Chapter 26 #5
We have barely gotten started and I’m already so fucking turned on that all it would take is one shift of the towel covering my dick and I’ll come so fucking hard I pull a muscle.
Having Dimitri like this, having our alpha submit to me in even the smallest way, it’s so fucking hot I barely give a shit about why he’s doing it in the first place. Until our girl reminds me, anyway.
“This is your one and only opportunity, Volkov,” Liv says as her hands slide over my chest and she leans down to press her cheek against mine.
“It’s a now or never situation. You want redemption?
Forgiveness? To be with your bonded omega and the rest of your pack?
Now is the time to explain yourself, or it’s never going to happen. ”
Dimitri growls again but I can tell it’s more out of frustration than anything else.
I doubt he expected this to happen—let alone this way—when he woke up this morning and I won’t lie, I’m fucking here for it.
“Now, Volkov.” Liv nips at my shoulder and she kisses the side of my neck before straightening up and pulling me with her.
She goes back to playing with my hair and caressing my skin as I lift my arms and rest them on her knees and across Leon’s. Being able to touch them is keeping my heart from beating so hard I go into cardiac arrest but the anticipation is going to destroy me.
Except, Dimitri is going to try to do that first.
“When I got back to Boris’ house,” he starts as his eye contact intensifies.
“The morning after we bonded, he was waiting for me. He saw it on my face as soon as I walked in. We got into it, he was screaming at me for being with you, telling me I was a disappointment, that I brought shame to the family and our name by taking you as my mate. I told him I didn’t give a shit about that.
” He looks away briefly and shakes his head then meets my stare.
“I told him I was in love with you, that we were scent matches and what he said didn’t matter.
I told him I didn’t want anything to do with the Bratva anymore, that I didn’t want to take over and we were leaving.
I told him I wanted out because I wasn’t going to do to you what he did to my mother, and that’s when he pulled a gun on me. ”
The pain, the anguish and heartbreak I feel rip through our bond takes my breath away and has tears welling in my eyes.
I know what Dimitri is saying is the truth based on that alone but despite what happened, despite how he hurt me, I know he wouldn’t lie to me about something like this, and he’s not right now.
“I told him to shoot me,” Dimitri says with a hollow laugh.
“If he wasn’t going to let us be together, he could fucking shoot me.
Instead, that bastard alpha-barked me into a hit on my goddamn bonded omega, and I swear to god that is the only way I would ever do something like that to you, mylak.
You have to believe me, Niko. I would never fucking hurt you.
I’d die before I did something like that but he barked the order, and I had to follow. ”
A tear slips down my cheek but I don’t move.
I don’t do anything at all. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that.
Boris barked at us more than once over the years and when it happened, there’s nothing anyone could do to change it.
You can’t go against someone like Boris, anyway, but his bark was just as bad as his bite, and he had no problem unleashing both.
While I believe what Dimitri is telling me, it still doesn’t explain why he never tried to find me, or why he’s running from them now.
“I lied,” he says as he basically reads my mind. “I told Boris I carried out the hit.”
“And he didn’t ask for proof?” Liv asks the question I wanted to ask.
Dimitri nods. “He wouldn’t believe it without proof.”
Considering his proof of a completed hit was usually the middle finger from the left hand of his target, I have no fucking clue how he was able to convince him I was dead.
“I had your shirt,” he admits quietly. “The t-shirt you were wearing when you went into heat. There was blood on it, probably from when I bit you but I’m not really sure.
Either way, I had it with me when I left, and I shot a hole through the stains to try to make it look like I’d done what he told me to.
He saw blood, he saw gunshot residue, scented both, and confirmed it was you. That’s all he needed.”
I guess that makes sense.
Boris never paid too much attention to whatever we brought back with us from our hits, it’s not surprising that he didn’t that time, either.
What shocks me about that entire thing? The fact that Boris didn’t have Dimitri killed, or shoot him himself, after he said he wanted out. That’s basically blasphemy.
He didn’t, though, and that means my alpha never came for me because he chose not to.
Dimitri shakes his head as he sits back on his heels. “I wanted to go after you. So fucking bad. I wanted to find you and make sure you were okay, I wanted to explain everything then leave together, but—”
“It would have gotten you both killed,” Liv says as she rests her hands over my heart.
