my trust. You earn it.”
A simple nod answered him back. “Understood.”
“Are we leaving now?”
At the impatient, cold voice slipping over the arrivals area, Pav sighed. He looked Viktoria’s way to find she had gotten her luggage, and even his small bag that had gone under the plane, too. She arched a brow at him when his gaze met hers.
Difficult.
Sassy.
Cold.
Nasty.
He adored her for those things.
He also wished she didn’t use them as a defense.
All in due time …
Viktoria looked to Konstantin, then. “Well, is he coming with me now? You seem to think I always need a babysitter—I’d rather it be him. I want to go home.”
“Have fun with that tonight,” Konstantin told Pav. “She sounds like she’s in a really winning mood at the moment.”
“Understatement.”
That was all he gave Konstantin as a reply before he headed after Viktoria. He figured nothing else really needed to be said.
Konstantin’s voice trailed after him. “Oh, and there’s a man guarding the house, Pav. Keep an eye out for him.”
He tossed two fingers up high over his shoulder; the only acknowledgement he offered. Viktoria was waiting for him, after all. Pav had found lately that he really liked following after her, even if she was a little difficult to deal with at times.
It was worth it.
• • •
“Relax,” Pav murmured against the shell of Viktoria’s ear.
She shivered at the action, but at the same time, he felt the tension in her back melt away slightly. Not entirely, but it was enough to say she had listened to him. Outside the airport, they waited for the driver Konstantin had arranged for them to make his way up the arrivals. Another couple of minutes, likely, and they would be on the road.
“Another minute or so and we’ll be away from all the people,” he told her.
She nodded.
He was learning that he really didn’t need her to voice what was going on in that broken mind of hers—sometimes, her cues were more than enough to go on. Like right now, and the way she tried to tuck herself in closer to him on the sidewalk. Or the way her gaze continued to dart from person to person who walked around or climbed into a waiting vehicle.
Too many people.
He understood that well.
Letting his hand slip around her trim waist, he coiled his fingers against her side and held on tight. That closed the small bit of distance that was between them and let him kiss the side of her head again. The smell of whatever sugary-scented shampoo she used soaked into his senses, and for a brief second, the rest of the world disappeared.
He didn’t think she knew.
Not that she did that for him.
Pav didn’t know how to explain it, either.
“Pav?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m terrified,” Viktoria whispered. “Of being here, I mean.”
He nodded, his lips still grazing her temple as he spoke. “I know.”
Pav wasn’t sure if her fears were unfounded or not. Could they really all keep her safe and away from the threat that was currently wild and on the loose? Were they capable of keeping their eyes on her twenty-four-seven?
He wanted to say yes, but he knew that would be a foolish pipe dream to do, and he didn’t want to give her reassurances that he couldn’t promise. He didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep. His word was the only thing he really had at the end of the day. Why would he want to break his word to this woman?
He was a pessimist and a realist, anyway. He looked at the facts first, and worked his way back from there. The facts said nothing good about this.
But she’d decided.
He said nothing about it.
“But this is my home,” she said to him. The same thing she’d been telling him for the last couple of days; what she’d repeated to him on the flight each time she’d woken up from her naps. He believed that she said it so many times because she was intent on convincing herself it was a fact, and not him. If someone told themselves something enough, they started to believe it was the truth. “Chicago is mine.”
“It is.”
“I don’t want to be afraid in my home. I don’t want to be afraid at all. Not anymore. I hate that this is what it’s done to me. That this is what he did to me. He made me afraid of my home—of my own shadow. Now, he sent me running away from the place that’s mine. I don’t want to run anymore, you know?”
Pav grinned