CHAPTER 71
CHRISTIAN ‘VICIOUS’ VOLKOV.
“Allagra not starting a war against you is courtesy, son. She understands Athena is at fault here but killing Ginnio and his son has dire consequences”, Domenico scolds.
If it wasn’t for the fact that this man hated my father and his leadership, I would have already stopped this conversation.
But Domenico is alright for a guy.
“I understand”, I tell him.
Domenico straightens his suit, stands up and gives me one last glance before saying, “You are not your father but you have to put a lid on that anger, son otherwise it might just cost you everything.”
“Is that a threat, old man?”
Domenico chuckles, “I wouldn’t dare threaten the boss. Take care, I mean it.”
If I believed in Hollywood bullshit like karma, I would heed to his advice.
I don’t have to take care of myself because the world has always been fickle. The bad thrives, no matter what, the bad always thrives and the light shrinks.
I’ve thrived for so long that karma doesn’t faze me.
But I’ll do everything I can to keep the light that is in the form of a five-foot woman with sunshine blonde hair and a tummy full of my kid from shrinking.
Immediately Domenico leaves, I roll up my sleeves, working over all the contracts lining my desk.
The title doesn’t come with the dirty stuff only. There’s also the paperwork stuff and legal businesses that I’ve been drowning myself for the past few days, feeling like a shell walking every time I enter my room, linger in the corners while I watch Alexia and Millie sleep.
And my little nurse has been clever.
Like waving cheese to a mouse, she’s been baiting me into doing exactly what my dick and brain want to do.
And that’s to take her. Feast on her. Brand her with my hickeys.
The little minx has been sleeping naked beneath my damn covers.
I noticed it the first day. And the second. And both times were torture because all it took was to yank those covers and take my pound of flesh.
Which is why when my phone rings and Maximo utters nonsense about a girls’ night out, I know for a fact Alexia Green is trying to fuck with my head.
The sad thing is? I allow her to.
I allow her to get under my skin.
I leave work just to run after her.
That’s how much she has her sharp nails wrapped around my neck.
The lengths I’m willing to go for this woman makes Shakespeare’s Romeo look like your average guy buying pizza to win over the girl of his dreams.
“Vitello, this place belonged to my great grandparents.”
“Yet instead of renovating it back to being the greatest winery in Sicily, you converted it into a nightclub. Don’t bring sentiment to the table, GianPaolo. This place means nothing to you.”
“Vitello-.”
“Ten million, final offer. I might be generous enough to buy your staff too.”
“You can have any nightclub in Italy. You have your own nightclubs in Italy that bring in more bucks than this place of shit.”
I chuckle, pushing the briefcase to his side of the glass table.
“That’s one thing we agree on, Paolo. This place is a real piece of shit that should be valued at one million or less but I’m feeling a little generous tonight. I’m asking myself the same question you are asking yourself. Why this piece of shit? It barely brings enough money to build a barn but you see her?”
I point at the glass wall that acts as a barrier between us the VIPS upstairs and the common folks downstairs dancing to some upcoming Italian rapper’s music over the speakers.
Gianpaolo and his Cartier shades zero in on the crowd below but my eyes are on a particular blonde having the time of her life while some bozo touches her waist.
Two days without touching her and this is the best thing she can do to rile me up.
Gotta praise her though it’s working.
Jealousy feels like a fix in my veins.
Gianpaolo and his stupid glasses are also riling me up at the second.
I stand up.
I tap the glass right where my blondie is and Gianpaolo finally catches on.
“That’s my wife down there and the soon-to-be dead man dancing along with her.”
“You are doing this for her?” Gianpaolo asks with disgust.
Of course he’d be disgusted, this man has never had a magical pussy show him how good heaven feels like.
He’s never fallen in love and I can’t blame him seeing as to how no woman would settle for his weasel of a face and his junkie persona that’s known all over Italy.
“No. I’m buying myself a club so I won’t need to explain myself to the cops why I nearly killed a man and threw him out of my establishment.”
“I can kick him out.”
“No. That’d be too easy. Everyone needs to know who she belongs to and my wife needs to learn a lesson. Sign the damn documents, Gianpaolo. I don’t have all night.”
He fusses. As expectant as a man-baby who parties all night, fucks women all day and eats away his inheritance.
Taking the pen, he signs over the paper.
Like the greedy million trust fund baby he usually is, he nubs my briefcase that’s loaded with said ten million dollars before he exits the room and eventually the club.
I gaze down again.
I called my nurse ten minutes ago.
I asked nicely.
I’m done playing nice.
I take off my suit coat. I’m not ruining that expensive fabric with some punk’s blood.
I give that prick a few more seconds to feel my future wife up knowing this might be his last time he has hands.
I make my way downstairs. A few people gasp, a few chicks murmur my name in a fit of giggles, I spot my traitor of a sister nursing back shots by the bar counter and best believe I’m calling one of her boyfriends to pick her up.
My own family has become my enemy as I have come to realize.
There’s Cat and bringing my wife to this club.
There’s Maximo and being head over heels with my sister. And playing compadres with Demetri.
There’s Jett who’s too hungover with Brenda to think about anything else.
Then there’s Nico and his ‘I’m missing mommy’ tendencies.
At this rate everyone around me is useless.
My nurse’s blue eyes spot me as I walk over behind the punk touching her.
Pretty, azure, glowing, Jesus Christ those eyes.
Her pouty lips part. I’ve been dying to kiss them and make them swollen but she needed rest.
I needed to put distance between us so she’d crawl back to me.
Who’s doing the crawling now?
“Wanna get out of here, Bellissima?” the guy asks.
