“What was it?” Pav asked.
His heart ached from pumping so hard. His nerves were pulled as tight as they were going to go. At any second, he might blow.
That’s how it felt, anyway.
He just needed something.
A reason to hurt Vadim.
One more second with Viktoria.
Anything.
“It’s Vik,” Kolya said, holding the phone out like he intended for Pav to cross the room and take the device from him. “She’s calling from Konstantin’s phone.”
Pav stilled in place.
The air slipped past his lips—relief.
Kolya passed a look to the man in the chair behind Pav, still bleeding and waiting for the second round with a knife. “They’re fine, and Konstantin asked us to leave Vadim alive until they arrive here.”
Pav didn’t move.
Not to take the phone.
Not to acknowledge the order.
He just didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
“She’s coming?”
Kolya shook the phone a bit. “She wants to talk to you, yeah.”
Pav didn’t know why he hesitated to cross the room and take the phone. Maybe because everything that was great and good in his life had been taken from him so many times that he was scared this was just another sick joke.
It wouldn’t be her on the phone.
His life would be pointless.
He’d just found her.
“Pav.” Kolya said quietly, “come get the phone, yes?”
He nodded, shaking off the odd feeling in his gut and closed the space between him and Kolya. Taking the phone, he glanced at the name on the screen—Konstantin’s contact—and then put it to his ear.
“Viktoria,” he murmured.
“Pav?”
Relief never felt so sweet.
“Da, krasotka.” He swallowed thickly, easier words slipping out then when he added, “Ya lyublyu tebya.”
Viktoria laughed lightly. “I love you, too.”
He wanted to say he was sorry. This shouldn’t have happened again—she deserved to be loved and protected every day of her life. God knew she had suffered enough already, and he felt strangely guilty that here she was, yet again in this position.
But now was not the time.
“I will see you soon.”
“Soon, Pav,” she promised.
Good enough.
Surely that would keep him from killing Vadim until they got there. Wouldn’t it? Pav passed a look over his shoulder at the bleeding man in the chair who was currently glaring at him like he was ready to get out of his seat.
The asshole could try it. And no, he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t kill him.
That was promising too much.
• • •
Pav was a caged animal.
He paced like one, back and forth in the hotel room alone. He wouldn’t even allow Kolya to come in and sit with him as they waited. He stared out the windows, looking for any sign of movement, as though they were bars that he was peering through and he was waiting for his captor to come back.
The slightest noise outside of the door would make him jump. He’d never been this jittery or restless. He’d been on his feet for hours—days, actually, if he thought about it. Trying to remember how much he had slept the last several days was pointless because it wasn’t anything worth knowing. An hour, maybe, if he totaled it all together.
Nothing good.
Earlier, Kolya had thought to point out that it might be smarter if Pav allowed someone in his room to give him company. Someone to talk to, no, Kolya said. Pav was damn close to throwing one of his knives at the man for that because no, he did not want anyone near him right now unless their fucking name was Viktoria Boykov.
End. Of.
Kolya left him alone after that.
Thankfully.
He assumed that Kolya, like the rest of the people who knew him, was so accustomed to Pav being the silent figure in the corner. The one who never spoke, or rarely, and when he did it was always quiet and with few words. They weren’t used to seeing him anxious and pacing like a fucking animal. They didn’t know how to handle or deal with him when he was ready to bring a hell of a lot of pain to anyone who got too close.
So, Kolya left him alone.
Smart, really.
The sound of a car door slamming sent Pav flying across the room to the window. He was too late to see whoever it was that the car had dropped off, though, because by the time he got the curtains moved aside so he could look down at the street below, the car was pulling away and no one was standing on the sidewalk.
Fuck.
They should be here soon. Their flight should have landed already. It was driving him absolutely crazy.
Pav could not remember a time when he felt more out of control than he did in those moments. Backing away from the window, he tipped his head back and stared hard at the ceiling up above. He scrubbed his hands down his jaw, the feeling of his thick facial hair scraping against his palms reminding him that he needed a shave.
He needed a lot of fucking things.
None of them were here right now, though.
Not a single one—
“I didn’t take you for a praying man, Pavel.”
That thing in his chest?
That thing that beat?
That kept him alive?
It stopped.
Altogether quit.
All it took was the sound of Viktoria’s sweet voice behind and his heart jumped in his chest like someone had fucking shocked it. It stopped beating for a split second, and then it restarted, beating twice as hard as it ever had before.
He spun on his heels, and there she was.
Standing just beyond the door of the hotel where Kolya had set them up until Konstantin and Viktoria could arrive in Russia, there
