Chapter 7 - Nadya
The reprieve is short-lived. In a handful of days, the feeling is back. My skin prickles with awareness. There’s no real proof that Viktor’s presence is more than my delusion. Except trusting my gut’s gotten me this far.
And I don’t need to see Viktor Zakharov to know he’s here—that he’s around me, skulking around like a lone wolf.
Maybe he’s forgotten wolves are stronger in a pack.
I stick to mine.
It’s easy to engineer. My siblings have been trying to tuck me beneath their albatross wings since long before this whole mess.
Maybe it’s time I stop fighting them on it so hard.
The cocoon of family is a balm that almost totally numbs me to the searing thrill that’s burrowed itself beneath my skin.
I’ve never missed a Sunday brunch, a tradition started and upheld religiously by my eldest sister-in-law, Yulia.
But I start showing up to family dinners, too, where Trifon presides at the head of the table; a steady, solid patriarch at the helm of an often-rocky ship.
Besides, when the bossiness gets to be too much, I love spending time with baby Zina.
She’s a little fucking terror, unapologetically banging her fists atop her highchair.
On top of willfully taking my security everywhere, there’s security in tagging along to shop with Gela, trying on wacky shit in thrift shops, and laughing without a care in the world. It’s as close to a wild adventure as she likes to get—and I try to absorb that, to let it be enough for me too.
Janella also indulges me in low-stakes card games, never questioning when I show up at The Great Escape twice in one week.
I can tell my brothers are dubious, though grateful. I unnerve them like this, cooperative and pliant. As much of an angel as the ironic set of wings tattooed into my shoulder blades might suggest.
So, why doesn’t it help?
No matter what I do or who I’m with, the feeling never lets up.
What do I even call it? It isn’t fear. Contrary to what many believe, I’m not immune to it.
I’ve felt it, and often, the real, cold-sweat and stomach-dropping kind.
My stomach turning into a trampoline. My heart dropping down to it, just to leap back up into my throat.
The vacuum beneath my breastbone is filled by an electric charge, buzz-buzz-buzzing, zinging me whenever I try to examine it too closely.
It’s louder than the rooms I coyly tuck myself into.
It’s brighter than any lights I strut beneath.
On Thursday, I’m at a bar with Iosif when the fever spikes. We’re sitting in the corner of the bar, and it’s my own damn fault I let the lure of people-watching seat me by the windows.
I unceremoniously spill my beer all over myself.
“Shit, Nads,” Iosif curses. “What the fuck?”
At least my sweatshirt is black.
“I’m fine,” I gasp, maniacally patting at my chest with a cocktail napkin that disintegrates the more it absorbs.
I can’t breathe. My skin is on fire.
In the time it takes my brother to flag down the bartender, my attention is already splintered. My eyes are already aimed out at the street, already frantically searching for… For what? A daunting silhouette. A dark grey Audi?
The buzzing never lets up.
I drain the rest of my pint glass, and it tastes stale to me.
I don’t even bother pretending it’s nothing anymore.
I don’t believe it. I know he’s out there.
I could tell Iosif. I can tell Iosif anything.
I just have to speak up. He won’t be happy to hear that, now that I’ve finally had sex, I did it with the Yuris’ mortal enemy.
But it isn’t my fault. I didn’t know. It was a victimless crime.
Unlike seeing Viktor at the race. Unlike letting him go.
Unlike this entire fucking week.
I can tell him. Even more importantly, I have to.
So, why is it that I open my mouth and all that comes out is, “We should switch to something a little harder than fucking beer, huh?”
***
I’m running late on my way to my sister’s atelier, Darya’s pride and joy.
I haven’t been there too many times before, but I trust my security guards—two beefy-looking dudes called Jonah and Elias who refuse to indulge me in any yapping—to guide me to the correct location in South End.
Mercifully, they give me room to breathe.
Being chaperoned rankles, but I can live with it so long as I keep reminding myself it's my choice. For now, at least.
As I jog across the street, I can’t decide if, two weeks in, I’ve finally managed to get rid of Zakharov.
Or if I’ve only gotten used to the eerie sensation of being watched.
Can I still feel his presence, or is it just the winter chill seeping in through my jacket? I don’t get the chance to ponder it.
When our trio turns the corner, it’s right into a thickening Saturday afternoon crowd. I see enough people walking around with to-go coffee cups in hand to crave a mocha latte myself. I’m sure Darya would appreciate a good jolt of caffeine, albeit in a boring, pretentious Americano.
There’s nothing amiss.
