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He still hurts from the day of the attack on our village. That memory is just as burned into his psyche as it is mine. It’s shocking to see a man so callous care about anything, but sometimes that hard exterior is a shield for a deep wound.
I glance at him, look down to rethink my words, and look back up at him. “What happened to you… after?” I ask.
Viktor’s forehead wrinkles as he pitches his eyebrows upwards. “Umm…” he trails off for a moment. I know I won’t get the full truth from him, but I’m still curious about what he did between that day and the day he returned to Russia.
“They smuggled me into the States. The day after I arrived in America, the men who brought me dropped me off a few blocks from a police station. They instructed me to tell the police I was lost and give no more details. I did exactly as they said. The police held me as long as they could, trying to search for family until they gave up and put me into the system. I was living in group homes until I was old enough to live on my own.” Viktor’s gaze is fixed ahead of him, focusing on nothing in particular.
“You went all that time without family?”
He turns to me with confidence, “I found a new family. Sometimes that’s your only option,zaychik.”
I nod, not completely understanding what he means, but I know that’s because of how much my father sheltered me. He kept me from living life and was resentful when I found any little joy. I don’t think the day of the attack on the village ever left my father either, but his way of dealing with it was to take his anger out on me.
I think of the one time I got to experience the closest thing to freedom I’ve ever experienced.
“I was in America,” I say with a proud little grin on my face. “Enrolled at a university in Chicago.”
Viktor looks at me and nods a bit. “So why are you back in this shithole?” he asks half-jokingly.
“I’m supposed to be on school break,” I say. The smile on my face fades, thinking about the possibility of never being able to return to Chicago. But even if Viktor wasn’t holding me captive, my life in Chicago was all under Arkady and Bruno’s control. If Arkady felt the mission was no longer necessary he would end it and I’d be right back here, this shithole, as Viktor calls it.
Even with my father dead, Arkady would keep me under his control, sending me on missions as long as I’m useful to him.
Missions like the one I was on the first night Viktor came back. I swallow back the guilt I feel for ever agreeing to a job that could end with Viktor being harmed. My mind drifts to the Bratva soldier and his threat to tell Viktor I was a hired spy. Part of me wants to give in and sleep with him to keep my secret safe, but that’ll never happen. If I give in he’ll know he has power over me and will use it whenever he wants.
I look over at Viktor with guilt, readying myself to tell him. He’s not angry right now. Maybe he’ll understand.
Viktor looks at me with gentle eyes. “I don’t hold you in the same regard as your father,” he confesses to me. He looks off to the side. “What he did was a betrayal and I know being his daughter is something you have no control over. I know that family can be…” he sighs before continuing, “…complicated.”
My head drops as I plunge into a deeper level of guilt. Tears fill my eyes, blurring my vision until they fall and splash on the top of my hand. I wipe them away and turn back to Viktor. “I understand why you did what you did to him.”
We stay quiet for a moment, each of us lost in thought.
“I’m sure you can’t wait to leave all this behind,” I say with a nervous laugh.
Viktor turns to me with an intense look. A bolt of excitement flows through me.
“If I were to leave,” he says, “I wouldn’t leave everything behind.”
His hand brushes over the top of my thigh, and he grabs me on the widest part of my leg before continuing. “I said you’re mine, Tatyana, and I mean it. No matter who came before me, or who would try to win you after. You are mine, and I don’t walk away from what’s mine.”
The teeth of my fork squeak as I brush it through the potatoes on my plate, avoiding Viktor’s gaze.
“It’s a good thing you say it doesn’t matter who came before you,” I say in a weak voice.
“Why is that?” Viktor grumbles in a possessive tone.
“Because there was no one before you,” I say, feeling a burn of humiliation revealing to Viktor that he took my virginity. It makes me feel silly to be so inexperienced with someone who is, without a doubt, very experienced. The naïve little girl, disarmed by Viktor’s sexual prowess.
I cringe just thinking about it.
“I was your first?” Viktor asks in a low voice.
My eyes stay on my plate, nodding to confirm. I can’t meet his eyes, but I can see the muscles of his chest rise and fall with an increasing intensity of his breaths.
Did I make him angry? That has to be it. Viktor doesn’t want to waste his time with amateurs like me.
His hand lifts from my thigh and grabs the bottom of my face, pulling it up so our eyes meet.
