16. Ranger

[ 16 ]

RANGER

The satellite phone was smaller than my overactive imagination had pictured. It fit, concealed, in the palm of my hand. If I hadn’t told Vik I was stepping away to make a call, he’d probably think I had a fucking worm in my ear.

As it was, I had Cam O’Brian, and it wasn’t that bad. It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t arouse and devastate me in equal measure.

“You’re okay, though?” He questioned for the third time. Honest to god, it was almost like he gave a shit. “I haven’t heard from Jakov since he told me you’d reached the house in one piece, but if you ever want to leave, there’s a plan in place to make that happen.”

“I don’t want to leave. As long as my nanna’s good, so am I.”

Cam chuckled. “Your nanna is a shark. She had twenty quid off me yesterday. Fucking Braille cards.”

I laughed too, loud enough that Vik looked round from the tree he was helping his nephew pick over for ripe fruit to torment me with. “She’s a fucker for that. Don’t take a bet on dominos either.”

“Noted. How’s Viktor?”

I scrubbed a hand down my face, cursing the question. But I knew why he was asking. Cos Locke would want to know for the same reason Viktor asked about the big man every other day. They had a survivor bond.

Thinking about why had me turning my face to the sky and pinching my eyes. Vik’s backstory was a gift that kept kicking the shit out of me. And Locke? I loved that dude.

“You still there?”

I tuned back into Cam, reset my gaze on Viktor, tracking him as he used his arms to pull himself onto a low-hanging branch.

That’s new. And I liked it. “He’s all right,” I hedged. “Haven’t lost him yet.”

“No trouble?”

“Depends what you mean by trouble.”

Wind whistled at Cam’s end and I wondered where he was. If he was freezing in the bitter Devon breeze while I sunned myself on a five-star patio.

“I mean both kinds,” he growled in my ear. “It’s kicking off up north—the ports are on fire, man. And Jakov told me that island was a work in progress, so I’m asking if you’re safe, brother. That’s all.”

Depended on what he meant by safe too. From 1001 mobsters trying to kill Vik every night? Sometimes. From letting my heart be ground into smithereens?

Probably not.

“I’m all right,” I conceded eventually. “It’s not always easy here, but I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

“I’m a phone call away if that changes.”

“It won’t.”

“I hear you.” The whistling came again at Cam’s end and he cursed. “Damn weather.”

“Don’t know what you mean. I’m catching a tan here.”

“Prick.”

“Not my fault you’re calling me from a fucking cave or whatever.”

“Yeah, well. This fuckhole is the only place I can talk without nerds and unicorns knowing more about what I say than I do.”

Nerds and unicorns. Alexei and Saint, then. So much for not keeping nasty shit from each other. Shame. At least it would’ve been if I gave a fuck. “What about the others? Locke doing okay? Folk?”

“Locke’s good.” Cam lit a cigarette, the click of the lighter clear as a bell despite the wind. “Trust me when I say that.”

The sun was making me sweat. Unless it was Vik climbing higher in his orange tree. Fuck. I forced my thoughts back to Locke and what Cam might not have been saying. “Did he marry someone? Cos I know he hasn’t got anyone pregnant. That fertile motherfucker had the snip when he was twenty-five.”

Cam rumbled another laugh. “Biology doesn’t matter around here. Let’s leave it at that, eh?”

Worked for me. “What about Folk?”

Cam paused enough for me to sit up a little.

Like he’d sensed the discord, the ripple in my mood, Viktor eased himself down from the tree.

“Folk’s okay,” Cam hedged. “I think the last few months have taken it out of him, though.”

“Last decade, more like. He did back-to-back deployments before he got whacked by the big C.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well. It happened. Then he rode with the Crows before he joined your shit-show, and that’s a fun bus that never stops, ain’t it?”

“Watch your mouth, brother.” Cam spoke with zero aggression. “But I hear you on that too, and I’m working on it.”

“Still chasing the good life?”

“Trying. But every door I close seems to open ten more.”

Cam took his bleak mood with him and ended the call. Viktor had gone back to orange picking, and the pull to go to him was strong, but I wasn’t done with the phone yet.

I called Jean to berate her for hustling my friends. Her laughter was the best fucking medicine, and I was still smiling as I took my cue to hang up.

“Your grandmother?”

I tilted my head.

Vik stood over me, blocking my rays, but with a leaf in his hair and the sun finally topping up that tan, I let it slide.

“My nanna,” I confirmed. “She called me a daft twat.”

“Why?”

“I was born. Whatever. She doesn’t need a reason.”

“You are different when you speak about her.” Viktor lowered himself to sit beside me. “No one else brings you to life like this.”

You do. But he wouldn’t see that. Not today. Not tomorrow. “She’s my family.”

“Your only family?”

