Guns and Roses

Fifty Nine ~ Bella

"And you'll phone me every day?" Quinn asks Rya again as he attempts to take her bags from her yet again. She growls at him and insists on carrying her own bags even when she nearly falls down the stairs with them.

Once they're at the bottom, she drops the bags with a loud thud and smiles at him, "Every morning and every night, polpetto. I want to know how everything's going with the shop while I'm away too."

I leave them to their goodbyes. I already said goodbye this morning and if I fuss over her anymore I think she might kill me.

I cant believe she's eighteen already. It feels like only yesterday I was chasing her around the house when she first learned how to run.

I also cant believe that I'm back living in this house. I jump down onto the very same bed that I slept in the night I met Viktor. That feels like a lifetime ago now.

"Princesa," Viktor says warmly as he walks into our room. He must have just said goodbye to Rya. He didn't want her to go to Russia alone but she's old enough now to handle it.

He sits down on the bed beside me and then flops back so he's lying beside me. "She looks like you," he says.

I laugh. She looked like me when she was about five or six and then she started to develop into a female Viktor. She got my hair but Viktor's golden skin and dark eyes.

I sigh and smile up at the ceiling, "I like Quinn," I say, "hes not who I imagined Rya to end up with but I'm happy it worked out this way."

Viktor is silent for a second. Whenever Quinn is brought up he goes into over protective father mode and you'd think the boy was the devil incarnate.

"He's growing on me," he says finally, "I think he's scared of me."

Laughter pours from my mouth as I recall every awkward dinner we've had recently that has involved Quinn nearly wetting himself. "You threatened to castrate him if you ever caught him in Rya's room again."

He's silent again and then starts to laugh, "I dont think he can tell when we're joking."

"Were you?" I ask. He's silent again and I smack his chest, "Viktor! He's good to Rya and he makes her happy. Anyway, would you rather she ended up with some drug dealer or trafficker?"

I realise what I've said far too late. Viktor's protectiveness over Rya isn't just a father thing. He's worried that what happened to Katie will happen to her.

I roll over and put a hand on his chest. I can feel his heart beating beneath my palm. "She's not Katie, Viktor. She can look after herself."

"Mum would have loved Rya." He says with a smile, "She'd be proud that she was Koroleva."

My daughter. The queen.

A frown appears on my face as it hits me. "Wait, fuck. So if you were the King, and Rya's now the Queen and I'm the princess then this monarchy is royally fucked up."

He starts to laugh heartily and then wraps his arms around me. "They're just nicknames, princesa. Stop thinking into it so much."

I start to laugh as well, "Its been two years and we're only just figuring that out? How slow are we?"

He shakes his head with a grin, "Must be our old age."

My face falls as I smack him again, "We're not old! I'm 37 for fuck sake!"

He holds his hands up, "I was kidding! Ah shit, that means I'm almost 40."

"Oh my God! We're not old!" I argue, "We just did everything really early on in life."

He wraps his arms around me again and pulls me on top of him. I look down at him and smile, "Its nearly our 15th wedding anniversary. How strange is that?"

"How strange is it that out of those 15 years we've only spent two of them together?" He answers.

I shake my head and sigh, "I still cant believe Artie got married and I didn't even get to go to the wedding."

He grins at me, "We brought you cake."

I nod as I remember the day that Viktor and Rya turned up with a single slice of cake. I think they probably bribed someone to let me have it but it was a good day because it was one of the first that we'd spent together as a family in over a decade.

While I was locked up, I was always terrified that the next time I had a visitor, they would tell me something awful. Death is far too common in this house and I always worried that someone would get hurt.

Strangely though, when I was kidnapped for a second time. I didn't expect to be told that anyone had been killed whilst I was gone so Alexander's death hit me like a train.

I was gone a month and my family fell apart.

When we were in Portugal for those few days, Viktor caught me up with everything that had happened. How he had been blackmailed out of the country by the Petrovs threatening to kill Rya as they had with me. How Ellie had drugged and stole Quinn's keys to rob the shop and try and turn him against Rya. How Rya had been kidnapped and tortured with no one to save her.

But finding out that Alexander was dead broke my heart. Everything else had a temporary effect, they were difficult and took a lot of time to fix but they weren't permanent. Alexander, however, was never coming back.

A man that I considered to be my brother, a man who raised my daughter when I couldn't with no questions asked, a man who put aside his own happiness in order to assure the safety of my child is dead and there is nothing I could have done to stop it.

My heart hurts when I think about the grief I felt when I found out about Alexander. It's a pain I know Viktor feels 100 times more than me because he knows that he should have been here. He knows that he could have saved his brother and protected his daughter and that kills him a little bit every day.

Two years later and even though no one blames him, he still cant forgive himself. The same way I cant forgive myself for the deaths of my friends all those years ago.

"Speaking of cake," I say with a smile, "I think theres some cake from the party left downstairs."

He laughs and shakes his head at me, "Come on then."

We dont move and then I quickly press a kiss against his lips. "I love you, Viktor."

He cups my face and smiles, "I love you too, princesa."

And we have reached the end of the Guerreiros tale. Were you happy with how the story turned out? Are there any bonus chapters or different points of view you would like to see?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this story!

Until next time,
Elle