Yeah, she bet.
The prick.
18.
“STOP.”
The dark, irritated order drew Pav’s gaze away from the tip of his knife that he’d been spinning against the pad of his fingertip. He’d been so focused on his task that the rest of the passengers on the private jet—compliments of Konstantin, apparently, because who didn’t want to be rich enough to own a fucking jet?—simply drifted away from his immediate thoughts. He had other things to handle, now.
Across the aisle from him, Kolya sat like a brickhouse in another seat. The man’s cold gaze continued surveying him like he was trying to understand what Pav was thinking about. He had news for him—don’t bother, you’ll never know. He’d never tell them, anyway.
It was better for everyone if Pav just stayed tucked away in his mind while they handled this business. They didn’t know the dangerous, horrible things he was considering doing to everyone in his path right now, and they didn’t want to know.
Kolya included.
That, he could promise.
“You’re dripping blood on the seat,” Kolya said. “Konstantin will have a pissy fit. None of us want to listen to him bitch, yeah?”
It was only then that a panging pain began in the tip of Pav’s finger that he’d been using to spin the knife. Looking at the digit, he found several thin cuts crisscrossing along the skin, and the blood that oozed from the cuts quickly turned into a droplet that fell to his pants. Sticking the tip of his finger between his lips, he sucked the rest of the blood off. The tangy, metallic taste of the blood barely registered, but at least it was gone.
It really didn’t hurt.
Had he been pressing that hard?
“Poor Konstantin,” Pav murmured dryly.
Kolya arched a brow, but Pav only shrugged in reply. He did not want to be here, and he was not going to pretend like he did. This jet, the flight, and what would happen when they finally landed in Russia was all on Konstantin. The man made orders, and the rest of them were just expected to follow them, whether they wanted to or not.
Apparently, that was how the Bratva worked.
Pav had the stars now, as he had been so nicely informed when he pointed out that there was no way in hell they were removing him from Chicago when they had absolutely no proof that Viktoria was gone, too. It didn’t matter, he was told, because he had the stars. His job was to listen to his boss—the man who allowed him the privilege of the stars.
Right.
That was fucking hilarious.
A privilege.
Like he wanted them or something.
Pav remembered that going down far differently than they did, clearly. He’d been told he was going to be given the stars, and that was the end of it. This wasn’t something he had been given a choice in. Just like this fucking flight.
“You’re still sour, no?”
Pav scowled at the port window. “I should be looking for her. Not going after your fucking useless father. You don’t need me for that.”
“Wrong.”
“Oh, you think?”
“I like to think I know, actually.”
“Do tell, Kolya.”
The other man sighed and gave Pav a look that said he was just about done with his shit. He very well could be, but Pav simply didn’t have the fuck to give him at the moment. His mind was in too dark of a place to care what someone else thought or wanted.
Unless their name was Viktoria, he didn’t want to know.
Seemed easy enough.
Apparently, not.
“We very well could use you in Russia,” Kolya said.
“So you keep saying. I’ve yet to figure out why.”
“You’re the only person who has a different understanding of Vadim, in a way. A part of me thinks he might even be afraid of you—he created the whole idea and image of Zhatka, didn’t he? He knows what you can do with a little inspiration. It might even … inspire him to behave and tell us what we need to know?”
Yeah, sure.
Pav didn’t care.
He wanted to find Viktoria.
They could handle Vadim at literally any other point in time. It didn’t have to be right now, but because Konstantin panicked after a few hours of Viktoria being missing, his first decision was to put a small army of men—Pav and Kolya included—on a private jet and send them all the fucking way to Russia.
But who was he to say?
Clearly, no one.
“For reference—” Kolya started to say.
“You continue to think I care or want to have a conversation with you, or that I give a damn about why I’m on this plane because someone else told me to be, but surprise, I do not give a fuck, and I don’t want to talk.”
Kolya cleared his throat, and then chuckled. “I didn’t think I would like you … but I’m beginning to, and that’s interesting.”
“Fascinating, really.”
“The attitude is a little much sometimes.”
Pav rolled his eyes and went back to staring out the window. “Just say what you want to say, Kolya, and let me stew in peace.”
“Fine.” The man shifted in his seat, saying, “For reference, he’s not always going to make choices you agree with—Konstantin, I mean. He often does and orders things that make me want to choke the fucking life out of him, but he is the Pakhan. The boss, Pav. That means you shut up, and you do what he wants you to do because he is not the same kind of man our father was as a boss. He is better.”
“How so?”
Because sometimes with Konstantin, it was hard to tell where the line began and ended when it came to the similarities between him and his father. Pav was not so stupid that he didn’t see how Konstantin was also very
