Chapter 14 - Viktor
My eyes open to the specific, retributive agony that radiates from the base of my skull, down through my left shoulder blade, and into my dead-asleep arm. I try to rotate the shoulder. My arm buzzes like TV static.
The fact that I’ve spent nights in worse positions in worse locations—like against the corrugated metal of a shipping container, in the slop with the pigs, and others still, none of which I wish to revisit—doesn’t bring me any relief.
This too-small couch in the corner of this makeshift office isn’t meant to house my six-three stature in a semi-horizontal orientation.
With a dull groan, I stretch my neck until I hear the juncture-joint pop away the pressure. It goes off like a champagne cork, but I have no desire to celebrate. If anything, I feel distinctly mournful.
It’s miserable and pathetic.
This isn’t improved by the kitchen being fucking freezing when I walk in. I fill up the moka pot and set it up on the burner, watching flames dance and holding my hands too close to them just to get some fucking feeling back.
I don’t fucking think about the way Nadya had come all over them in an elevator a few hours ago.
Well, I try not to. Almost successfully.
That should count for something.
Especially when my gaze gradually drifts toward the shut door she’s on the other side of, deep asleep according to the security feed of the bedroom. At least I’m not mooning longingly over the fucking livestream like I was when I passed out the night before. Progress.
While the coffee percolates, I only scroll through my phone, swiping through my messages. A welcome distraction awaits me in the form of a text message from my cousin.
Maxim: Still alive?
He sent it only twenty minutes ago.
I text back, Questionable.
Barely a minute passes before my phone is buzzing and I’m faced with the contact photo of him fucking flipping me off in all its glory.
I answer with a yawn, scratching my throat. “Hey, man. Any updates?”
Max seems to pause. That gets my attention, which swiftly splinters with his quipping, “You sure you’re ready for the morning headlines? You sound a little rough.”
“Yep.” I’d say that’s putting it pretty fucking nicely.
“How’s married life treating you?”
“Max. Not in the fucking mood.”
A hefty sigh whishes from his end.
“It’s bad, Vik, I’m not gonna lie.” Maxim pauses to swallow something. Probably coffee. I could use a jolt of some hardcore caffeine myself. And maybe a fucking cigarette.
“Just tell me.”
“They—” Maxim doesn’t say their name, too smart to risk it on the regular line he’s called me on, “—are combing the fucking streets for you. It looks like they’re throwing every resource they’ve got into searching for her.
They are telling everyone and their fucking mother they’re sure it’s you.
It’s only a matter of time before it gets back to Anton.
And when it does, what do you think he’s gonna do with that information?
He’ll come after you for that, and he’ll find out about all of the rest of it.
If the Yuris don’t kill you for taking her, Anton’ll fucking kill you for treason. But not before he—”
He breaks his own rant off with a heated exhale.
Maxim doesn’t need to say the crux of it. Every piece of information he relays is another layer peeled back. I understand what lies in the middle of it all is my likely prolonged and surely agonizing demise.
“They’re coming for you.”
I sigh, my eyes falling shut. “Of course.”
“Man, can you fucking blame them? It isn’t like they’re wrong.”
That snaps my eyes back open.
“Who’s fucking side are you on anyway?” I grunt.
“Yours, you fucking idiot. Always. But that doesn’t erase the existence of logic. Why wouldn’t they suspect you? Look at it from their side—”
“No fucking thanks,” I interrupt. “Fucking goddamn Yuris, can’t mind their fucking goddamn business.”
Maxim scoffs, humorless. “Your wife is a Yuri. She’s their fucking sister, man.
And she’s gone without any note or body, which is probably the only reason Trifon Yuri hasn’t declared war yet.
Like it or not, this orchestrated history between them and you is biting you in the ass. It’s going to get you fucking killed.”
I stare at the wall darkly. “Then you’d better run for cover, Maxim.”
“Viktor. Come on. If there was ever a time for one of your batshit fucking schemes, it’s now. Get yourself the fuck out of this.”
I laugh at the insistence. As if it’s all really that easy. So cut and dry, huh? “No, I’m serious. You should probably get some distance while you can. He’ll question you, too. Make your sister do it if he has to.”
