CHAPTER 54
CHRISTIAN ‘VICIOUS’ VOLKOV.
Death is fickle. Always has been to me. Always will be.
My body stings like a bitch, breathing doesn’t come easy either as I inhale a dose of fresh fucking air and the whole wide world raises a middle finger to my face at the irony.
Bullet wounds didn’t kill me.
Shrapnel to the shoulder, one that cut through me like Swiss cheese and made me bleed like a dying dog but it didn’t kill me.
Now a bomb should have.
From the impact, the collision, the precise way it was set. And it was set to burn me to death alright.
I felt the fire. I smelled my charring skin. It was the smell of bacon, like a pig with an apple in its mouth being slowly roasted over a pile of fire.
And I should have died.
Yet…
Beeping machines radiate dancing sounds that echo from one room to the other, some heart machine adds to the unbearable rhythm by my left and the whole shebang that comes with hospitals hits me all at once.
The medicinal smell. The beeping machines. The light that’s too damn bright for my liking. The flowers smell awful and the ‘get well soon’ cards.
I never did like hospitals.
Maybe it was dear old daddy’s fault. Or maybe it was my moral code altogether.
Takers weren’t healers.
Murderers didn’t taint sectors meant to maintain lives.
The white crisp ceiling stares at me from above and from the decor and everything else, they tell me I’m in the best hospital money has to offer.
Yet with the best mansion money has to offer, someone snuck a bomb in my house.
Someone planted a bomb under my men’s noses and Juana died.
I remember her haunting cries. I remember trying to reach her and I remember giving up on her. Giving up on both of us.
I sit up straight, pain prickles every part of me it can find but I relentlessly push my body to move.
You survived a bomb, Christian. Moving out of bed is nothing in comparison.
My legs meet the cold tiles as I grit using the IV pole to hoist myself up.
I yank away the wires on my hands, blood dripping along with the wires that fall to the tiles.
Then slowly and tortuously, I make my way to the floor-ceiling window hidden by blue curtains.
When I push the blue curtains, the city stares at me in all its glory.
Of course they brought me here.
The connections I have with doctors in LA are enough to offer health services to the entire state.
The sun glints without a care in the world, traffic buzzes down below and some fuck is groping some chick by the pond in the park right in front of the other suburban pets.
It’s LA alright.
I take a minute to pretend I care about the fact that my neck burns and half my body feels like it’s been ripped off.
I take a minute to think about Juana. Another minute to mourn her.
Then, I start to process, I start to compartmentalize, each scene, each detail, each and everything that led to this.
It’s in the middle of thinking and processing that the door creaks open.
I don’t bother to gaze behind me.
The strong perfume speaks for itself that it’s a woman.
Catelina most probably.
She gasps, I hear the shift of the atmosphere when she opens her mouth to speak, “You are awake.” She states the obvious. “And you are bleeding.”
I turn around.
Caramel hair comes into sight, bland brown eyes land on me, concern etches her face but I feel nothing for her.
I don’t give a shit about her pity.
I don’t even care whether I’ve been bleeding for God knows how long.
“I’ll—I’ll call a nurse”, she stutters.
“Maximo”, I utter.
She gets the message. She’s trained to obey. She’s trained to understand what men like us mean every time we open our mouths to speak.
“But-.”
“Get out, bring Maximo in.”
“Okay. I will.”
God, her submissiveness churns me. she’s probably been here for days taking care of me, thinking that I’d be grateful the minute my ass left that bed.
I didn’t ask for her help.
I didn’t ask her to come here.
She turns around and makes an attempt to leave but I look at her, I remember her perfectly.
“Principessa?”
That has her turning.
Then Athena Pallis looks at me like I’m her Prince Charming who’s awakened and conquered hell itself.
“Yes, Christian?”
She’s hopeful. I pity her.
My name bouncing off her lips feels like acid churning my skin.
“Leave America. Go back home.”
“We are to wed. You are hurt, I need to-”
“Did I stutter principessa? I’m fine you being here doesn’t help my cause. We are to wed, are we not? Do you not know the terms of our marriage? I lead, you follow. I bark an order, you obey. There’s too much heat here and the last thing I need is more collateral. Leave for Sicily. Today.”
“You’ll come?”
I have to.
“I’ll try.”
“You promise?”
“I don’t make promises.”
I made a promise to one woman and she fucked me over so royally I almost want to chuckle at the whole thing.
“I’ll wait.”
She leaves.
Seconds later, Maximo walks into the room and another female walks in crying.
The drama goes on when Demetri follows her inside and together, we are all a band of Peter Pan’s lost boys. Only spiteful and less merry.
“You should not be moving! Christian, I thought you-.”
“That I would fake my own death too, sorella”, I bite back at Cat.
Maximo and Demetri glare at me, their over-protectiveness of what’s not theirs aggravates me.
