“What are you talking about?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Did you think I wouldn’t figure shit out eventually?” My questions were coming so fast he didn’t have time to answer. “Why are you up here? Who are you hiding from?”
His face blanched a little as his eyes darkened. When he pulled up his lips at me in a snarl, he looked animalistic. I anchored myself in that anger, or I would have run.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he growled. But he knew that I knew, because he withdrew from me. I watched as he shut down bit by bit, becoming so distant from me, it was like I didn’t know him at all.
I pushed up onto my knees and then my feet, rubbing my sore palms against my jeans as I glared at him. “What are the guns for, Viktor?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “Because you were going to keep me here forever? Hold me hostage?”
Viktor shook his head. “I would never hurt you.”
I shook my head, too. I had no idea what to believe. I didn’t know him. I shouldn’t trust him. “I’m leaving,” I announced and backed away from Viktor.
Why hadn’t I figured this out earlier? I’d seen him shoot. He’d been so damn good at it, it had been impressive. I should have asked more questions. Why would a man like him live alone in the forest? Shoot as well as he could? Be so damn secretive?
My dad had been an A-class asshole. He had fucked up my mom so badly sometimes, I’d thought she wasn’t going to make it. And then he’d left us. I’d sworn I wouldn’t let any man get so close that he could break me the way my dad had broken my mom.
I’d trusted Viktor. My mistake. I should have known not to trust someone as dark as him.
“Don’t go, Malen kiy,” Viktor said when I moved further and further away from him.
“Don’t call me that!” I shouted. “Don’t you dare come near me ever again!”
My anger fueled the argument, but it was just there to mask the fear. I had no idea who Viktor was, but I’d spent a week in his cabin, getting close to him. He could have killed me a thousand times over.
But he didn’t.
It didn’t matter. He wasn’t the man I’d thought I was.
“‘I’m leaving,” I said again, then pointed at him. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you, not once,” he countered.
“Lying by omission is still lying, Viktor” I told him.
I felt like a fool for telling him so much about my life. God, he must have thought I was such a sap, such a sucker for falling for him when this wasn’t real. None of it was real.
I turned around, heading into the forest. I needed to get away from him, away from the lies I had allowed myself to believe. I needed to go home, back to the reality I understood. I needed to go to the life that was waiting for me instead of dreaming about a life that would never exist.
“Angela!” Viktor called, but I refused to answer. I should have insisted on leaving when he’d taken me into town.
As I moved through the trees, tears rolled down my cheeks. If I’d done it sooner, it wouldn’t have hurt so damn much to leave him behind.
Viktor
Fuck!
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Angela was losing her shit about. The fucking gun shed had been kicked in. So much for that damn lock. I’d known the shed wasn’t the safest structure in the world, but how the fuck was I supposed to know someone would want to get into it? Let alone Angela?
She was headed into the trees, and God knew what was out there. Maksim and his men. Natural dangers such as animals or precipices or ravines. I shuddered at the thought. I couldn’t let her go.
“Angela!” I called out and set off after her.
Holy fuck, she was fast. She moved between the trees like she’d been born out here, her feet sure, her body agile. I caught up with her easily, though. I knew the lay of the land around my cabin like the back of my hand, and I knew where to go to cut her off.
She was still moving fast, making her way down the mountainside, when I stepped in front of her. She skidded to a halt, lost her footing, and fell. I tried to catch her, stopping her from