“Letting him think you were dead was the only way to keep you safe.”
“So, why now? Why did you wait so long to leave?” I can’t just sit here and say nothing. I wanted to, that was my plan, but I’m feeling so many things in addition to my own emotions, there’s no way I was going to be able to stay silent.
Dimitri blows out a breath as his shoulders drop. “You aren’t going to like this.”
My brows fly to my hairline as I jut forward a bit. “But I liked hearing how you almost killed me then left me because daddy said so?”
“Nikolai,” he growls in warning. “I just explained that.”
“Did you even try to bark back?”
He just sits there and shakes his head.
“Exactly. Whatever else you have to tell me, I’m sure it’ll be a fucking cake walk compared to that.”
“Your hit wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, mylak.”
I frown as I lean toward him. “Pardon the fuck out of me?”
Dimitri nods. “I don’t know what made me go snooping but I started going through the files in Boris’ office. You know how meticulous he is, he keeps records of everything, who he’s had or plans to have, offed included. He’d signed off on your hit a month before he barked it into existence.”
“Who ordered it?”
“I found one for me, too.” Dimitri swallows hard as he avoids my question. “It was written up at the same time as yours but I guess things changed somehow.”
“Who ordered the hit, D?”
“I also found paperwork for more offshore accounts than I knew Boris had. Accounts that were slowly trickling in decent sums of cash over an extended period of time. I’m pretty sure they aren’t his, but they were made to look like they were in case he found out about them.”
“Dimitri,” I snap, trying to lunge at him but Liv and Leon keep me rooted in place. “Who the fuck wanted me dead?”
“Your mother.”
I slump back against the couch as all the air whooshes from my lungs, as my ears start to ring. My heart drops to my stomach as my head spins, my vision blurring, and I feel like I’m going to be sick.
“My mother?” He nods as I try to blink away the confusion and tears. “My own fucking mother put a hit out on me?”
“On both of us.” Dimitri looks like he wants to come to me, like he wants to comfort me the way he used to but I’m not there yet.
He’s dropping bombs today, he can comfort me after he begs for forgiveness and we start to pick up the pieces.
“She wanted to get rid of both of us so Tati was the only heir. There was a notarized letter stating as much, and it included DNA tests proving she was Boris and Mia’s.
I have pictures of all of this, it’s all saved in my private cloud as proof in case it disappeared. ”
At least Tati is safe because of that.
The bastard back in that warehouse had me believing something happened to my sister but if she’s supposed to be the next in line for the Volkov Bratva, I doubt my mother will let anything happen to her.
“Niko, mylak, I am so fucking sorry. The last thing I wanted to tell you was that your mom was behind all of this shit but I had to in order for you to understand.”
We sit in silence for a few moments, my alpha pleading with his eyes for me to do just that while I try to process a fuckton more information that has me spiraling.
“You don’t have to think about that right now,” Liv whispers as she hugs my neck, grounding me before I got too far out of control.
“Not that part. Focus on what your bonded alpha said, on what you feel through your bond, and decide how you want to handle it.” My omega kisses my shoulder then nips at my ear.
“He looks like a sad little puppy who’s been kicked one too many times and while I hate to admit it, it has me feeling for the asshat. ”
I snort through my tears as I turn the slightest bit, looking over the expression on her beautiful face.
She’s not wrong.
I don’t have to try to process the shit with my mom just yet, and I’m sure there’s more on that entire situation that Dimitri hasn’t shared. She might ultimately be the reason my mate tried to kill me, but that doesn’t mean I have to make this about Mia Kozlov.
“Damn right you don’t,” Liv says as she pulls my hair to the side and kisses my neck before her hands travel down over my chest and abs. “This is about you, honey. About you and him, and what you need in this moment to start to heal your bond.”
I nod as I lift my eyes to Dimitri, the alpha practically staring a hole through my head as he waits for me to speak, and I do. I force myself to relax and with a grin, I tell him exactly what I need.
“On your hands and knees.”
Dimitri hesitates, looking between Liv and I curiously before he takes his hands away from his dick and follows my command.
Which is when a switch is flipped in my brain and the only thing I’m thinking about is how to make this man show me how sorry he really is.