“You have no right to talk to me like that. Not after everything, not after I watched you for a month fighting for your life.
Christian, you almost died. Juana died! But you survived, just for once stop being stubborn, let go of that anger and please just let me-.”
“Who?”
I flip the question at Maximo.
Despite the bad blood between us, I know he looked into who was responsible. Why? Because a second ago, my sister was in my house too and she would have died for real this time around.
“No. This ends here, no one is going after anyone. No one is avenging anything; it was an accident. An unfortunate one-.”
“Rhett Kingston”, Maximo answers me while Catelina slaps his gut, throwing a glare at him.
I had a feeling it was Rhett.
After the phone call, it was clear as day, who the nurse chose.
And she chose her fucking ex over me.
Not that there was an us. Not if Catelina told the little nurse to open her legs for me to make me happy and in return my sister would grant her freedom from me.
A good ole dagger to the spine as it’s called. Betrayal at its finest.
“He had any help?”
“Yes. Dante Keaton. We have him.”
“And the nurse?”
“Where is that little brat hiding with her bastard of an ex?
“No trace. A month of searching and nothing. No clue, no whereabouts about where they could be but we are still questioning Dante.”
“Where is he?”
I’ll cut him to pieces. That piece of shit.
“We have him down at the docks, I can take you down to-.”
“I got it. Your services are no longer needed because you are fired. A pleasure working with you, brother but I can’t have my own men fucking my sister behind my back.”
Cat sobs.
Maximo takes the order without a word. Demetri has something to say and he doesn’t sugarcoat it.
“You are hurt, you had an IED detonating in your face so I don’t mind you being a fucking cunt but you talk about her that way and I’ll give you something more than third-degree burns and heartache. We’ve been chasing your bitch for weeks now with no avail but if you think you can do it alone, go right ahead but my woman won’t be involved in any of your bullshit.”
“Dee, please.”
“We are leaving”, Maximo quips.
Together, the throuple of the year walk out of my room.
***
A scream rips from his lips, Jagger tases Dante’s whipped chest and I watch with exhilaration as the bastard wriggles in his chains looking for an out but there’s no out.
His chains hang him from the ceiling, his legs prove immobile.
That was the first thing I took when I got here.
I took his will.
I shot his legs.
Whatever willpower he has in his body is fueled by the muscle memory of human beings wanting to escape that which hurts them or kills them. Not because he wants to live.
He knows he’s not walking out alive, all pun intended and that makes him a little tight-lipped.
He’s not speaking if he knows he’s gonna die.
I raise my hand, Jagger stops torturing him, stepping away while Dante coughs out blood.
“I know what you are thinking. That killing you will be endangering myself, but the truth is I’ll kill you, I’ll sleep like a baby at night and no one will bat an eyelid in my direction.
What about your political allies you ask? Well everyone knows better than to be at loggerheads with the head of the Italian mafia.
What I am asking of you is simple Dante. Your death doesn’t have to be insignificant; you tell me what I want to know and you die a fucking hero.
You looked for Rhett, didn’t you? You asked him to help you eliminate me just like you did with Father Giovanni, quite unoriginal if you ask me but nonetheless brilliant. The fucker almost did it as you can tell by the burns on my face. Now, where’s Rhett, Dante? Where is that lowlife hiding?”
Dante spits on the floor. A move that says he’s not telling me squat.
I press a button, and the TVs right in front of us air a view of one of my vacation homes in Cuba and right at a woman scolding her two kids by the pool.
I wasn’t stupid enough to let his family stay in Chicago after what this bastard pulled.
I relocated them.
“You want to do things the hard way? Then let’s do that. They are happy, aren’t they? Don’t look at me like that, you know I’m not a monster. I would never harm children like you.
But my hands are tied right now, Dante. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure I don’t get what I want. So here are the terms, tell me where Rhett is and you die like the scum you are or fail to tell me where Rhett is and you aren’t the only one who’s gonna die.
Your family will go down with you, Dante and then there’s nothing that’s gonna be left of you. No legacy, nothing. I’ve got detonators on standby and at my command that little family of yours you see on my screens will be nothing but rubble.”
“You b—bastard”, Dante shouts.
“Ah, he finally speaks.”
“Let them go!”
“One.”
“You can’t do this…t—they have done…nothing.”
“Two.”
“H—he is in Miami!”
“Where?”
“One of my…my late mother’s homes! Down in Key West. D-don’t hurt them.”
“I won’t. I’ll do them the courtesy of wiping you from existence.”
I pull out my gun.
One bullet between the eyes and Dante’s lifeless body goes limp.
The chain from the ceiling rattles trying to hold his weight.
I turn to Jagger. We need no words.
“I’ll clean the mess.”
I’m coming for you, Sunshine. I’m coming to ruin your fairy tale ending and show you just how ruthless crossing Vicious can be.
And the bonus?
Your little lover will die in front of your very eyes.