It wasn’t about her, after all.
“Do you want me to start again?” she asked, hitting the trigger on the machine and making it buzz.
Kolya chuckled. “Might as well.”
Viktoria went back to work. She’d taken a chair and room in her friend’s shop so that she could get out of the apartment more often. She never went back to her house—put it on the market, and watched it sell faster than she’d thought was possible.
Tattooing felt like home, though.
It was familiar.
An outlet.
She was halfway through the black and white cupola when Kolya cleared his throat and drew her attention to him again. She’d never known her brother to be very chatty—he simply wasn’t the type—but he seemed to have a lot to say today.
Or maybe he was like her …
Making an effort to be better.
Trying to do better.
Who fucking knew?
They were still Boykovs, right?
“What?” she asked.
“I heard, from a little bird—”
“Maya,” Viktoria said instantly.
Kolya scowled. “I did not say it was my wife.”
“Your wife is the only one who gossips to you because she is the only one you allow to gossip around you. You would never tell her to shut the hole in her face like you tell everyone else because then she might cry.”
His cheek twitched. “Maya never cries.”
“Because you have killed people for making her sad, Kolya.”
“But was I wrong, though?”
Oh, my God.
She had to send up a prayer in that moment to give her the strength not to laugh at her brother. She might have done exactly that if Kolya hadn’t looked entirely serious staring at her while he waited for a response. He literally thought it was a perfectly acceptable thing for him to kill someone simply because they upset his wife.
In fact, he’d do it for less.
He had done it for less.
“It was Maya who told you whatever you’re about to say,” Viktoria said, refusing to argue further with her brother or listen to him justify his violent streak. “So, what did she tell you?”
“Fine,” he grumbled, glancing away. “It was Maya.”
“As I said …”
“Shut the hole in your face.”
Viktoria grinned.
See?
Just like she said.
Kolya was predictable.
“Anyway,” he muttered, giving her a look to quiet her. “She mentioned that you and Pav had moved into a new apartment a couple of weeks ago. Did the hotel not suit your needs, or what?”
“The hotel was not a home. And I already sold the house.”
“I know I’ve been busy with Maya, and the baby coming …”
“Just say what you want to say, Kolya.”
“Okay.”
She glanced at him, raising her brow. “Okay?”
He nodded. “I’ll just say it, yeah? If you want me to kill Pavel because he steps out of line on you, you let me know and I will do it whenever you ask.”
Viktoria pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. Oh, sure, her brother’s promise was typical Kolya wrapped up in his taste for violence. She would expect nothing less from her brother, of course. At least, not this brother.
But it was also something else … It was his way of saying I love you, Vik, and I’ll always look out for you if you need me to. She loved him for that, but she was a lot like Kolya, too. She didn’t put her emotions on her sleeve, and she never outright said what she was feeling unless it was to the person she loved the very most in her life.
Pav.
Viktoria nodded, and leaned in to give her brother a quick, one-armed hug. “I know you would, Kolya.”
He laughed under his breath as she straightened on the stool again. “I don’t think I’ll have to worry about hurting the bastard, anyway. He’s not very good at being away from you, and he gets a little stir crazy when he thinks you’re out of reach.”
That he did.
Pav just liked her close.
She understood that, too.
So many things he cared about in his life had been taken away. He was finally given a second chance to do or be whatever he wanted to be in this life of theirs, but there was still a part of him that felt like that boy hiding in a car.
He didn’t want to be without her.
She wouldn’t let him ever be alone again.
“And he did go speak to Konstantin today, so I think that says good things for him,” Kolya added.
Viktoria’s hand froze as she reached for her tattoo machine again. “What did you just say?”
It wasn’t the fact that Pav went to see Konstantin that made her pause. He worked for her brothers, so that made sense. It was the way Kolya offered the information, like there was something he knew that she didn’t.
Kolya glanced up at her, calm and unaffected. “Oh, I don’t gossip. Shut the hole in your face, and let’s get back to the tattooing, Vik.”
“You’re such an asshole.”
“I really am,” Kolya replied, smirking.
• • •
Viktoria paced the length of the living room in the new apartment. Part of her mind continued to drift to Pav, and what Kolya had told her earlier. Another part of her mind kept glaring at the hardwood floor and thinking she needed to go out and buy a rug to make it look less … boring.
The brain was a funny thing.
“Why do you look like a little mouse hiding from the cat?”
Viktoria spun around so fast that the rest of the room was nothing more than a blur. She wasn’t the least bit surprised to see Pav leaning in the entryway of the living room with his arms crossed over his chest like he’d been standing there for a