The acidic derision in Maxim’s sniff is surprising, from him.
He’s usually above it. “Jesus, enough. Enough with the fucking pity party. You had Valentin shot at, and you threatened his woman. More than once. You purposefully freaked out Iosif in a public setting. But you’re also ass over tits for Nadya, and yet you think the shit you’re pulling is actually going to work.
How can something this fucking smart be this fucking dumb? ”
“You’re bitchy today.”
“You’re bitchy always, you son of a bitch.”
“You’d better be talking about my trophy mother and not Milena.”
“It’s a figure of speech, bitch.”
“The fuck it is.”
“You’re getting off fucking tangent!”
I growl my frustration down the line. “What do you fucking want me to do, Max? Give her back? I fucking won’t.”
“Obviously. But there has to be a solution. I have to go. Think fucking harder. You dug yourself in, you’re gonna dig yourself out. You’ve got no other choice, Vik.”
The line goes dead, leaving me alone with too much to think about.
It really isn’t the distraction I’d been hoping the call would be.
***
I gather up the flour, eggs, butter, and milk and mix them all together in due process. With the help of a trusty cast-iron pan that I only burn my hand on once, I’ve got a nice little arrangement prepped and ready in no time.
A little light stalking can, now and again, reap due reward.
In this case, the reward is knowing that my wife heartily enjoys a stack of pancakes drowned in butter, syrup, and bathed in berries. I’ve seen her eat them more than once, and with great gusto, at her sister-in-law’s establishment.
I also know that Nadya will take her coffee without sugar and with a splash of cream. And if she, like a feral alley cat, decides to swat the tray out of my hands, then she’ll have to feel at least a little bad about it.
With that said, I’m not interested in a repeat performance of last night.
This isn’t about romancing Nadya. We’re a little past that.
I may have gotten her off in an elevator and gotten a taste of my name moaned past her lips, but it had also altered nothing between us in any real way.
I’d say the influx of desire between us is as core a component of our relationship as the frustration.
Either can grow heightened at any point, but neither is ever entirely absent from the scene.
She had known I could make her cum before she knew my name. Sex—or sexual acts, to be accurate—couldn’t ever have been enough, in retrospect.
Which is just as well, since I can’t see my appetite for her delectable body ever being satisfied. My attraction to her is just a fact, like the water being wet. As is hers to me, no matter how much she is loath to admit it.
Neither has the shock factor to facilitate any real change.
The fact of the matter is that I’ve made a series of choices that have led me here. For a long time, it was my wounded pride in the driver’s seat. I’ve had Maxim by my side, sure, but I’ve kept the passenger seat empty. It’s just been me in the car, alone.
Here’s what no one ever puts in the cookie-cutter manuals for addiction recovery, though. How, once you’ve spent enough of your life driving at one hundred and fifty miles per hour, no brakes, you stop fearing driving off the cliff.
Now, if I drive off, I won’t be driving off alone. I’ve made sure of that.
I stir cream into Nadya’s coffee cup, and I think about how I’ve spent so fucking long seeing this bratva life I was born into like a predatory species.
Survival of the fittest has always, for me, included an innate ability to steer clear of soft spots.
It’s why I’ve always been superior to Anton, who shattered after his wife died years ago and never came back from it.
To the fucking Yuris, who made a secret of their sisters but not of the women to whom they handed their beating hearts.
So long, I’ve spent being above it.
And now, look at me.
I pick up the tray I’ve set up for her and take the woman who has seared herself into my very soul breakfast in her bed. And I find there is no choice in who becomes the chink in your armor. All armor, no matter how immaculate or expensive, has at least one.
It begs the question of how fatal a wound one can still survive.
I guess I’ll fucking find out soon enough.
There’s only one touch left to add to the tray.
It’s the most important part of the display, after all.
***
“I thought about what you said,” I announce from the doorway.
It’s evident from the bleary blink of Nadya’s half-lidded eyes that she hasn’t been awake for long. She looks at me with such heart-wrenching confusion, I don’t know what to do with it.
I decide there’s no point knocking, so I just walk the fuck in.
“What,” she eloquently grunts.
