“Not a good move, Zhatka,” Vadim said.
“I think it’s just fine, actually.”
“No. Kolya, who will call off a man who believes he’s answering to me, hmm? Consider that while this knife gets deeper in my throat, son. If Boris truly believes he is working for me and I am the only one who can give him orders he will follow before I can return to my position in Chicago … who will call him off? Think about what I am telling you.”
Pav already knew.
He said it before Kolya could.
“He’s talking about Konstantin.”
“Boris is going after Konstantin,” Kolya said.
Vadim smiled again. “Good job, boys.” Then, his gaze drifted back to Pav’s as he relaxed a bit under the knives digging into his body. “In case you don’t know what that means, Zhatka, she wasn’t the goal for me. Viktoria is something I can use—something to dangle in front of a man who has little to no control over his baser urges. If I could give her back to him, he would do almost anything for me.”
“I’ll fucking kill you,” Pav hissed.
“Not yet,” Kolya muttered from behind him.
“But—”
He pressed those fucking knives harder.
Kolya snapped, “Nyet, Pav. Not yet. We have to wait—let Konstantin take care of Chicago.”
Vadim laughed darkly. “You keep saying that, son, but I already told you. He has no one he can trust in Chicago. I made sure of that.”
“How little faith you have in him,” Kolya returned. “I guess now is the time we wait and see, hmm? Grab a chair, Pav, and we’ll sit while we wait. I’ll call Konstantin, and we’ll go from there.”
Pav didn’t move, but he did remove those knives from Vadim’s body. He crouched down a bit, enough to be eye to eye with the man. He used the tip of the bloody knife to point between his own eyes, and Vadim’s.
On the other side of the room, Kolya’s cell phone rang and rang on speaker but no one picked up. Konstantin wasn’t answering his calls.
“Come on, brat,” Kolya muttered. “Pick up the phone.”
Pav didn’t look away from Vadim.
The man kept grinning.
The phone continued ringing.
“Pick up, Konstantin,” Kolya growled.
He didn’t.
The voicemail picked up instead.
Kolya called again.
And again.
No one answered the calls.
Vadim looked all too happy.
Pav would fix that soon enough, telling Vadim, “What happens in the next few hours will determine what happens to you. What happens to her will determine how I will kill you, Vadim. Whether I get her back, or not, will determine how much you suffer. And believe me … either way, you will suffer.”
19.
“YOU LOOK lonely in here all by yourself,” Boris said as he darkened the doorway of the sitting room, his large figure filling up the entire space. Looming would be an apt description, but Viktoria didn’t want to get stuck in her head when this man was around. “Care for some company?”
“Not highly.”
His gaze flashed with violence.
Viktoria regretted nothing.
“Still mouthy, I see,” he murmured.
Viktoria raised a brow but said nothing.
Mouthy was the least of her problems.
And certainly not a flaw.
For the time she had been stuck in this house with Boris and the men helping him—too long, but she was trying not to pay attention to the passing time—he’d mostly left her alone. Mostly. Sometimes, like now, he would come in and taunt her, but it was almost like something was holding the asshole back from really doing what he wanted with her.
She had to wonder …
Was that because he’d been told to wait?
By who?
Her father, likely.
Fucking Vadim.
Her lack of responses didn’t seem to be what Boris wanted. In a flash, the man had crossed the room to come and stand right in front of her position on the worn-down couch. He’d finally untied her, but not before slapping her for good measure and warning her to behave.
She was allowed to move from this room to the bathroom, but someone was always watching her. She couldn’t even piss without a companion standing next to the toilet. And they would watch her the entire damn time, too.
Dignity.
What was that?
Viktoria was barely able to suck in a sharp breath before Boris reached out and grabbed her face in his hands. His fingers dug into her flesh, probably leaving his disgusting marks behind, like he hadn’t already left enough scars on her body for her to relive time and time again. Not that he cared about those, either.
He cared about nothing.
Just causing pain.
He shook her face a bit, and she sneered right back at him the tighter his hold became on her jaw. She refused to give this man a single fucking inch now. He’d not ever shown her mercy in the past, and she highly doubted that he was going to start now.
So yeah.
Fuck him.
She would fight this time.
Boris bent down. The ache in her jaw increased from the pressure of his hold, but she didn’t show it. She looked him right in the eyes, unafraid, and wanting him to know it, too.
“I’m going to enjoy breaking you,” he said, a sadistic smile curving his lips upward. “And I will enjoy it even more to watch you cry and beg while I do it, Viktoria.”
“You can’t break something that’s already broken.”
His teeth clenched.
She spat on him.
All things considered, that probably wasn’t the best thing to do, but it was too late now. Viktoria couldn’t find it in herself to regret doing it, either. Not even when Boris reared back, lifted his hand, and slapped her with enough force to send her sprawling over the couch.
Blood bloomed on her tongue.
Her jaw ached.
