Chapter 24 - Viktor #2
My hand on her face forbids the shower’s spray from getting in her eyes as she looks up at me. That’s how I know it isn’t the water, but tears, in the wild, glorious Nadya Yuri’s eyes.
As she confesses, “I love you back.”
***
Afterward, I carry her to the bedroom. It’s from the fact that she allows it with a suspicious lack of complaint that tells me she’s fucking wrecked.
“You have to know that no one’s going to be thrilled about this.”
She gives me a practical, factual nod. In contrast, a madhouse grin curls her lips. She cheerfully says, “Good thing your fiancée is someone who’d never walk away from an adventure!”
I balk at her. “Fiancée? But you—”
She already signed the fucking papers.
“I’m not going to be your wife until you give me a ring and a wedding, Zakharov,” she says boldly, her eyes gleaming with mischief and satisfaction. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
The smug look on her face sets my cock stirring again.
Like she can sense it, Nadya’s gaze drops to my waist, currently covered only with the towel wrapped around my waist. A matching set to the one wrapped around her body.
She giggles impishly, reaching out to squeeze me through the terry. “Tell you what,” she says in a sing-song voice that makes my eyes narrow in suspicion. “I’ll fuck you again if you hold my hand through the really frustrating phone call I’ve got to make now.”
Phone call?
“To my brothers. Who aren’t going to be happy.”
“Wait. Why? If they didn’t tell you where I was, how did you—”
Nadya’s got a sheepish look on her face. She admits, “Uh, your brother?”
“You didn’t.”
“Iosif knows. He helped,” she adds defensively.
My palm cradles her cheek, reminding her she doesn’t need to be. I’m stunned, but she can do whatever the fuck she wants. I already know she’s batshit insane. It’s one of the reasons I’m fucking obsessed with her.
“My brother. Anton. Anton told you where I was. Anton Zakharov, who fucking hates me and only didn’t execute me because his pussy-ass morals couldn’t take it?” I question, incredulity knotting my guts.
Her hand covers mine against her face. “He doesn’t hate you, honey,” Nadya assures. “But mine do. So, I need to do some damage control now.”
I reach over to the bedside table and pass her my phone.
“We,” I remind her.
She takes it from me, and all the mischief and amusement in her features quietens, making room for an influx of trepidation that looks foreign on her. I hold out my hand to her like an offering.
“You never need to bribe me, by the way. I’ll hold your hand through anything. You don’t need to ask for it.”
Her breath hitches, and I watch her recover. Absorbing my words. It makes my fucking heart swell to see her straightening her spine and lifting her head. Like the words gave her an infusion of strength.
“Okay,” she says gamely, mostly to herself.
She begins dialing his number, only looking up to raise a brow when my contact list autofills the rest.
“We’re a small community,” I say wryly.
She starts to laugh, but it cuts off abruptly. I recognize Trifon’s voice on the speaker, and the familiar hostility of his tone, snapping, “What the fuck do you want?”
“Hi,” Nadya says back.
“This isn’t your number.”
“Yeah, it’s Viktor’s,” she agrees. “Come on, Trif. You know I’m with him. I may have snuck out while your back was turned, but I didn’t make a secret of where I was going.”
“Nadya—”
“No. Let me talk, okay? It’s my turn now.”
The silence on the other end is so fucking heavy. She’s magnificent, shouldering it how she does. I move across the bed until I’m behind her, able to pull her back into my chest. This is my job now. I get to hold her up. She’s mine to take care of, and I won’t fucking fail her.
“I’m not asking you to be happy about this. I’m telling you that you have to listen to me the way you’d listen to any of our brothers. The way you heard Val out when he brought Gela home, or Iosif when he brought Janella.”
It grinds my gears when Trifon fucking interjects, “Viktor Zakharov is not Gela and Janella. I don’t fucking trust him.”
Nadya sighs, and I squeeze her hand again. “But I am a Yuri. I’m the girl you raised, Trif. The sister you love. Who you all tell me you’d do anything for. Is that all not true anymore?”
“It’s always true.”
“Then hear me. Please, just—if you’d do anything for me, then do this. Accept that I love him. And like, if he hurts me? Okay, cool. Then you can shoot him.”
I can’t help the laugh that escapes me, involuntarily. I can’t fucking stop it. I throw my head back laughing and close whatever little distance remains between us.
Valentin Yuri had been so fucking wrong.
Never so plainly in my life have I understood what love is.
I know now that it is a sword and a shield.
That’s why you need two people—two people right for the job—to wield with any success.
One to brandish the sword, another to protect them with a shield, swapping the accessories on and off for as long as possible, depending on whose battle they need to fight on a given day.
This world is fucked-up. To hold her now, able to feel that I am safe with her, and I trust that she can finally, forever, say the same about me.