INLECBRIS

ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔯𝔱𝔢𝔢𝔫

Chapter Thirteen: the hate we give

"𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦."


𝙔𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙜𝙤

Viper Atlas — POV

I've been called many things. A pain in the head. A thorn in the heart. A bisection in the ass.

But was it all true?

Yes.
Yes, it was.

I can account for the way I treated Rusev. I didn't treat him well — but I also didn't care to. People say I should've tried harder, been more understanding, but no one ever tries to understand me.

All I ever wanted was a son. My son. Someone who looked like me, carried my legacy, shared my blood.

Instead, I got him.

My husband came home one night, glowing like a child who found treasure, and declared, "We're adopting." Like it was as simple as that. Like bringing a stranger into your home didn't come with a price.

The moment I saw that child — that baby with wide, curious eyes — I had a stroke. Literally. The doctors said it was shock. I said it was fate protesting.

The next day, when I fed him, he spat the food right on my face. What kind of baby does that? Then he clung to me like I was his whole world — wailing and wrapping his tiny fingers around my scarf on his first day of school, begging me not to leave. My chest ached, not out of love, but suffocation. I couldn't breathe around him.

He didn't look like me. Didn't act like me. Didn't feel like mine. Over time, the resentment grew like rot. I left his father, but we never divorced. I didn't need closure. I needed distance.

And then he returned — older, taller, and bolder — knocking on my door the day his father died. And for a second, for the briefest moment, I saw a flicker in his eyes. Something familiar. And I hated it.

Of course, I blamed him. Rusev was always bad luck in human form. He made every room colder, every smile tenser. He tried to be loved — he tried, oh he tried — but his trying only reminded me of how much I couldn't.

How I would love to look him in the eye and tell him the truth. Watch his face crumble as I say it:

"You were never mine. You never will be."

But something stopped me.

Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was fear.
Maybe it was because deep, deep down — in that place I never dare visit — I wondered if I had gotten it all wrong.

People may hate me.
I don't hate me.
I don't think you should either.

Not everyone was made to love.
And not everyone was made to be loved.

We can't all be winners.