Heartless People |Book 1|

Chapter 19

NINETEEN

"He who makes a beast of himself

Gets rid of the pain of being a man."

~ Samuel Johnson

VICTORIA

Day 1

"Ahh!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as a rush of freezing cold water was poured all over me and my bed. Jumping out of bed I came face-to-face with . . . Adriana I believe? She looked like I was an annoying brat.

"You're late." She stared, placing the bucket on ground.

"It's six in the morning!" I yelled at her, shivering horribly. Why in the world couldn't she just shake me like a normal person?

"Training starts an hour before sunrise. The sun is up, which means you're late." She walked to my closet and pulled out two random items of clothing that didn't even match, then threw them at me.

"I didn't"

"Strip."

"What?" She wanted me to change in front of her?

She rolled her eyes and pointed to my pajamas. "Take off your clothes and get changed, so you can start the training you begged the Boss for."

"Okay let me just go to the bathroom."

"Why? Do you have special lady parts that I don't have?" She glared at me.

"I don't remember you being this mouthy to Jen."

"What was that?' she asked, making me jump.

"Nothing, these clothes don't match," I replied walking over to my closet.

Adriana followed of course. "Does it matter what clothes you bleed in?"

"Bleed in?"

"There is a reason why people say they worked through blood, sweat, and tears." She rolled her eyes making me feel like an idiot, and I wasn't doing this to feel even worse about myself.

"Look I'm new at this whole—"

"Being strong? Being confident? Being a fucking Manoban? Yeah, I'm getting that. Which is why I'm annoyed, because this isn't you. Or at least is shouldn't be you. Aren't you women supposed to be strong?"

"You don't know me, you bitch!" I yelled at her.

She smirked, pushing her glasses up her small nose. "Nope, I don't know you, but do you know you? Is this meek, small woman in front of me the real Victoria or is it the face you put on because you're scared to deal with your shit?"

I wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Think about why you asked to do this. You could have chosen any other way to remake yourself—to better yourself. You could have gone back to school, lost five pounds, wrote a self-help book. But instead, you wanted to learn how to fight. People who choose that option are born differently than the rest of the world." She stepped right up to my face, and I felt the need to back away.

"There is a drive, a hunger within you Victoria. You're trying to break out of your shell but are scared to do so. You're scared because all you know how to do is hide behind sick children and big fat checks. You hide behind everything, even your clothes. It's why you can't take them off in front of others. Let me get guess, you and Nickhun have sex in the dark? You hide and wait under the covers—"

"Shut the fuck up!" I yelled, my fist flying at her fast, however, she caught it easily and smiled.

"There's the real Victoria breaking out. Maybe you aren't hopeless. We will try again tomorrow, and you better not be late." She glared before walking away from me.

When she left, I felt myself fall and I just lay down in my closet. Who was the real Victoria Manoban? I wasn't sure. My whole life was unsure, with the exception of Nickhun. He was the silver lining in my life. Neither of my parents really wanted anything to do with me, seeing as how they weren't really my parents. They were my very bitter aunt and uncle. After my real parents died, they took me in, hoping they could get the money that was left to me.

They didn't care about me, and they were pissed when they found out only I could withdraw anything and not until my sixteenth birthday. They never said a kind word to me as a child, and then on my sixteenth birthday, they were taking me on shopping trips—more like I was taking them. But they were happy and they treated me better, so I kept buying. Now here I was at twenty-two, still trying to buy affection. But it didn't work so well when everyone around you had just as much money, if not more.

I didn't know who the real me was. But I knew I wanted to kill this Victoria. Not all of her, just most of her. I wanted to be who I was when I first met Nickhun, free, alive, happy. I wasn't sure when I lost it. I think it was just a few months after we got married. I saw a darker side of him, and I got nervous, I became afraid and walled myself off from him.

The more blood I saw, the more wounds he came back with, the more I walked away, which was stupid, because he confessed on our third date who he was and what he did. He told me he loved me enough to let me walk away. He said that if he went on one more date he wouldn't be able to handle it if I left him. I didn't want to leave him, so I stayed, and then I kicked him in the gut for it later. I accepted this life, and I didn't want it to rule me. I wanted to walk on the same water Jen and Evelyn did. Evelyn would walk through fire for Marco, she would kill for him, and I wanted to be that way. I wanted to be a real Manoban woman.

Day 2

I walked straight into Adriana's room to find her placing knives on her bed. She looked up at me then to the time and smiled.

"Four-thirty in the morning. I'm impressed. Ready for the blood, sweat, and tears?" she asked.

"Yes."