Then again, Pav supposed that was probably meant to appease Konstantin’s paranoia and need for safety. Kind of like the way he also had entire sections of his walls—inside them, of course—that were just slabs of metal, in case someone outside with an automatic assault rifle got any bright ideas.
Between the two Boykov brothers, Konstantin was the one a person needed to mind, where the man’s thoughts were concerned. He was dangerous because he planned everything down to the slightest detail, never told a soul what he was thinking, and he was meticulous about it.
As for the other brother … Kolya, well, he was just plain fucking dangerous. And violent. Pav had been on the other end of a room one too many times when Kolya had come in ready to kill someone, and it was never very easy for the person who was about to die.
The two were quite different in that way. One, entirely subtle and cunning. The other, obvious and vicious.
Glancing up again, the clock’s second hand was moving past the six, now. Another thirty seconds and he could knock on the door. Konstantin had been clear—twelve, no earlier and no later. Pav was the type to be right on time.
The door to Konstantin’s office was closed tight. He couldn’t hear any noise coming from inside the space, but that wasn’t unusual, either. Not considering how thick the door was, and the effort Konstantin put into making sure his office was completely private.
Pav had only been inside the space a handful of times over the years, and that was usually to relay some message from someone else. He certainly didn’t stay in the office long enough to get comfortable or look around. Not that he could get comfortable in another man’s space. That wasn’t how he worked.
The only place Pav felt truly comfortable was in the shadows—deep in the belly of the Compound where no one bothered him, and very few called on him for their business. He could move between the cells, take care of the broken down there until it was their time to go, and live out his days in relative peace. He didn’t need a lot to get by because he had never been given a lot in the first place. He never asked for anything because no one ever cared to listen to what he wanted, anyway.
Except … well, that was about to change, wasn’t it? That’s what Konstantin had said days earlier. It wasn’t as though Pav had been able to forget.
Pav was still trying to decide how he felt about all of that. He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t like feeling like the ground he currently stood on was unstable for some reason. He found comfort in familiarity and routine, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out what would happen when someone decided to change everything he was accustomed to.
The clock’s second hand hit the twelve at the same time Pav looked up again to check. Despite the thoughts still running wild in his head and the shit he had yet to figure out about this whole plan of Konstantin’s, he moved away from the wall and across the hall. He knocked on the door twice—fast and loud raps of his knuckles against metal that made his bones ache.
Not that he needed to.
Up above the door rested a camera trained on whoever was standing in front of the door, and probably capturing a large portion—if not all—of the hallway. He bet Konstantin had been watching him stand outside of the door for a while now, wondering what in the hell he was doing, or why he hadn’t already knocked on the door to be allowed entry.
The answer was simple.
Twelve was twelve.
Pav was told twelve.
A humming buzz echoed throughout the hallway before Konstantin’s voice came through a speaker next to the door. “You may come in, Zhatka.”
Pav was already pushing open the door with a muttered, “It’s Pavel.”
He hadn’t asked for that nickname.
He didn’t want it at all.
Pav already laid eyes on the woman inside the office before the door shut behind him. She sat across from her brother at Konstantin’s desk with wide eyes as she looked at Pav over her shoulder. He thought, like he had earlier when he’d run into her downstairs and realized she was lost, that she looked awfully dainty for such a cold woman.
How did he know she was cold?
She radiated it.
In her gaze …
The hard set of her lips …
The way she carried herself.
The woman was cold all over.
Not that it bothered Pav one way or another. If anything, he found her coldness comforting, seeing as how he felt the same way a lot of the time. But there was something else about the platinum blonde, blue-eyed woman that interested him more. Something beyond the high cheekbones and cream skin that showcased her very obvious beauty that made him take a second look at her. Oh, sure, she was something else to look at—bow-shaped lips, and round eyes; soft features, and a sharp gaze.
But it was her fear …
He could practically smell it.
Was that because he constantly spent time with people who felt only fear when he was near, or something else? Pav didn’t really know, but that changed nothing about what he felt first and foremost when in this woman’s presence.
Her fear was vast.
Thick and real.
Visceral, even.
And he liked it.
That was probably wrong.
“Yes, Pavel,” Konstantin said, “my apologies. Or Pav, Viktoria, he likes that,
