Claimed

CHRISTIAN VICIOUS‘ VOLKOV. 

The thing about life? You know straight away what complications it will shove your way as soon as you inhale that first gulp of polluted earth air. 

By the time I was five, I was selling my own piss to my enemies under the pretense it was 

lemonade. 

By the time I was ten, I was selling dirt from our own backyard under the pretense it was Jupiter dirt. Spoiler alert, I didn’t even know Jupiter 

existed. 

By the time I was fifteen, I was stealing candies from babies for the heck of it. 

My mother called me Vitello, after her grandfather who was a saint of the sort. 

My father called me Vicious; he saw the real me. 

I’m no saint, never went to the padre to confess my sins. 

I wear the coat of villainy from children’s books with pride. 

Yet this part of me that likes being a villain grows. into something much more when small hands touch my shoulder. 

Brad’s nose is already broken. My knuckles are red with his blood and my blood and it isn’t enough to ensure men like him never see the light of day again. 

Five or six fists aren’t enough for Fake Fred and before I go delivering the seventh one, her hand lingers on my back. 

I feel it through my wet clothes in an instant and I 

turn around. 

Remember about knowing complications and knowing when life will hit you with them? 

She’s the first complication I didn’t see coming. 

The second complication? 

It comes in the form of Alexia motherfucking Green slapping me across the face while she yells, 

“You asshole! I told you this was my fight; I’d handle him on my own but nooo…you are Vicious and that’s about the worst nickname I’ve ever heard. Are you even listening to me? Tell your lapdog to let go of him” 

Every word that comes out of her mouth needs to 

be scrubbed hard with soap and bleach. 

But that’s not why I’m not listening. 

The blood, the déjà vu, her. 

It zones me out. 

I fail dismally to control my rage, to distinguish who is who, my blood boils, my heart craves for blood. 

“Vic, stop“, Maximo’s voice sounds like a distant wail. 

My anger redirects like a missile back to the five–foot something woman who’s just slapped me and called me an asshole. 

I’ve given her far more privileges but no one does that. 

No one touches me the way she did. No one hurts 

1. me. 

No one gets to hurt Christian Vitello Volkov. No one got to be my father with the belt again. 

My hands trigger happy, I reach out to the kryptonite that’s making me weaker, angrier, confused than I’ve ever been in all thirty years of 

my life. 

I grip her neck. Hard. 

“Kill me. Finish the job you failed to do back at my apartment. I’m pretty sure hell is better than being stuck with a douchebag who thinks he is God because men with tiny balls follow him 

around. Do it.” 

Blue eyes pierce mine and behind those eyes? I see her hurt. I see that special moment we shared back in that damn shower gone with the wind. 

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Setting 

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And that’s good. 

Hate me because I’m no knight in shining armor. 

Hate me because I’m no fucking prince who 

wipes your tears and promises you a better 

tomorrow. 

The more I state things in my head, the more my 

hands sink into her neck. 

She’s gasping for air; I’m having an episode that usually ends up with two or more dead bodies. 

“Volkov, you go any further and that kid won’t have a mother. Jett will have to raise her all by 

himself.” 

“She’s cute and all but I don’t think I can handle a 

kid, boss. I’m barely twenty–five, man.” 

Millie senses the tense environment around us 

and she sobs. 

I hate it when she cries. 

Dazed, feeling shitty, I let go of the nurse and 

step as far away from her as I can. 

I pick Brad up from the ground and whisper, “You are dead.” 

“You could have killed her.” 

“I didn’t.” 

The orange embers from my lit cigarette dance 

with the wind. 

This isn’t my first episode or the first time I’ve 

tried killing anyone that provokes me during said episodes. 

It’s the first time I’m feeling shitty though. 

Choking her after she told me her ordeal with 

shitty men? Yeah, I was a dick. 

And a dick is all I’ve always been when it comes to 

women. 

“And you think buying her an entire store of women’s clothes will earn you, her forgiveness?” 

“I’m not looking for forgiveness.” 

I’m not looking for anything from her except slaving her around till her boyfriend shows up to 

take her. 

And then? That’s when this madness ends and the 

real fun begins. 

“It didn’t seem like it. I’m going to warn you now and not later when all this shit bursts in your face. You’re a Volkov and a Vitello, that blonde nurse might not understand who she’s working for but I 

1. do. 

Three months from now, you are going to claim the title of heir to the Cosa Nostra. A month later you’ll be pressured into marrying an heir from the five families, failure to do that, you start a 

1526 

war. 

That woman doesn’t fit into the equation. As a nurse yes but as something else? She and her kid. will be dead in your world faster than she can blink” 

As Maximo drones on and on, my mind trails back to that slap that stung like a son of a bitch. 

Maximo is right of course but my mind loops. around the day’s events over and over again. 

“Any word from Demetri?” 

“Yes and we have a problem.” 

Problem at work. 

Problem at home. 

Problem everywhere I point my gun. 

Two shots of whiskey and none are drowning out the Little Nurse’s eyes as she begged me to choke her or the fact that her naked body would look 

sublime under mine. 

Two steps up the small stairs of my mansion and I pause glancing at the smoke that willows from my backyard. 

The air itself reeks of plastic and garbage 

burning. 

I ditch the front door, walk around the house all 

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Setting 

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the way to the pool I never use, to the garden that graces my backyard. 

The garden that has a very familiar woman trying 

to put out a fire. 

A small lump of whatever the fuck that is 

continues burning, the flames getting excited by 

the wind. 

“Juana?” 

I shouldn’t ask about the fire, I couldn’t care less if a pack of wild dogs invaded the house. This house has become void since Cat died. 

“Vicious. I didn’t know you were coming home. I’m sorry about this, I tried to warn her not to do it…but the fire is slowly starting to dim down so 

no worries.” 

My ears prick up. 

“The nurse did this?” 

Started a fire in my backyard? 

“She was upset, it’s only understandable that she burns her clothes. Frankly every woman has 

probably done something crazy when she’s upset-” 

“What clothes?” 

“Vic-” 

“Tell me everything.” 

“She put Millie to bed. Then she spent the whole 

afternoon burning every piece of clothing that Jett brought to the house” 

Every bit of clothing I bought for her. 

“Anything else? 

“She said umm where she comes from, a man 

who strangles her and buys an entire wardrobe of 

clothes for her is no man.” 

No man, my ass 

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