Chapter 24 Viking
CHAPTER 24
VIKING
Viking made his rounds at the club, the shops they had deals with, and some other venues they were exploiting. Yuri was by his side, collecting money and info, giving him side glances now and then. He continued doing so when they got back into the car.
“Everything okay, boss?” Yuri asked as he got behind the wheel. He was clearly wondering why he was joining him on these basic errands that weren’t brigadier-worthy.
“Yeah. Now stop looking so worried, like some helicopter mom.”
Yuri’s hovering was getting on his nerves. Couldn’t a man have a bad day in peace? He just needed to get out of his head. Keep himself busy, because being in a foul mood didn’t begin to cover how he felt. This marriage thing had turned out to be harder than he’d thought. Once again, Elena was messing with his head. Dark thoughts settled in his mind, all centered around one curvy woman and the things he wanted to do to her, with her. Deprived, vile things that would feed his beast, but at what cost? Not the time, not the place.
He motioned for Yuri to drive. “You got any word on Pedro yet?” It wasn’t possible for that piece of scum to go undetected for this long. Not with their extensive resources. And certainly not while he was declared an outcast by his own family. Which meant someone was helping him. Someone outside the Morelli family. Who else would be stupid enough to aid a burned man on the Romanov Bratva’s death list?
“No one has seen him.” Yuri gave him a side glance. “You sure you’re okay, boss?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“It’s just that, you know…”
“No, I don’t fucking know. Please enlighten me.”
Yuri shrugged. “You look pissed and confused, and…”
“It was a rhetorical question,” Viking growled.
“You didn’t say that.”
“It was implied. That’s the whole thing about that damn word. Look it up or join the twins in their fucking word quest.”
“They don’t let me in on that,” Yuri complained. “Like they own the damn dictionary or something. Those two are so competitive. You should have seen them trying to outdo each other when they had to use hippocampus in a sentence. I tried to join in and they threatened to feed me to their gorilla, as if.”
“Let it go, Yuri. Let it the fuck go, or I’m gonna have a bullet with your name on it.”
Ever the survivalist, Yuri shut up after that. Viking got to take a fifteen-minute nap before they arrived back at Flux. He hadn’t gotten much sleep last night after he’d left Elena in their bed. It was either go back to work or turn back and fuck her senseless. He wouldn’t be gentle about it, either. Which she would like. Which, in its own way, was just fucked up. Sleeping with her gave him more pleasure than with any other woman. But doing so would reward her, and he didn’t marry her to make her feel better. Except now, he was caught in this entangled mess of a marriage that had started out as a means to both protect and hurt her, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. All he knew was, it was driving him crazy. He was already volatile on a sane day. How was he supposed to go at this without picking a fight, which would piss Kristoff off? Turns out, being married wasn’t for the faint-hearted. Those vows tied you to another human being for life, without any chance at parole. Then that person consumed all your thoughts, both the sane and insane ones.
Kristoff was already waiting in the back of the club, his desk filled with the club’s ledgers. It looked like he’d been crunching the numbers for some time now. When Viking sat across from him, Kristoff sent their accountant away, leaving only the two of them.
“You look like death out for a kill,” his friend greeted him.
The bastard could always read him like a book. It was one of his most annoying traits.
“Did the new girls stop by yet?” Viking asked, trying to change the subject. Two new potential strippers had applied last night and should be coming in for an audition today.
“Don’t know. I’m sure someone will send them over to you.” Kristoff’s eyes narrowed. “Married life doesn’t seem to suit you.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” He was like a damn pit bull when he got into this mode.
Kristoff leaned back and put his feet on the table. “I see you struggling with your prickly bride, so I’m going to help you out. See, life is actually very simple. You make choices and they have consequences. For example, my mother chose to sleep with her boss; a married, American politician. The result was that when she got pregnant, he kicked her out of his life. Action, consequence. You locked up the woman you claim to hate.”
Viking gave him an acid look. “There’s no ‘claim.’ She betrayed me, so yeah, I do hate her.” He didn’t forgive or forget. Not that his body gave a damn. If possible, he wanted her more now than he did sixteen years ago. He had all the pussy in the world to choose from yet all his dick wanted was his treacherous wife, and wasn’t that just a little sad?
“You kidnapped her,” Kristoff continued, ignoring his rant. “And kept her under lock and key. You could have killed her. Could have handed her over to Vasili when he asked for her blood, but you didn’t. Instead, you made her your wife. You would have rather put a bullet into your brain than give her up. That’s how much you wanted to keep her. Now, you look like a man slighted. Like a man stuck in the past, though he wants to keep going forward.”