“Last night, gorgeous,” I remind her pointedly, restraining a smile. I plant the tray beside her and take a step back, lurking by the bedside, if only because I fucking enjoy the way she has to look up at me.
I think it’s best to wait for her to take a couple of deep, grateful sips of her coffee before I add, “You said that if I wanted to help you, I’d let you talk to your family. I’ve found a way to make it happen that works for both of us.”
That wakes her up quicker than the caffeine, naturally.
Just like that, she’s hoisting herself up against the headboard despite the faint green tinge to her complexion. “What the fuck are you talking about, Viktor? This isn’t a game to me.”
My brows knit together. “Are you hungover?”
“Obviously.” Nadya glowers.
Her ire is punctured by her surprise when I lean over her to pluck the burner phone I’d set on the tray. I am bewitched by her. I don’t fucking trust her. More facts.
“I’ll be back,” I toss over my shoulder, already halfway out the door.
She isn’t exactly jumping for joy. She looks as vexed when I return as she did when I left, but she’s eating the pancakes. She’s slower about it than she usually eats, but I’ll take it.
At least this time, when I bring her some Advil, she pops it in her mouth. I don’t give a shit if she looks annoyed doing it. This is fucking growth. It’s a step forward.
She takes it of her own volition.
It makes my chest puff with pride to earn it from her. There is a different charm to it than there is to forcibly taking what I crave and beholding her resultant revelry.
Nadya exists on a rollercoaster-like spectrum. Why wouldn’t my feelings for her? Feelings that fractionally increase at the sight of her mouth pinching in on itself before she forces out a pained-sounding, “Thanks.”
I understand her. Maybe that’s how I know this is something, despite the odds against us.
“Here,” I say. Lowering myself to sit at the edge of the bed, I dangle the phone at arm’s length. It’s a pretty standard burner phone. My habit of stockpiling models pays off. I pulled this out of a new box for this express purpose.
This, of course, is separate from the fun of toying with her, which I do. I snatch it out of her reach just before she can clamp a hold down. I’m not remotely shocked when the act gets me pelted with a blueberry to the forehead.
“Eat first,” I insist, popping the berry into my mouth. It explodes between my teeth.
It’s a good thing the sourness distracts me. Otherwise, the discomforting sight of her vulnerable expression could become unbearable.
“Is this you fucking with me?”
I shouldn’t begrudge her the distrustful way she eyes me. Then again, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m not in the business of should. Now, if only my business weren’t prone to changing for her. Against Nadya, all other components become Tetris blocks.
“I’m always fucking with you at least ten per cent,” I admit. “But no. I mean for you to contact your family today, from this phone. And—“ I hold up a disparaging but firm finger as her mouth opens to interject. “—it isn’t only because I can’t fucking stand your unhappiness.”
She isn’t unaffected by my admission. There’s a chance the hangover’s to blame as much as my compounding gestures of goodwill here—but it’s meaningful that Nadya doesn’t tuck herself away behind the bratva princess mark.
I get her scrutinizing me, ruthless and shrewd and unafraid to unnerve me. It feels good under her attention.
It’s good to see it.
Especially since our ill-advised tryst in the elevator clearly pushed Nadya off some moral precipice. I can’t deduce exactly which one. Irrespective of those semantics, it’s killed me to think her attraction to me could war against her self-belief.
I am relieved that isn’t the case.
“Right.” Nadya clucks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Her expression has turned decisive. “Tell me the catch. I’m too hungover for you to play coy. Just spit it the fuck out.”
In response, I make her wait because I can.
And, frankly, because she wears her foul temper beautifully.
I like it leaps and bounds better than the disgust I suspect it will soon give way to.
These are the realities of being caught between a rock and a hard place.
“The catch… is that if you tell them where you are, you will have their blood on your hands. You can tell them you are safe, because you are. You can exchange pleasantries. Concoct an explanation, if you feel inclined to offer one. But you give me, or New York, away, and I swear on my life, Nadya, whoever comes through that door for you will bleed. Believe me when I tell you I will not give a fuck if I die shooting them.”
As expected, there it is. The disgust.
Expecting it doesn’t really soften its blow.