kind of man, Vadim, but if you want one, keep it up.”
The grin.
A scarred grin.
Vadim knew exactly what Pav was talking about, and the man was quick to stop his fight. That didn’t mean it stopped hurting him, because it didn’t. At all. He could feel Vadim’s trembling, and the way the blood from his cut mouth pooled down his chin onto his shirt. The other side of his face? Even worse.
“This,” Pav said, his voice deathly dark and yet calm at the same time as he stared into Vadim’s eyes. “… this is a fucking taste of what will happen to you if I don’t get her back in the same perfect condition she was in before this happened. Do you understand me, Vadim? This is going to get so much worse for you … it doesn’t matter what happens in Chicago because you’re never leaving this house. Not with a heartbeat in your chest, anyway.”
Pav laughed, the sound surprising even himself with how cold it came out. He leaned in a little closer to Vadim, enough that the two of them were only a breath away from each other as his gaze locked on Vadim’s. He could smell the liquor on the man’s breath that he’d seen sipping on, but it didn’t bother him nearly as much as the deadness in Vadim’s gaze did. It was as though he couldn’t feel anything at all.
Funny.
Pav often felt the same way.
Just not right now.
He finally pulled the knife away from the man’s face, but he kept the one at his mouth just in case he needed a fucking reminder about who exactly was in charge here.
“And I will personally make sure that your heart is no longer beating.” Pav told the man, tapping the tip of his knife against Vadim’s chest all the while, “Because I will fucking cut this organ out of your chest and burn it.”
“Pavel.”
Kolya’s sharp warning echoed in the back of Pav’s senses, but it took the man calling his name another three times before he finally backed away from Vadim. And even then, he continued pointing that knife at Vadim like a silent warning.
He needed to know.
Pav liked it when people saw him coming.
“We’ve got a call,” Kolya said.
At that statement, Pav did glance over his shoulder. When had the phone rang? Because he hadn’t heard anything. Then again, he had just been two seconds away from slicing Vadim into the smallest of pieces that he could manage. He was still in that headspace, if he were being honest.
Instead of sitting in the chair like he’d been before, Kolya was now standing in the doorway to the room. Pav didn’t even know when the man had left—his attention for the last several hours had been hyper-focused on Vadim only. Everything else, including Kolya, was nothing more than a background noise.
“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