I couldn’t remember if we’d talked about this before. The grating in my chest felt new and ancient all rolled into one. “She raised me.”

“What happened to your parents?”

I let my gaze drift to the orange he’d brought me. Brought us. Every fucking day. Cos watching me eat my half amused him so much. “You peeling that thing?”

“You do it.”

He pressed the sun-warmed orange into my palm. A month ago, I’d have stuck my hand in acid before I’d willingly dug my fingers into one of these vitamin-C wankers, but I was so different now, in so many fucking ways, that peeling the orange felt normal.

I split the segments, holding one out to Viktor.

He pushed it back. “I want to see if you would rather eat it than answer my question.”

“I’m all right with both.”

“I do not believe you.”

I stuck the orange in my mouth and it didn’t choke me. It hadn’t for a while now, but I hadn’t got round to telling him. I’d been too busy kissing him in that fucking club, and I had the neon body paint permanently embedded in my skin to prove it.

And a gun that was now moulded to the palm of my hand. Cos nothing about being around this dude was easy. If I hadn’t known it already, the last week or so of fuckery had proved it. The endless nights we’d roamed the island capital, goading his would-be assassins out of the shadows, only to give them the slip and sneak into his club. As if painting my body and kissing the shit out of me was my reward.

I want to kiss him in daylight.

Under the sun.

I wanted to kiss him now so he knew how he felt when we were together in the dark was stronger than every demon any sick fuck had left him with. But I didn’t know how to do that without cracking his world open with a sledgehammer.

So I cracked mine open instead. “My dad died when I was seven. My mum didn’t want me, so I lived with Jean instead.”

Viktor lowered the orange he’d been about to eat. “Your mother did not want you?”

“She remarried. To some nasty posh cunt. And I was too fucking feral for him, so she binned me off.”

“When you were seven?”

“I was eight by then, but I reckon she’d been knobbing this other bloke the whole time anyway.”

“How did your father die?”

The orange in my hand turned cold, and the sun faded from the sky. Dark spots danced in my vision and I had to look away, unblinking, grief this old and wicked wave that wouldn’t fucking stop. “Riot outside Anfield stadium. He got hit and went down. Smacked his head on the pavement and never woke up.”

Viktor let that sit for a while, and I was glad of it. Talking about my dad . . . it never got easy, and I’d given up hoping it would. Instead, he’d become this thing that derailed my entire fucking life whenever I pictured his face, and I hated it. I hated myself for being so weak, and the blowback from that made me miss Folk. Made me worry about him, as Cam’s concern filtered back to me.

Call Finch.

Couldn’t. If I knew for sure it wouldn’t put her at risk, I’d have done it already.

“You are more of a thinker than I ever realised.” Viktor brushed some messy hair out of my face. “And you are tired.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“You have a bed in your room now. I do not stop you using it.”

“It’s a mattress.” From Jake’s room. Vik had hauled it down the hallway a week ago, giving up on the idea of me crashing in the den at the other end of the house. “And I’m fine.”

Lies. I was fucking knackered. Despite the routine we’d fallen into, Viktor was still erratic enough that I didn’t trust him to stay put while I slept. I’d taken a lot of cat naps leaning against the doorway, and I was starting to feel it, especially on days like this. Long afternoons in the sun, just watching him exist. Watching him live. Even talking about my old man didn’t dull the peace I found in that.

Viktor coaxed me to eat the rest of the orange with him. His nephew—Yuri—came for the peel with Lida beside him. He said something to Viktor that I had no hope of understanding. I’d learned zero Spanish while I’d been here and even less Russian. To the point where I couldn’t always tell which language they spoke. Only that they laughed. At me. And I was okay with that too.

Like I was okay with mauling Vik under the sultry lights in his club, knowing there was every chance it was all we’d ever have. Those fuck-hot kisses that made him gasp into my mouth. That made him grind against me in the moments he let himself be.

Those moments came more frequently now, and maybe if I didn’t know, I’d be all over that shit. But every night I held back, and I’d hold back forever if that’s what he needed. Lots of things about Viktor Petrenko made me stumble, but for this—for him—I was rock fucking solid.

I lay back on the patio, the sun warming my face now I could see it again.

Viktor stayed where he was, drifting, like he did sometimes, still caught between trauma I only knew the half of, and reaching for the junk his addiction believed would take the pain away.

He scratched his arms, distant gaze lingering on the gate. On the electric fence. A reminder, as if I needed one, that he’d been clean a while, but this shit was far from over.

It’ll never be over. A reality that kicked me in the dick, cos I didn’t have forever to sit up and curve around him, easing him against me, drawing him out of a fight or flight moment that could’ve killed him if he’d been alone.

I didn’t live here.

I couldn’t live here.

At some point, I had to go home.

Viktor found my hands and squeezed them. “You are too good to me.”

