21. Yana
Fyodor’s Rules #9 - Always look for ways to escape capture.
Iknow I shouldn’t have picked up the knife, or rather, I shouldn’t have held it up to his throat. It wasn’t a smart play, and I was supposed to be making intelligent decisions. Pocketing the knife, now that would have been a much smarter thing to do, and then saving it for a better moment. I was supposed to be getting him on my side, extracting information out of him. I needed to find a way out of here, and I couldn’t do that if they were constantly watching me or worried that I was going to attack them as soon as their backs were turned.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t take it back now, so I needed to be more in control of my behavior in the future. I wanted to say I didn’t know what was setting me off, but I knew. It was the way Lukas was looking at me, talking to me, like nothing had fucking changed. As if he hadn’t betrayed me. I had imagined killing him so many times that it was impossible not to act on the impulse. It was ingrained in my muscle memory.
I will admit I was hungry, and even though a day wasn’t the longest I had gone without eating, it certainly wasn’t fun. Not to mention the blood loss wasn’t making it any easier. The food looked good, and I had watched him the entire time he was making it, to ensure he didn’t slip anything in. Agreeing to that stupid pact with Nikolai had already made things tough enough, I didn’t need to add being drugged or poisoned.
My outburst seemed to have shamed him into silence, or maybe that was my wishful thinking. Either way, I took advantage of the space to breathe and eat in peace. I could still feel his eyes on me, but I ignored them. If there was one thing I was good at ignoring, it was the eyes of men. Breakfast couldn’t last forever, though.
Once the plates were cleared, Lukas was back on his feet, and I was on the defensive. I needed to take charge of this situation. To get enough slack on the leash of his constant attention so I could get a message to James, the security guard I had influenced, as he should be back at work. If Fyodor had realized I was missing, he would have sent him here to gather information.
Though I couldn’t imagine that the boys allowed the hotel security staff up onto their private floor.
“What do you want to do today?”
The withering glare I gave Lukas hopefully made him feel as stupid as that question had been. My throat was full of sarcastic answers, but I swallowed them down, I needed to play sweet and demure, maybe a little helpless.
All those things that made men forget common sense.
“Right, stupid question. Well, we can sit in the living room and talk, or we can go out to the pool deck.” It sounded like he was trying to do the same thing as me, get me comfortable and pump me for information. But he was bad at it, honestly I was surprised they hadn’t left me with Pasha. Although after our “date” it was possible, they were worried I was going to attempt to control his mind again. Or maybe he was off sulking about it, feeling like I had betrayed him.
Oh, the irony wasn’t lost on me.
I had to resist the temptation to roll my eyes at this damn situation. Sometimes I relished the dance of politics, but this was just clumsy. They clearly didn’t know what they were doing, and I was emotionally compromised, even though it pained me to admit it. Maybe it was time to do away with all this subterfuge and try a little honesty, in the quest of drawing out deeper candor from him.
“Fine, if you want to talk, we can talk. But we are going to need a lot of vodka.”
I didn’t care that I had just had breakfast. There was no way I was doing this with him while either of us was sober and it would make questioning him easier. Though I was going to have to get him to drink at least two or three shots for every one of mine, judging from his physique, and that was going to be a tricky sell in the best of circumstances.
Maybe I could come up with some sort of game. He always hated to lose.
I didn’t wait to see if he was following me; I knew the way, having seen the living room on my way to the kitchen. It was probably too early to ask for a tour. I knew the location of the room I was staying in, the kitchen, and now the living room, and it shouldn’t take too long to figure out where everything else was in relation to those.
I doubted that Alexei’s little torture space was up here, as the scent of blood would be too much of a temptation for Nikolai. Even if he couldn’t drink it, it would stir up his bloodlust, and then the others would have to deal with it. Also, I was fairly certain they had been threatening to send me to the basement. I wasn’t in any hurry to end up back in that awful room, but it was good to know where it was, if for no other reason than it was an excellent source of weapons and tools.
