a robot as I descended the front steps then stepped into the already waiting car.

The drive into the city was quiet. Neither of my guards spoke to me, and I was perfectly okay with that. I pulled my phone out of my bag, ignoring the newest message alerts, and pulled up my emails. My emotionless mask tried to break when I saw that I had another email from my grandmother, but I didn’t open it. I knew if I did, I was going to once again be lost in the pain that had tried to destroy me the night before.

I had other emails that needed my attention, and I quickly dealt with the ones that involved my charities. I sat on the board of several of the charities and was supposed to attend a meeting for the one I had told Papa about. I didn’t want to go, couldn’t find the pleasure that I usually felt when I got to contribute to such a worthwhile cause, but I knew if I didn’t, my father would be upset.

Emails weren’t the only thing I used my phone for on the drive into the city, also doing a background check on Adrian. I had googled him the day we had met, but that was all. I should have done more, should have covered every base. But even as I moved through one digital back door to another, I found very little. Mostly just the basics: his birthday, what part of Russia he was from—St. Petersburg—and the few businesses he owned that he wasn’t a silent partner in. He had a lot of small businesses. Just like Papa.

There was a brief article on his arrest, and then his sentencing from some bullshit murder rap that even I could see was a setup, yet there was nothing about him being married, not even a marriage license on file. There wasn’t a single trace on the internet that even suggested he had a wife. Hell, there was barely anything about his family, other than what little I had already found out about Anya the day I had first met him.

It was frustrating, but I really wasn’t expecting to find much. Hoped, sure. Expectations weren’t hope, though. They were reality, and the reality right then was that Adrian Volkov worked hard to keep his private life private.

I knew I could have asked Ciro for the information since he was the one who had found it out for Scarlett. At the same time, I knew if I asked him, then he would tell Scarlett, and I didn’t want to pull her into this more than she already had been. I could have asked Cristiano, but then he would want to know why I needed information about a man he had warned me off in the first place. He would spend hours scolding me, but in the end, I knew what would happen.

He would kill Adrian.