CHAPTER 6
CHRISTIAN ‘VICIOUS’ VOLKOV.
Twenty minutes.
Sunshine has been hiding in that damn dresser for twenty minutes.
Normally it wouldn’t be any of my business but the situation is abnormal in itself and she…well she’s my damn business.
Especially if I’m carrying her baby and Millie is starting to look at me with those tiny eyes that want to spew tears.
She might be okay for a kid. Better than all the fucking kids I’ve met in my life but I couldn’t tolerate it if she cried again.
I glance at my Phillip Patek watch.
Scratch twenty minutes, little miss nurse has been gone for half an hour now and my patience is starting to stretch thin.
“You think the dress got stuck?”
Millie holds my thumb. Oh yeah, she’s going to cry.
The salesman, the one with the name tag ‘Fred’ which looks as fake as a pair of silicone tits from a mile away, clutches the extra dresses on his right arm tight.
If my main concern wasn’t Millie at the moment, I would have already had the skinny man by his throat spilling everything I need to know.
Why he looked so uneasy when Sunshine and he locked eyes.
Why Sunshine, the toughest woman I’ve seen by far, had that look on her face.
A look that’s so familiar, it practically drips in the air.
A look I’ve seen every time before I snuff the life out of a living thing.
Fear. Carnal, raw fear.
And judging by the tears in her eyes, this motherfucker might have done something worse.
Something I’m praying won’t make me get back home with bloodied knuckles.
Salesman Fred gulps an invisible lump of saliva down his meaty neck, chuckling nervously, “It might be jitters. Believe it or not, I’ve seen a lot of women in my store insecure about how their bodies look in a dress”
Insecure, my ass.
“The last thing Sunshine is, is insecure. She’s sexy, she knows that. Don’t you agree?”
Take the bait, you fucker.
“I-If you say so, Sir”, Fred’s voice barely comes out as a whisper.
A whisper that confirms what I might have already known.
The only thing left is for Sunshine to give me her version of the story and the man is as good as gone.
Millie blinks at me.
Once. Twice. The third time she does, her wails fill the air.
At the same time the glass doors to the store slide open.
Nico and Maximo storm in with curious gazes on their faces.
Nothing as unusual as being surrounded by a lot of fucking pink women’s clothes, a crying baby in my arms, a store manager who looks like he’ll faint and a blonde nurse hiding in the dressing room.
“Boss?” Jett calls holding back a chuckle, “This is the emergency?”
“Volkov?”
My feet are up, my arms are around Millie as I walk towards Jett.
“Take the baby, keep her quiet while I deal with the mother.”
“Whoa whoa, you want me to take the baby? I don’t know jack shit about babies.”
“Don’t cuss in front of her, her mother will skin you alive if she hears you”
Out of all the things I thought I would do one day, this isn’t it.
Maximo’s smirk pisses me off.
Jett’s hesitation is another minute in front of a weasel who shouldn’t be breathing as we all speak.
“Take. The. Baby. You drop her, I’ll kill you.”
Jett takes the baby. Millie cries harder.
I smirk at her loyalty towards me.
That’s right baby girl, only I get your affection. I suppose your mother too.
Turning to Maximo and feeling a thundercloud gather above me, I issue a command, “Keep him here.”
Salesman Fred is about to speak but I shoot down his non-existent words with a glare storming past the runway, past the glittery doors, all the way to that one damn dresser room that’s locked tight.
“Little Nurse?”
Nothing. Not a squeak, not a sassy word but just nothing.
And silence is the deadliest weapon to ever exist. Silence is my kryptonite. Silence is the same thing I got when I held Catelina in my arms.
“The child is crying, probably needs to be fed and since we’ve established my boobs have no milk in them you are going to have to come out, Sunshine.”
I cringe at the words leaving my mouth right now.
Little Nurse gets to say the words ‘boobs’ and hint at sex without thinking twice.
I never had that privilege. Never wanted such privilege.
In my world, saying the wrong things weakens your throne. Saying the wrong thing gives enemies the necessary ammo to destroy you.
Yet years of all that training reduced to this.
“M-Millie?”
Her voice is weak, too close to crumbling. My interest is piqued.
She’s never cried.
Looked like she might cry? Sure.
But cried? Never.
Ironical that the man who can make her cry is a skinny man in slacks and a polo shirt that shows wimpy muscles.
“Yes. The child. Open the door, Alexia. I’m not asking again”
“I-I can’t.”
“You can. Walk right to the door, unhinge the lock. I’m hoping you know what a lock is, Little Nurse.”
Silence.
I say fuck it.
Taking a step back, my boot connects with the door and with enough pressure, the door bursts open.
A little dust here and there, a few pieces of wood splintered across the floor but when everything settles, the sight in front of me ups my anger by a huge freaking watt.
“I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Alexia Green sits by the corner, huddled together like a scared kid, quivering and shaking and what’s worse? Her dress is wet.
That dress she liked, it’s so wet that when I look it and look at her, she looks like she wants die right in front of me.
I saunter past the broken wood.