Stepping into the living room, I rolled my eyes at the size and number of chairs and couches it contained. There was enough room and seats to have a gathering of about twenty—without needing to squish. Everything I had read of the boys said that they didn’t bring guests up here, and that fit with the way they had been before. Insular, not overly trusting, reluctant to bring people into their space. It was interesting to see which things had changed and which had not over the years. Just how much of Fyodor’s teachings they had given up and abandoned.
I took a seat in one of the armchairs, not wanting Lukas to sit beside me. He had followed me into the room, only a few paces behind me, like he was reluctant to let me out of his sight. It just reinforced the feeling that they had picked him to babysit me, probably hoping our previously close relationship would endear him to me.
Two bottles of vodka were in his hands as he stepped into the room. One he set in my lap, the other he kept for himself as he sat on a couch, directly across from me. His legs were spread slightly, and his arms rested on his thighs. He looked at me as if I held the answers to all the questions he’d been holding onto for these years we’d spent apart.
I wasn’t ready for him to look at me like that, and I definitely had not had enough to drink to process the emotions it tried to drag to the surface. Lukas was trying to act like nothing was wrong, like I had been on holiday for a little longer than expected. Or maybe as if he had lost me and now finally found me again. Opening the bottle of vodka, I took a long swig, but my eyes refused to settle on him. Instead, I took in the dark colors on the wall. I shouldn’t have been surprised that they hadn’t decorated here, there wasn’t even motel art hanging on the walls. Nikolai or Pasha had probably just chosen a color when it was originally being painted, and that was it, the task done.
The vodka burned my throat as I drank about a quarter of the bottle before I turned my attention back to Lukas. I was waiting to see if he was going to crack first and ask me a question, or if he expected me to just start talking. Pretending like we weren’t already on an incredibly uneven playing field. When he didn’t speak, I took another swig of vodka, using it as an excuse to drag things out even further. It had been a while since I played this sort of game with anybody who excelled at it, and I still wasn’t sure what Lukas’ strategy was.
Most people were fast to crack under the gaze of an irate woman. Alternatively, they drank too much too quickly, and then didn’t stop both drinking and talking. While I may have opened with a large drink, I knew to pace myself as the game went on. Strangely, Lukas seemed indifferent to how I felt as he stared back at me.
Rolling my eyes was becoming a habit around these men, and it needed to stop, I was better than this. Well used to putting a mask on in public, it was a mystery why was I letting Lukas see everything I was thinking? Fyodor would read me the riot act if he saw us.
Crossing my legs, I set the bottle of vodka down beside me and straightened my spine. I was the most feared Siren in Europe, and it was time I started acting like it. I let my gaze settle on Lukas. No more looking around, no more drinking as an excuse to draw out the silence. Just me and him, locked in a moment.
“For someone who wanted to talk so badly, you’re awfully quiet, Lukas. Unless that’s all it was? Just talk. But that’s not like you.” I kept my tone even as I spoke, with just a touch of challenge to it. He needed to be on the back foot. And I wanted him so wrapped up in how he felt, he wasn’t thinking about what he was saying. It was the easiest way to get people to tell you things that they normally wouldn’t.
“Fuck, cariad, you haven’t changed.” There was a chuckle in his voice as he shook his head, still meeting my stare. I felt my hackles rise at his insinuation but tamped down on the urge to bite back. He didn’t need to know how much I had changed until it was too late.
“I used to think about having this conversation a lot, sitting here with you. Well, not here, plus you were usually in my lap.” His voice was rough, as if emotion was shadowing it, filling his throat with gravel. I didn’t interrupt him, letting him reminisce, the memories loosening his tongue.
“You know, I used to think about all the things I’d say to you when we found out you weren’t really dead. I knew you couldn’t be, that you must have gone into hiding to protect us.” He paused and ran his hand through his hair.