My woman’s eyes are on me, fear written in her pretty features.
She even wore lipstick, ladies and gentlemen.
I never get to see her in lipstick except when she’s entertaining other men.
“C-Christian?” her bedroom sexy voice filters to me even with the noise flocking around us.
The prick hasn’t noticed me behind him yet.
“I have heard the rumors about you and Vitello but if you are here, Bellissima, it means the arrogant bastard isn’t satisfying you like how a real man should. Let me show you how a real man wrecks you from the-.”
I tap his shoulder.
As soon as the ‘Bellissima-name-calling’ prick turns around, I grab his collar then spin him around so my woman is behind me and not in front of him when he collapses, my fist connects with his throat.
The prick chokes on his words.
He sputters and flails backward falling to the dance floor among the shrieks and the ‘Oh my God’s.
Weak and definitely not a ‘real man’, he starts coughing as if that will save him from me.
I straddle him, I grab the lapels of his cheap jacket, my fist connecting with his face.
The bastard doesn’t know what hits him.
One punch, his nose starts bleeding.
Two punches, his screams cause people to scatter to the nearest exit.
Three punches and the sound of bones crashing rings my ears.
My knuckles are bloody. His face is beyond recognition and unfortunately, he passed out.
I stand up, taking my phone from my pocket as I flag the bouncers by the exit.
I dial Maximo’s number, “Pick your woman up from my club. Tell Jett to do the same.” Then I cut the call.
Two bulky bouncers show up in minutes. They don’t question me as they look at the mess on the floor and the blood on my shirt.
“Basement. Tie him up real good”, I order.
Then I turn to one of them, turning around to point at two very drunk women who are vomiting all over the floor.
“Keep them here until two guys come for them.”
“Yes, boss.”
To the blonde with the blue eyes and a mini cocktail dress, I grab her hand pulling her behind me as we make our way through the people bold enough to stay even after the blood and gore pizzazz.
I want to take two steps at a time up the damn stairs but the woman behind me not only has short legs but she is pregnant… in a fucking club.
When we make it to the VIP section, I push her in, closing the doors and pressing a button on the remote by the table that turns the translucent wall windows opaque.
No one sees us.
No one gets to witness the hell I unleash on her.
“You could have killed him”, those are the first words she says to me.
“He’s going to be dead alright. Give it a few days and he’ll be dead.”
“Christian.”
“Don’t use that tone on me, young lady. A club? A fucking club? Dancing with some rando?”
“He didn’t do anything.”
I rip my shirt at the middle and the buttons fly in different directions.
I take the shirt off. I’m not having this conversation with blood on me.
“And you know him for how many minutes exactly?”
“Does it matter? I came here to have fun and Pietro happened to be part of the fun.”
I take one step towards but there are ten more steps between us that need to be gulped down.
“You want to have fun? Then fucking call me. I’m one phone call away.”
“You’ve barely been home! You have ignored me for two days! You have shown me I only matter to you because of this baby I’m carrying! Don’t play the jealous boyfriend card because honestly, it stings.”
“Yeah?” I grit. My teeth grinding in my mouth.
“You want to know what stings, Alexia?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What do you want me to call the woman getting on my last nerves.”
“Baby. Tesoro. Little nurse. Don’t call me Alexia because that’s the only thing feeding my delusional self that we are not drifting apart.”
Two days of pent-up sexual frustration rears its ugly head and I combust.
“You stood in front of a damn gun.”
“I know.”
“I was going to shoot.”
“I know.”
“You and Junior could have been dead.”
“Junior?” her eyes well with tears and I gaze at her tummy that’s not yet swelled up.
Vicious junior or Alexia junior could have been dead.
“Then you looked at me like you were not sure I would choose you. Like you weren’t sure I wouldn’t hurt you. Damn it, baby after everything we’ve been through-.”
“I chose you. I didn’t choose my family. I chose you, I came home with you. I stayed in that room watching you leave and come home with anxiety because I wanted you. You.”
Tears spill over her bottom lashes and run down her cheeks.
I hate seeing her cry. I don’t think it’s even good for the baby.
“You danced with another man tonight.”
Her bottom lips quivers.
“My man wasn’t giving me attention. I had to get his attention somehow.”
Look at my spitfire.
“You have my attention now, nurse and the douche you were dancing with is going to die tonight and any other man who touches you the way I do will wish he never grew a dick in the first place.”
“Okay. Is this the part where we kiss and makeup?” she asks adorably.
I grin.
“This is the part where I haul your ass over my shoulder take you home and wash every bit of skin he touched.”
I don’t have to tell her to come to me.
I’m already headed in her direction, taking her waist into my hands.
A waist carefully sculptured for me.
Her eyes level up to mine. My pregnant soon-to-be wife is upset that she’s not getting some dick tonight.
I’m equally upset that I gave in too easily and spared the bastard who touched her, a pass tonight.
I’ll torture him tomorrow.
“Not even one kiss?” she asks, pouting.
I wipe her tears with my thumb about to deny her that kiss.
Her scent makes me stop.
She smells better than usual.
So fucking good, my brain fogs with thoughts of turning her over and taking her bareback.
Here.
Now.
Now.
“Christian, everything okay?”
I hold her even closer, burying myself in her neck.
“This scent…you smell so good. Is it because of the babies?”
“What?”
My fingers dig her ass.
“You smell too good, Tesoro”, I’m panting when the words come out of my mouth.
“One kiss and we go home.”
I tell her.
“One kiss”, she smiles giddily.
And I give her the kiss because my pregnant woman is driving me crazy and it ain’t even our wedding night yet.