Chapter 26
Aurora~
“I’m sorry, Papa,” I said as I stood with Viktor in his office. “I really am.”
My father shook his head quietly before he took a drink of his bourbon, and I felt so bad for him, even though I knew that he wasn’t one to get too sentimental about much. Regardless, Decio had been with him for years, so I knew that the betrayal had to sting some.
After setting the glass back down on the bar, he said, “Perhaps we should have taken our chances with a war.”
I felt Viktor stiffen next to me, and maybe the man really did love me after all. “Why do you say that?” I asked.
My father let out a heavy sigh as he eyed me, and it never occurred to me that he might be struggling with what had happened.
I knew that he trusted me, and I knew that he had every faith in me, but he’d also seen me stabbed and shot, something that hadn’t ever happened before.
Sure, I’d been scraped up many times in my life, but nothing like what had happened on the pier that day.
“Because as much as I’ve had to believe it in order to remain sane, you’re not indestructible, Alba,” he answered.
“Despite your many gifts, you are still only human, and I never should have proposed the marriage as an option. No matter that I had Aleksei’s word, I never should have sent you there.
I never should have let you be the solution. ”
“You can’t have her back, Roman,” Viktor said as he stepped around me, nearly blocking me from my own father.
“I don’t care about your regrets or doubts.
I don’t care that my marriage led to the ultimate betrayal by people that we both trusted.
Do I care that my wife was hurt? Of course.
Not protecting Aurora will eat at me for the rest of my life, something that I deserve.
Still, no matter what has come of all this, you can’t have her back.
Over my dead body will you ever get her back. ”
“You say that as if I’m not willing to risk everything that I have for my children,” my father remarked. “You say that as if I’m not aware of my daughter’s value.”
“I’m also very aware of Aurora’s value,” Viktor fired back. “And if you think that I won’t start a war to keep her, then you’re wrong, Roman. You’re wrong, and we can both just see how far the other is willing to go if that’s what you want.”
Before my father could pull his gun out and shoot my husband, I rushed to stand between them. “That’s enough. I am not going to let you kill each other just to prove who loves me more. Not only is that incredibly ridiculous, but unconditional love can’t be proven.”
“And I’m not going to stand here and listen to him talk about our marriage like it was a mistake,” Viktor shot back. “Because it’s not.”
“Viktor-”
“No,” he snapped. “He doesn’t get to take you back. None of them can have you back.”
I placed my hands on his chest, a small attempt to calm him down. “Okay,” I said softly. “Okay.”
Then, because Viktor Korolev never ceased to amaze me, he turned back towards my father, saying, “I will never fail her again. You’ve my word on that.”
My father didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but when he finally did, I couldn’t help but love him just a bit more. “I just want my child safe, happy, and loved.”
“She’s safe and loved,” Viktor assured him. “And I’m working on the happy part.”
“Papa, I’m fine,” I told him, tired but fine. “If I wasn’t, you’d be the first to know about it.”
Another few seconds went by before he said, “Perhaps it’s just been a rough few weeks and now would be a good time to process.”
“You cannot have her back,” Viktor repeated, anger edging his voice again. “How many times do I have to say it? You can process until God visits us again, but I am not giving up my wife.”
Done with their arguing, I said, “My handiwork needs to be cleaned up.”
With that simple reminder that Decio Fontana’s body had been left for the coyotes, both men immediately remembered why we were here, which was good because I didn’t need my father and husband bumping dicks over something that wasn’t necessary.
“I’ll call Stefano to take care of it,” my father replied. “I’ll need to brief him and Santino on what happened anyway.”
“You know, Decio and Armen weren’t the only ones against the marriage,” I reminded them. “We’re going to have to make a pretty loud statement to keep something like this from happening again, and I don’t mean just me. Someone could easily go after Viktor to garner the same result.”
“I can take care of myself,” he said, prompting me to shoot him a look.
“Oh, can you? Must be nice,” I deadpanned.
Viktor let out a long sigh. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
I could hear my father try to cover his laugh with a cough, but I wasn’t feeling amused.
Once again, Viktor was reminding me that we weren’t getting anywhere positive in our marriage, and it was becoming exhausting.
Whoever’d said that marriage was hard work hadn’t been lying.
This shit felt like a never-ending basketball game with no intermissions.
Ignoring that, I asked, “Do you want to have children, Viktor?”
He glanced at my father really quickly before answering my question with a question. “Do you really want to have this conversation now? Here?”
Since I already knew his answer, I said, “Look, I understand why you don’t want to have children with me, and truth be told, I agree with why having them would be a bad idea.
Nevertheless, if we don’t show a united front about this marriage, then we can never change our minds about children later on. ”
There was a tick in his jaw, but he didn’t shy away from the topic, even with my father in the room. “I thought that I was pretty clear about our marriage when I shot Georgi Aliev at The Rusalka during our wedding reception.”
I shot him a pointed look. “Well, they must not have believed you, and I have the scars to prove it, Viktor.”
His jaw ticked again, and I could tell that he was struggling to rein in his temper with my father in the room.
“Then what do you suggest, Aurora? Do you want me to start shooting anyone who looks at us sideways? I mean, it might become a little harder to remain out of prison by doing that, but I’ll do it if that’s what you want. ”
Knowing that we weren’t going to get anywhere like this, I said, “Maybe we should discuss this later.”
Then, to add more fuel to the fire, my father said, “Just remember that you have enough nieces and nephews on the Marchetti side that you needn’t do anything that you don’t want to do, Alba. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve given enough.”
I walked over to my father, then reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I know, Papa.”
“Never forget, despite your husband’s wishes, you can always come home,” he assured me. “The fallout will be worth whatever it takes to make you happy.”
“Thank you,” I replied sincerely, and not to hurt Viktor. Right now, we were a father talking to his daughter, and it had nothing to do with the angry Russian standing behind me.
As I stepped back from my father, he said, “I’ll call Stefano to take care of Decio and whatever else needs to be taken care of.”
I gave him a terse nod before looking back over at Viktor. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” he bit out, and I knew things were bad when he made no attempt to shake my father’s hand before escorting me out of the office.
Nothing was said as we walked towards our cars, but when I stopped next to mine, Viktor asked, “Why can’t you just ride with me? Why can’t someone take your car home?”
“Because you need a code to get into my building, and with Stefano busy taking care of Decio, that leaves only my mother, father, and Santino to run the errand, and I’m sure that they all have better things to do, Viktor.
” I stepped to him, placing my hands on his chest again.
“Is it really that big of an issue to follow me to my condo to drop off the car?”
“Yes,” he bit out. “I already had to deal with you driving back from the barn on your own.”
My brows rose at that. “With you right behind me.”
“That doesn’t help,” he admitted, so I tried another tactic.
“Look, you can follow me back to my condo, then you can check it out for yourself,” I suggested. “You can see that it’s safe and secured, so there won’t be any issues in the future when I say that I need to check on my place.”
His blue eyes flared, and he seemed angrier than a second ago. “Because why are you going to need to check on your place in the future?” he asked. “In fact, why do you even still have your fucking condo?”
Instead of taking the bait, I said, “Well, follow me home, and you’ll find out.”
Stepping to me, he said, “That’s not your home.”
Luckily, despite his claims, he ended up following me back to my condo anyway.