Crimson Love

Chapter Five | 1946

"You did what?" Viktor demands, "What is wrong with you? She's a—"

"She is not a child and she is not your daughter!" Vasily hisses, "It is high time you realize who and what you are fighting for agent."

"Do not regard me as some agent you think you can boss around. Times have changed dad and now I can fight back. It sucks that you can't just beat me until I'm bloody anymore. Must be so hard for you to maintain your anger now that you can't take it out on me." Viktor spits out each word with hatred.

"I was shaping you into what I thought was a great agent. You can not fault me for wanting my son to achieve greatness."

"I was eight!" Viktor shouts, tears pricking behind his eyes but he would not let his father see him cry. Not again. "I was eight fucking years old!"

Vasily stands from his chair behind his desk, the only thing separating the two men, and shouts back, "You were a failure! You are a failure and that is what you are destined to be and all you are meant to be. Your mother knew you would grow up to be a goddamn disappointment and that is why she left you. Left me. And now I have to sit here every fucking day looking at your face knowing you're the reason I no longer have her in my life."

"Mom killed herself because she couldn't fucking take the weight of being the wife to such a horrible man like you! She never wanted any part of Hydra and you roped us into this shit! The only difference between mom and I is she had the balls to get herself out of this shithole."

"Don't you dare turn this on me. We could have been on top of the fucking world by now if you had simply stopped fighting me! You will never deserve that Smirnoff girl. You will never be good enough for her. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have a son who is ranked lower than a woman? Do you know how much shame I have to walk around with knowing my only son is a failure and a disappointment?"

Viktor chuckles dryly and doesn't try to hide his tears as he strides for the office door. He stops with his hand on the doorknob and turns back to look at his father. "Guess we both failed our roles in this family." Viktor remarks and then pulls open the door.

Maria smiles to Viktor when she sees him walking down the hall. Her smile slowly fades as she takes notice of the tears on his cheeks.

"Viktor?" Maria says but he passes by her without a word.

___

Ten minutes go by and Viktor continues to throw punches at the swinging bag hanging from the ceiling as tears continue to drip from his face. The doors to the gym open but Viktor doesn't stop his assault on the punching bag.

"Figured I'd find you here." Maria says as she walks up behind Viktor.

Viktor turns and swings his fist toward her. Maria catches his balled up hand. "Talk to me." She says as she drops his fist and walks over to pick up some punching target gloves and slides them on and raises her hands.

"My father." Viktor grits out as he throws a punch to one of Maria's padded gloves.

"I had guessed about that much." She gives a soft smile. "You wanna talk about it?"

"We had an argument I suppose." Viktor mumbles as he sends another punch to her left hand then her right.

"You wanna elaborate on that? You'd be surprised to know that I get what you're going throu—"

"Do not say you understand what it's like to have a father like mine. You weren't even around your own family growing up for you to possibly understand what I'm going through. They didn't wanna deal with you and sent you off to the Red Room. So please, do not try to compare our fathers."