Viking looked at his watch. “You done?”
“Ever thought about why people find the Joker so fascinating?”
“Can’t say I have.” He was reminded once again that Kristoff was a bit cracked in the head. They all were, but no one hid their dark and twisted the way Kristoff could.
“Because he’s insane, absolutely certifiable, yet cunning, and he makes no excuses about it. People want to be him, even if only a little, even if they would never admit it out loud. Just imagine the life you’d have. Doing what you want, whenever you want, and not giving a fuck about the consequences. That’s freedom. That’s power. If he were real, we’d either be mortal enemies or great friends.”
Viking had no doubts about that. Then again, Kristoff was a morbid man. He could be friends with the Grim Reaper himself.
“Is there a point to this story?”
Kristoff cocked a brow. “Isn’t it obvious? Sometimes you need a bad guy to make a good story. Maybe Elena is your bad guy.”
He thought he knew where he was going with this. “So you’re saying it’s up to me how my story ends.”
“I’m saying, I think you’re keeping her in your life ‘cause she’s not boring. If you wanted predictable, you should’ve married an accountant or something. So, stop whining about it and take it like a man.”
Viking’s phone rang and he grabbed it out of his pocket. “I can’t wait until the day you get hitched.”
“I’m like Teflon when it comes to marriage.”
Viking was about to tell his friend what he could go do with himself when Baran’s words stopped him in his tracks.
“What the hell do you mean, she ran?”
“Bring Kristoff with you,” Baran said on the other end of the line. He sounded grim.
Viking eyed the man in question. “What do you need him for?”
“Trust me. He’ll want to be here.”
***
The picture that greeted them on the outskirts of town wasn’t what Viking had expected at all. Nob Hill was a nice, quiet neighborhood that mostly catered to yups and white-collar people. The house Baran sent the coordinates to was in the center of a cul-de-sac.
To see his tiny wife taking on a guy in khaki pants was a picture that would never leave his mind. Neither was the defeated way Katya looked as Kristoff walked up to her car.
“This is for Katya!” Elena yelled while beating the guy with a bat. “And this is for all the other women you’ve hit before her, you jackass.”
A wall of trees separated the house from its neighbor. That explained why the police hadn’t been called in yet.
“She’s laughing,” Baran said, standing on the porch. “The psycho part of her brain must be activated.” He made an exploding sound. “Woman on fire. Abort mission! Abort mission!”
“Don’t need a fucking running commentary,” Viking growled as he walked up to his wife. “Elena.” She didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes were on fire as she smashed into the guy. He snatched the bat from her hand.
She pivoted and finally seemed to acknowledge his presence. “What are you—? Give it back.”
When she made a grab for it, he held it away. “No. That’s enough.”
“Enough? You think this is enough? Of course, you do. You’re a man after all! But you don’t know what it’s like,” she croaked. “What it feels like when someone hurts you and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The anguish in her voice tore him apart. He pulled her to him, securing her head on his chest. Little shivers wracked her body and he knew the adrenaline was leaving her system.
He wanted to ask her who had hurt her like that. Part of him feared the answer. Maybe her stay at the Morelli mansion hadn’t been a cut-and-dry paradise as he’d believed it to be. Maybe she hadn’t always been a willing participant. But she would have had to be, right? Because what would it mean if he’d been wrong about that?
No. She’s messing with your head again.
Don’t let her inside.
But she already was. He could try to deny it all he wanted, but she was inside his mind, infused in his blood again. And if he was being totally honest about it, he had to admit she had never left. He might not ever be able to forgive her for what she’d done, but he couldn’t go on like this either. Kristoff was right. He’d made the choice to marry her, and now he had to live with the consequences. Perhaps she had changed. Maybe one grave mistake sixteen years ago didn’t have to define her. Wasn’t she here on Katya’s behalf? Didn’t that show she could be loyal?
Suddenly Khaki Pants pushed himself off the floor. Before he got up, Viking kicked him in the face and the guy went out cold.
Feeling much better, he pulled Elena in his arms and took her outside. He nodded at Baran who passed him, going inside. Baran was already on the phone calling up a cleaning crew.
The fresh outside air allowed him to breathe again. In a way, it cleared his head.
It also awoke Elena, because her head snapped up. She was twisting her neck to look back inside.
“He can’t get away with this.”
He gently put her in the car. “He won’t.”
Kristoff was coming for him. His life was over. He just didn’t know it yet.