Little Nurse’s eyes never leave mine and by Whoever controls the universe I’m praying her eyes remain on mine and not the mess surrounding her.
Not the fear that has her cheeks wet with tears.
Not the fear that has her dress wet with her own pee.
She’s scared of him. Scared to the point of cowering in a room all by herself, scared to the point of –
I crouch in front of her.
Human touch has never been my thing since Cat. I dislike it. Hate it because at the end of the day it’s as insignificant as the pack of wild hair on Jett’s head.
Yet human touch has never felt tolerable like when Millie is in my arms. Or when this woman’s skin came into contact with mine the other night.
I raise my knuckle. Same knuckle that has a skull tattoo. Same knuckle that has ended so many lives.
It connects with her cheeks. Soft, wet, delightful skin of hers.
I wipe her tears. She sniffs back, “I-I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“Lo uccidero per te”, I add because I intend to. I intend to kill Fred for her.
“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t- “
“What did he do to you, Sunshine?”
I ask, she gasps. She shrinks back to her little corner but my hand is still on her cheek.
Big, tainted, has no business being there.
“I-I can’t…”
Can’t tell me? Can’t out the weasel? Can’t because she’s scared? She’d give me a million reasons and I wouldn’t care.
I never took no for an answer since I was little. I’m not going to start now either.
“We are not leaving until you start talking. You are an employee of mine, I can’t have you running away every time your silly past traumatizes you. It’s bad for business and you don’t want to risk getting fired on account of your debt”
Sunshine doesn’t say shit.
I’m gripping straws right now.
“The child is with Jett. He doesn’t know anything about babies. Give him a few more minutes with her and he’ll probably drop her. Maximo is there too and his tough as nails exterior and daddy issues wouldn’t allow him to save your baby.
That leaves Fred. Dear ol’ Fred with your baby- “
“His name is Brad! Not Fred but Brad.”
“Go on.”
Her lips quiver. Another fresh of tears grace her cheeks, landing on my hand.
She doesn’t even know it yet but the more she cries, the more her cheek seeks out my hand. Seeks out comfort and warmth.
I have been a lot of things and comfort and warmth aren’t it.
“He was Rhett’s friend…they were all Rhett’s friends. I never talked to them. I never…never liked them but Rhett did and it was okay.
Everything was okay. Until…I was a virgin when I met Rhett and I gave it to him because he…he was the love of my life.
I trusted him. He’d never hurt me. He said he’d never hurt me but he did! He picked me up from the hospital I was working at that night and he told me it would be the best night in my life. It wasn’t the best night.
“I never wanted to have sex with his friends in front of him. Rhett said it was okay. I cried, I begged him not to…they were four plus Rhett. There was…there was no way I could fight them. I let them do everything they wanted. I let them beat me, insult me until I had enough courage to leave. To leave that town, the hospital, my life. Three weeks later, I was pregnant with Millie. A week later, Rhett tracked me down and learned I was pregnant.
“He stayed long enough to do a paternity test and when he found out Millie was his, he disappeared and he led the loan sharks right to my doorstep. I’m not a slut…I’m not a slut, I promise. I never wanted any of it but I also don’t regret having Millie whether she would be Rhett’s or anyone else’s because she saved me. And I…I left her with Brad. I’m still… still scared of that night. Of them.”
“Come here, Sunshine.”
Hesitant, out of her element, she slowly crawls to me like a kid learning how to walk.
When her face smashes my chest and her tears stain my shirt, I pick her up from the floor.
Rhett…Rhett…he just didn’t know when to stop did he? His psychopathic tendencies didn’t stop on my sister, he did to the woman crying in my arms, he’s done it to a lot of other women too if the scumbag is still living.
And I’m praying he’s living alright. I’ll be the one to gut him.
“I’m fine…you don’t have to.”
“You are not fine and you are allowed not to be fine. Here’s what’s gonna happen Sunshine, you are gonna take a shower. You are gonna buy all the dresses in this entire store and you are gonna walk out of here with a smile on your face because Brad won’t exist after this”
“I don’t want anything Brad owns.”
“Good, because I own the building.”
And I hired a sales manager, I didn’t quite know shit about.
Still in my arms, cradling my shirt like it’s the only tether holding her to this world, Sunshine and I saunter to the shower rooms.
I installed shower rooms in every store my sister owned because she was the type that liked being clean always.
Right now, I’m walking to the same shower rooms with a woman I have no business feeling sorry for.
I place her down.
Her feet touch the tiled floor but she’s not letting go. Not at all.
“Little Nurse?” I raise a brow.
“I-I’m scared. I can’t stand properly, I think my knees are still weak. I need an anchor, something to hold onto while I’m in the shower”
Crystal blue eyes gaze at me. Asking me to be her anchor. Asking her kidnapper to hold her.
The only thing I’ve held is her baby and it’s still making me uncomfortable as fuck because I like it.
“No.”
“You don’t have to take your suit off.”
“Still no.”
“Then I can’t do it.”
Little.
Stubborn.
Obstinate.
All a deadly combination.
I hop into the shower with her.