Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Zahkar
There are no bad people, just bad things people do.
My biological father’s words ring in my mind until they form a chorus of alarms that become too overwhelming to bear.
A roar erupts from my lungs, tightening every muscle, straining my vocal cords, and piercing the night air, causing birds to take flight from the surrounding trees.
Daniel was every bit a bad person and he did bad things because of it.
He deserved what happened to him, but I still can’t believe that of my mother.
Did she really know what he was? And if she did, did she deserve the same punishment?
How the hell has Rodion been able to look at me after finding out it was my blood brother who hurt his mother that way and made her end her own life just to escape the memory of it? My real family destroyed his. I hate that Rodion knew, he fucking knew, and kept it from me.
“Z?” Rodion’s footfalls sound behind me until they hit grass. “I’m sorry.”
I feel his aura like it’s a physical part of him grazing over me.
Inhaling through my nose, I hold an arm out behind me. “Don't come near me.” I need a minute to sort through everything.
“Don’t let what Daniel did come between us,” he pleads.
“It’s not what he did. It’s what you did.
” My muscles stretch over bones, my heart hammering deep in my veins, making my skin pulse with untapped rage.
It is what Daniel did, but it’s also what Rodion kept from me.
He knew the man I called Dad was the one who ordered the kill on my parents, was the man who cold-cocked me with a fucking gun when I was ten years old.
Dogs bark in the distance, and a soft breeze bends the tall trees surrounding our property as if they’re bowing to listen in.
“Z.” Rodion’s hand slides over my shoulder and I turn, shoving him backward.
“I said, don’t touch me.”
Alyona rushes outside, her face streaked red from crying, and the man I’ve called Dad for most of my life follows closely behind.
“Zahkar, you need to calm down,” my dad says, his voice steady but strained.
What nerve he has to think he can dictate to me right now.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I need to do,” I bellow, my frustration boiling over. As I speak, headlights suddenly sweep across the grass. The crunch of gravel under tires announce a car's arrival at the gate.
“It’s just my driver,” Dad says when my eyes zone in on it.
“You should leave,” Rodion informs him, stepping on the flower bed and crushing a few beneath his boot.
“Zahkar?” Dad says my name like I’m going to override Rodion and ask him to stay.
“You should leave,” I bark.
He straightens his shoulders, standing tall, and nods in defeat. “Okay, I’ll come back tomorrow.”
Alyona hugs her middle, trying to ward off the slight chill in the air.
“Go inside, Alyona,” I tell her.
Her blonde, uneven hair whips across her face as she shakes her head. “Not without you.”
My chest heaves with an unrelenting storm of emotions—anger, confusion, guilt, sorrow, and betrayal swirling within me like a whirlwind.
“Please, Z, come inside,” she pleads, her voice trembling with desperation, and her vulnerability shatters my resolve. I turn on my heel and stride back into the house.
Rodion, hot on my heels, follows me into the living room. He attempts to touch me again, and my anger cracks. I rear a fist back and let it fly, connecting with his jaw. Alyona’s gasp makes my lungs constrict, but Rodion grins at me.
“It’s fine, love,” he tells her. “This is just how we do things.” He roams those green eyes over me. “Is that what you need, brother? A fight?”
His fist snaps out at me. Usually, I’d dodge the attack, but I don’t this time, allowing it to land across my cheek and throb into my teeth, relishing in the pain. My dick thickens against my zipper.
“Why keep it from me?” I ask, shoving at his chest and throwing a quick combo punch and then a kick to his gut. He folds his body, clutching his torso and laughs, blood blooming across his lips.
Rearing my knee up, I connect with his nose and blood bursts like a tap. His back hits the fireplace and knocks a vase over.
“Because you didn’t need to carry that, so I carried it for us both.” He pants shaking out his limbs and swiping at his nose. “You’re pulling your punches.”
“And you’re not throwing any,” I mock.