Until, just like that, there is.
I hear the sharp clang of impact, like metal colliding against something hard, and it reverberates down my spine. It’s chased by the sound of a woman’s cry, high-pitched and pained. It slices through the ambient din of the brunch crowd.
On instinct, my head snaps toward it.
I’m on the move before I’ve actively decided to go.
Only twenty yards away, there’s a cyclist down on the pavement.
Her bike is tangled beneath the wheel arch of a car that’s half-mounted on the curb.
She’s crumbled in a pitiful ball on the ground, with an arm clutched to her chest, tears streaming down her pale, freckled cheeks.
Her distressed whimper makes my chest hurt.
“Hey,” I snap at my guards, tightly flanking me. I shove Elias’ shoulder. “I’m fucking fine. Go get help!”
I drop to my knees in the street. This girl is even younger than I am. Maybe twenty, at a stretch. Probably just a teenager.
She stammers, “I—Oh, God—”
“Hey, I’ve got you, dude. Don’t try to move! Does it feel broken?” I get a hand under her right shoulder, trying to stabilize her. “You’re okay. You’re totally fine, just try to breathe through it, okay?”
Somewhere behind me, I can hear Jonah and Elias on their phones.
Hopefully, one of them has called an ambulance, the car service, or something.
I don’t get why no one else is trying to help.
What the fuck is wrong with people? The crowd keeps pressing closer, but they all just walk past us.
A gap has opened between me and the nearer of the two men, uncaring pedestrians squishing into the space without concern.
I guess it’s just the natural fucking physics of a crowd funneling toward a spectacle.
The sweet-faced girl clutches at my wrist with what’s got to be her good hand. “Thank you,” she says, her breath hitching. “I—”
“I’ve got you,” I repeat, nodding reassuringly.
It’s already too late when a hand closes around my arm.
I recognize him by the dark, sweet musk of his cologne. My body relaxes into the touch without thinking. I don’t get a chance to fucking hate that, my every sense overwhelmed by his sudden proximity.
“And I’ve got you,” Viktor murmurs against my exposed nape, his breath hotly fanning against my skin. My lips part, but I never get a word out. The edges of my world blur as I register the pinch of the needle he plunges into the side of my neck.
My gaze drops to find the young girl looking up at me, her eyes somehow dry now. She doesn’t look frightened anymore. I think… I think she looks resigned.
The last thing I remember before everything goes dark is the hard ridges of his body I slump against, and the press of his lips against my temple, swearing, “It had to be this way, baby.”
***
Fucking ouch.
My mouth is the Sahara, and my head appears to have been replaced with a percussion instrument.
I don’t even have to open my eyes to know I want nothing to do with the light that awaits me.
Definitely not when all it takes is the slightest movement to incite the detonation of agony, pounding nails in my sore skull.
Drowning in dismay, I grind the heels of my palms into my tightly shut eye sockets. I have to force myself to breathe. In, out, through it. The worst of it takes an eternity to dull. Nausea assaults me, regardless.
Sitting up is a fucking mistake.
The room tilts in my bleary vision. My hands scramble for purchase again—what, a bed? A huge bed, to be accurate. Covered in a plush, fluffy duvet in a warm rust color, swathed all around my body. The contrast against the concrete sprawl of the rest of this space is overt.
My skin is glossed with cool sweat for more than one reason.
I struggle to get a fucking grip.
I can’t think. I can’t.
My head spins like a demonic carousel.
My stomach lurches, registering his presence. He’s just sitting there, in the corner of the room, casually. His limbs are stretched out with the innate entitlement of the exact man I’d been sure he wasn’t.
But that was before I knew he was Viktor Zakharov.
The mysterious, hilarious, sexy, cocky but oh-so-warm man I’d shared an extraordinarily intimate first with was no more than a fantasy. This is what’s real. Viktor Zakharov, my enemy.
Now, incontestably, that is who is watching me with those deep-set hazel eyes, his expression impassive.
I stare at him wordlessly.
Undeterred, he drawls, “Good morning, Nadya.”
I swallow the bile that threatens to spew all over the covers.
“Well, actually, it’s the afternoon,” Zakharov amends.
My hands fist in the sheets on either side of my hips. I open my mouth, and all that comes out is an infuriated croak.
The vein in my forehead throbs in condemnation.
Zakharov doesn’t even blink. “There’s water on the nightstand.”
Involuntarily, my head turns. Indeed, there is a glass of water on the nightstand. Right beside it, too, there are twin white tablets.