Chapter 12
Aurora~
Very much like our first night together, I was awakened in the dark, knowing that something was off, but also knowing what it was this time.
So, after grabbing the sheet to my chest, I sat up, then reached over to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. Once I did, I looked around the room to find Viktor sitting in the same chair that he’d been sitting in on our wedding night, and he was also looking at me very much like before.
“What are you doing?”
“Watching you,” he answered, the same as that night.
‘Why?”
"How else can I make sure that you’ll still be here in the morning?” he said, repeating what he’d said earlier, word for word.
However, unlike our wedding night, I knew that this was something different. “Now that you know that there’ll never be a guarantee with that, why don’t you tell me what you’re really doing.”
After a few seconds of silence, he said, “You know, I’ve lost count of how many times I watched the footage of your attack, and do you know what haunts me the most?”
“What?” I asked, sitting up straighter for this conversation.
“When you picked up the phone to call your brother,” he answered, making my chest ache a bit.
“When I realized that you were calling someone else to save you. That’s the part that I kept rewinding over and over again.
Then, when I saw Santino come into view, I had convinced myself that it was only natural for you to call your brother, something that you’ve probably done a million times in your life.
However, it hadn’t ever occurred to me that you called him because you believed that I was the one behind the attack. ”
“I’ve already explained all the reasons why I thought you were behind everything,” I reminded him.
“I know,” he said, his face softening a bit. “But that doesn’t help me, Aurora. It doesn’t lessen the sting of failing you, it never will.”
“Viktor-”
“Don’t,” he said, stopping me. “Don’t give me some banal platitudes to try to make me feel better, because nothing will ever make me feel better. We can go on to have the greatest love story ever told, and I’ll still never forget that I failed you and that it almost cost you your life.”
Since we were basically cut from the same cloth, I could understand where he was coming from, and regret really was a nasty albatross that could eventually drag you down if you weren’t careful.
Pride and love were a violent combination, and even if Viktor didn’t love me, pride could make a man do very stupid things.
“But it didn’t,” I pointed out.
Instead of acknowledging that, he said, “I swear on my last name that I will find out who did this, Aurora. I’ll find out who did it, and I will make them pay in a way that will impress Satan himself.”
While the woman in me could appreciate his sentiment, it was obvious that Viktor was speaking from a place of emotion still.
His pride had been wounded, his masculinity had been challenged, and like most men that’d been raised like he’d been, he was taking it all very personally.
Now, while I understood it, it was also a very na?ve thing to say.
“Don’t make promises that you might not be able to keep, Viktor,” I said, causing him to sit up straighter.
“What’s that mean?”
“What happens if it comes out that your father or brother are behind the attack?” I posed.
“They’re not,” he automatically replied.
“You don’t know that,” I pointed out. “Neither of us know that with certainty.”
“I do,” he argued, a tick in his jaw.
“No, you don’t,” I argued back. “You hope that they’re not behind it, but you don’t know for sure. It’s impossible for you to know that.”
“Why would they agree to our marriage and then try to kill you?” he asked, using the same argument that he had used for himself.
“Your father agreed to the marriage,” I corrected. “But what of your brother? You can’t tell me that Kasimir didn’t have any strong objections to being related to a Marchetti.”
His jaw ticked again, proof that I was right. “Because none of your people had objected?” he shot back.
“But do you see any Korolevs living in Marchetti territory?” I countered. “My people don’t have a constant reminder of the marriage staring them in the face wherever they go.”
“My father and brother are not behind this,” he stated again, and very adamantly. “They’d never conspire like that behind my back.”
“That may very well be true,” I conceded, agreeing that I didn’t know as much about his relationship with his family as he did.
“But without proof that they aren’t involved, I feel like that’s a premature vow that you’re promising.
After all, we both know who you’d choose if faced with a choice between me and your family. ”
Then, in a move that I couldn’t have ever imagined, Viktor stood from the chair, then walked over to my side of the bed, and as I looked up at him, my breath froze in my lungs as Viktor Korolev got on his knees beside the bed, pledging a loyalty that I didn’t deserve and was completely unheard of.
Now, because I’d spent most of my life studying the enemy, I knew almost everything about the Russian, German, Romanian, and Chinese cultures.
I knew their histories, their traditions, and their criminal hierarchy.
For me, it hadn’t been enough to just learn the languages; in order to be useful, I’d had to learn how to navigate the mind of the enemy.
So, I knew what all of Viktor’s tattoos meant.
Every dot of ink on his skin had been put there with the purpose of making a statement.
Knowing that, I also knew that the stars on his knees and chest were not only a declaration of importance, but that they prohibited this man from being on his knees in the exact way that he was now.
This could be the ultimate sign of betrayal to his crest, his family, his loyalties, and it was something that I really didn’t want to take responsibility for.
“What are you doing?” I asked when I could finally find my voice.
“Clearing things up for you,” he said as he knelt before me, changing the game completely.
“Viktor, you can’t do this,” I quickly rushed out, my fist tightening around the sheet in my hand. “You need to stand up.”
“No, I don’t,” he replied seriously and calmly.
I started shaking my head in disbelief. “Don’t you do this.”
“It’s done,” he said, his hands reaching out to grab my leg. “I love you, Aurora. I’m pretty sure that I fell in love with you when I heard you speaking Russian, hearing the words come from your lips like the most beautiful language ever created.”
“You can’t...Viktor, it’s only been a few weeks,” I argued, trying to undo his craziness.
“And I’ve been in love with you every day of those few weeks,” he replied smoothly. “Now, I don’t expect you to say it back, and I’m also very aware that you may never say those words to me. Nonetheless, that doesn’t change how I feel about you, Aurora.”
Now, it wasn’t that I didn’t feel something for Viktor, because it was obvious that I did.
I wouldn’t be in his bed if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have chosen to believe him if my feelings for him hadn’t played a huge part in all of this.
So, it’d be ridiculous to brush off his declaration or to deny what I felt for him.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to say those three words if I wasn’t absolutely certain of just how deeply I felt for Viktor.
I also didn’t want to say them when the stakes were this high.
Still, I couldn’t let this moment go by without an acknowledgement of just how important this was.
A Bratva Sovietnik was on his knees before me, and I could admit that the responsibility of that felt a bit overwhelming.
So, I decided to give him something more significant than my love as a sign of mutual understanding, trust even.
“I need you to get off your knees, Viktor,” I told him. “I need you to sit on the bed, and I need for us to never mention what just happened here.”
“Why?” he asked, though he did finally stand to sit on the bed next to me.
“Because no one needs to know that you’ve fallen in love with your wife,” I answered. “No one needs to know that I hold that kind of power over you.”
“Fair enough,” he replied, though I could tell that he wasn’t happy about it.
“There’s...well, I have something that I need to tell you,” I said, my heart beating rapidly in my chest, the vulnerability hitting me hard.
“If you tell me that there’s another man in your life, I’m warning you now, I’ll kill him,” he said seriously, and it struck me odd as how he seemed to be willing to forgive my infidelity.
“It’s actually worse,” I said, making his eyes narrow, and if he only knew.