A fast kick comes toward me, hitting my thigh and then with a quick bend of the knee, he hits out again landing a kick to my arm and then the side of my head.
The momentum throws my body weight to the side hitting the couch and almost toppling over it.
Alyona’s image comes into my peripheral view.
She’s standing at the threshold of the living room, her hand clutched across her mouth.
“It’s okay, krasota.” Beauty.
“I fucking love you. I would die for you,” Rodion says, sucking in oxygen as he swipes more blood from his lips.
“You were never one of them, not to me. You have always been mine. Telling you about them would have only made you see yourself differently. Damaged.” He jabs a finger at me now, his own anger rising within him.
“But I am.” I laugh, the madness slipping through.
“There’s something damaged and broken about both of us.
There always has been. Our connection isn’t normal, Rodion.
It’s incestuous, sinful, and built on the blood of us both losing people.
” My blood rushes in my ears and my heart slams against my ribcage protesting what I’m saying.
“It might not be normal, but it’s ours, Z.
We found each other at the darkest time of our lives and bleed light into each other.
You saved me,” he breathes, his hair falling across his brow.
“I don’t give a shit what people call it, or how wrong or broken you think we are.
I’ve never doubted the way I feel about you. ”
A tide of emotion washes over me with the weight of his words, everything we’ve been through together, how many times he’s picked me up when I didn’t think I could do it on my own.
The nights I held him and made him laugh to distract him from those nightmares.
The life we built together. There’s not another soul on this damn earth who understands me, loves me so unapologetically as he does.
“Do you doubt how you feel about me?” he asks, pain lacing his words.
No.
No.
Fuck no.
Nothing this pure can be wrong. Even if we’re broken, I don’t want to mend.
Our shared history is steeped in blood and darkness, and our lives were intricately woven together by scars and sorrow.
Even so, I wouldn’t change any of it if it means I get him.
Fate brought us together, but love kept us together.
“I fucking love you, asshole, and I know you love me,” he says, pointing up at his nose. “I wouldn’t let anyone else ruin this pretty face.”
Nothing could ruin his face.
“I love you,” he says again, taking a step closer and my heart pounds. “I love you.”
Closer.
“I love you.”
I crash into him, my lips claiming, our bodies entwining as we fall to the floor with a thud. Alyona disappears and I’m faintly aware of feet going up the stairs as Rodion palms my dick.
We tear at each other, raw and primal, shredding clothes, until we’re skin to skin.
We fight for dominance. I pin him and take bites from his flesh, tasting the salty twang of his skin against my tongue and grinding my dick against his, fisting his hair.
Then we’re rolling and he pins me, tasting down my body, owning, claiming, loving.
His mouth sucks down my length until I hit the back of his throat.
A hiss escapes my lips, and my back arches off the floor.
He sucks and slurps down my dick like it’s the first time he’s ever tasted me.
Saliva and blood mix, coating our bodies.
Pushing him away, he sits back on his knees, his chest heaving with his labored breathing.
“Don’t tease,” he warns.
“Bend over the fucking table,” I order him, and his eyes flash with fight, his pupils blown wide.
Getting to my feet, I fist his hair and drag him to his.
Drawing his fat bottom lip into my mouth, I bite down until it pops, and he grips my forearms in warning.
Releasing his lip, I push him toward the dining room and shove between his shoulder blades until he’s bent over the wooden surface of the table, his ass prone.
“This is going to hurt.” I spit into my hand and rub up my cock before spreading his ass cheeks and ramming into him, right up to the hilt.
He tenses, cussing under his breath, and I power into him, unrelenting, animalistic, skin slapping skin.
The table creaks and groans beneath us and shifts with each thrust until it’s jammed against the counter.
I force all my anger, regret, sorrow, guilt and love into him, and he takes every drop until we’re both so wrung dry and there’s nothing left.
Laying over his body panting hard I murmur, “I fucking love you too.”