It was taking a significant effort to keep from shouting at him, yelling at him I ha’d only gone into hiding because they had tried to have me killed.
“I never imagined that I’d actually get to say them to you, though. They were just silly thoughts that were supposed to make me feel better, although I’m sure they often made me feel worse. Pasha thought so.”
I resisted grabbing the bottle that I had set down. I wasn’t sure if I wanted another drink, or to hit him with it. But if I started hitting him with the bottle, I didn’t know if I was’ going to stop. So, I needed to keep him talking.
“Well, it looks like you are going to get your chance, Luka, I’m sitting right here. What are all the things you thought about telling me?”
Maybe this would give me insight into why they had betrayed Fyodor and me. Years had been spent, where I tried to convince myself that it didn’t matter. Motivation didn’t make it any better, and it couldn’t make it any worse. But now, faced with the opportunity, I found I wanted to know why.
He was looking at me like he was thinking; that expression people got on their face when they were mulling things over. The cogs in their brain turning slowly but steadily, round and round, allowing them to weigh things up. I could understand his reluctance to share. Clearly, this was emotional, maybe even precious to him. However, I needed him to share his thoughts with me, so I let him stew in the silence, hoping it would be enough.
Lukas had always been one of the quiet ones, so the silence stretch between us until I considered breaking it myself.
“I always felt like we let you down. Like there was something more that we could have done. And yeah, maybe it was just wishful thinking at the time that you were still alive, that it was all a lie, someone feeding us fiction. But look at you. You’re sitting here now, so we could have found you. We could have done something, and then we wouldn’t be in this fucked up situation.” For someone who talked so little, those were some pretty big words spilling from his lips.
“You didn’t answer the question.” Sure, that probably wasn’t the acknowledgement he was looking for, he was probably expecting me to swoon. But it would not be so easy for him to worm his way back into my heart.
“What was the question?”
Like he hadn’t spent minutes mulling it over. He was probably just trying to get under my skin, but it would not work. The vodka warmed my veins, and I was determined. Lukas was going to crack before I did.
“What did you always want to say to me? You said that you imagined the situation often, so it shouldn’t be this difficult for you to tell me. Unless you lied?” I raised one eyebrow in challenge. It was an effective technique, people hated when you called them a liar. It was a direct challenge to their integrity, for people who cared about that sort of thing. And given the way he was leaning forward, muscles tensed and teeth bared in a look that was very reminiscent of his hounds, Lukas cared.
“I am not a liar, Yana. You should know that, but maybe you don’t know me at all. Maybe you’re the one who lied to us.”
Was he really trying to turn this back on me? I would not let him make me feel bad for going into hiding, they were the reason I’d had to. This would not be made better by gaslighting, so I kept my mouth shut, letting the silence do the talking for me. Allowing him to absorb just how furious I was with the whole situation.
He broke first, running his hand through his hair and taking a long pull from his bottle of vodka. Too long really, but it was what I wanted, so I didn’t say anything. When he spoke again, his voice had lowered back to the rough, emotional tones of earlier in the conversation.
“I told you I was sorry—a lot—and that I missed you. Also, that I wished we had done better by you. I used to say that if I ever got the chance to make it up to you, in this life or the next, I would do it in a heartbeat. I’d do everything I could to make sure you didn’t go out like that, that you were never alone again.” He finished with a long exhale. Lukas didn’t look at me, instead he focused on the bottle, as if trying to drown what he had just said in as much vodka as he could swallow.
I was sure he hadn’t meant for his words to cut so deeply. Though they had definitely been an attack. Admittedly, I had attacked him first, so he had thrown them at me to make me feel guilty for pressing him. But I was past letting any of these men make me feel guilt, they didn’t deserve it, and I didn’t like to waste time or feelings. Instead of immediately attacking him again, I mirrored his actions, letting the vodka cool the anger that was burning in my throat.
“But I was alone, Lukas, and you can’t change that.”
No one could.