than keeping her here. She’s angry, and she won’t want anyone too close. I suspect she’ll be going through some things, too. Better for her to deal with it all where people aren’t watching.”
“She needs space,” Pav replied. “From everyone.”
He’d heard her shout that at Konstantin as he’d left her house.
“Maybe,” Konstantin agreed, “but I thought she would also need someone to go with her. Someone she likes well enough, and perhaps even trusts.”
Pav blinked, understanding. “You mean me.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. She didn’t want me there this morning, either.”
Konstantin nodded. “Smart, hmm? Except I didn’t ask what you thought—I asked if you would do it.”
“You say that like I get a choice.”
“You do.”
Ah, yeah.
Freedom.
“Who else would keep an eye on her if I refused?” Pav asked.
“Any number of men—”
“Then, no, I will go,” Pav interjected fast.
Fast like the heat in his gut, the swell of anger in his heart, and the burning jealousy on the back of his tongue.
It was stupid. Foolish, even.
There was no way Viktoria would even look at another man being the way she was, but that mattered very little to Pav. He didn’t even want to consider it. And it wasn’t her that he had to concern himself with, it was the man who watched her. Men could not be trusted, but especially not their kind of man.
Simple as that.
He would do the job.
Konstantin pressed his lips together like he was hiding a smirk. “All right. I will get you the information for where the two of you will be going.”
“Fine by me,” Pav returned.
After all, he didn’t mind a nasty Viktoria. He liked her a little vicious, too. He suspected that’s exactly what she was going to be like for this.
He welcomed the challenge.
9.
VIKTORIA WAS doing her very best to ignore the man in the row next to hers in first class who kept glancing her way. She’d barely spoken at all to the flight attendant when the woman asked if there was anything she wanted while they waited.
A Valium?
Vodka?
She had that bottle of Xanax in her carry-on bag, but she didn’t want to actually take one. It wasn’t that she was panicking because of the flight, or even the people on it. More like, the fact her rapist had actually been alive for the past couple of years when she’d thought he was dead, and now he was just out and about. Roaming somewhere, apparently. Probably looking for her … ready to come back for another round.
Holy fucking Christ.
Viktoria felt like her throat was closing. The panic came in like a wave. Small, at first, and then progressively rougher and rougher until it took a good portion of the shore away when the wave went back out. If she were a shore, then it was dragging her out to sea, too.
She was going to drown.
Her fingers curved tightly around the edges of the seat, and she dragged in a shaky breath that stung the whole way coming in. Fuck her brothers for doing this to her … for putting her on this plane today without an explanation because they said so. Fuck them for lying to her for all this time about Boris, and what really happened.
Yeah, fuck them.
The next time Viktoria opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Pav making his way down the plane’s aisle. She didn’t even get the chance to make her mouth work to ask him what in the fuck he was doing there before he slid into the seat next to hers in first class.
There was no way that was coincidence.
Fucking Konstantin.
You know what, yeah, she wasn’t even going to blame Kolya for this. All of this shit just screamed Konstantin’s doing. He was the one who didn’t seem to understand personal boundaries and had no problem with pushing Viktoria right to her goddamn limits every chance he could. Because he was an asshole.
“Apparently, I was almost late,” Pav said, shrugging as he dropped a small messenger bag under the seat. “Do you know Uber drivers are very … chatty?”
Viktoria wanted to glare and snap at him. But knowing he was telling her some very important information, because the man had probably never needed to call himself a driver or something like an Uber before, made her just want to laugh for him.
And she did just that.
It was weak, sure, and still a little bitter.
But she laughed.
Pav shot her a look and smirked a bit. “I know you don’t want me here.