“Really?”

“No. You are a menace. But I like it.”

I hummed a low laugh into his neck, keeping it warm, not boiling over like we did in the club most nights. “Does that mean you’ll make something not green or fishy for dinner?”

“It was fish once. Fresh from the sea. You are mad not to eat it.”

“I’m all right with that.”

“You do not have to be. I have a proposition for you.”

Intrigued, I rearranged us enough so I could see his face. “Sounds terrible already.”

Vik’s cheekbones weren’t as guillotine sharp as they’d been a few weeks ago, but they remained a killer blow every time he even thought about grinning. “Yuri told me that Katya put the bacon you keep talking about in the fridge. If we have that for dinner, and stay home tonight, will you come somewhere with me tomorrow?”

Bacon derailed my thoughts, my belly giving up an unholy growl. It took me a second to absorb the rest of it. That we weren’t hitting the town tonight and that he thought there was a rat’s chance in hell that I wouldn’t follow him to the end of the fucking earth. “Where are we going?”

Viktor took a breath to answer, but one of the kids called him away, and I didn’t mind too much. These little beasts were pretty quiet most of the time, and they didn’t poke me with sticks.

What I did mind was the extra space it gave me to ruminate, and for the first time in a while, my thoughts turned to Jakov. To Jake. I didn’t know much about how war played out for international crime lords, but he’d been out of touch a while now, and I found myself wondering if he’d ever come back. Or if the port fires Cam warned of would burn him to the ground.

Don’t tell Vik.

I almost fell asleep in the sun worrying about that humdinger. But my senses were too attuned to Viktor, and an hour or so later, I felt him return to the house and go inside.

Dazed, I sat up, and the scent of the promised bacon had me scrambling to my feet.

It drew me into the house and to the kitchen to where Viktor had piled it into a pan.

That fucker was cooking it shirtless, and his scarred bare back called to me as much as the pan of magic.

I stepped up behind him, making enough noise that he heard me coming. “If you put anything green near that, I’ll kill you myself.”

Viktor turned his head as I reached him. We almost kissed by accident, but I covered it by dropping my chin to his shoulder.

He chuckled. “I have bread. Butter. And that brown sauce that looks like⁠—”

I slapped my palm over his mouth. “Don’t say it. I need this butty in my life right now. Not whatever imagery you’re about to flay me with.”

Viktor licked my hand.

I let it drop.

He shivered, and a beat of something passed between us.

I frowned. Had I fucked up? Triggered a memory that messed with his head?

Then he leaned back, moulding himself to my front as he poked at the pan, and it passed, leaving nothing but warmth behind, and I gave up fretting to press my lips to his neck.

Viktor made me a bacon sandwich. Three, actually. And watched me eat two, with the cutest smile on his face, before he let me share the third with him. “This is disgusting.”

“Liar.”

“Maybe.”

I licked my thumb. “Can I ask you something?”

Viktor pushed the empty plate away, leaning against the counter while I lounged on a stool. “Yes.”

“It’s about Jake.”

His gaze turned wary. “About sex again?”

“No . . . no.” I swigged from the water bottle he’d placed in front of me. “It’s about business. He didn’t tell me much about what was going on for him, and I’m not asking for details, but I got the impression he was gearing up for some fucking endgame shit, and I don’t know what that means for you.”

Viktor backed up a little, shifting from dude chilling in his fancy-pants house to the mobster I’d first met. “Are you asking me what I will do if Jake is killed?”

“Honestly, I don’t fucking know what I’m asking. Just that I’m not as okay with being an ignorant bitch as I usually am.”

“I think this is because you are not as busy as you would be elsewhere. I warned you I was boring—there you are.” Viktor switched his attention to Lida as she strolled through the open doors, her fur wet from sparring with the sprinklers that watered the orange groves. “You have come for your dinner?”

He fed her and left the kitchen.

I waited for him to come back.

He didn’t. He went to bed without answering the question, leaving me to clean up so Katya wouldn’t do it in the morning.

Wiping wet hands on Jakey’s shorts, I retreated to my room and made myself comfortable on my stolen mattress. Viktor had given me access to his music files and I’d discovered he’d kept all mine from the flash drive I’d jammed into his tablet so long ago. Grateful for the motion sensor Jake had snuck onto every door in the house, I fielded another nosy call from Cam, slipped my ancient Beats over my ears, and settled in to chill the night away. I was soul-deep into one of Vik’s playlists when he got up sometime later and inexplicably took a shower.

I tapped the music off, rousing myself from the stupor I’d slipped into. Vik showered a lot, but he often wasn’t in there for long.

Tonight, though, he bucked the trend.

Time ticked by. At the forty-minute mark, I ventured into the hallway, considering yet another closed door.

The shower was still running. I raised my hand to knock. Braced my foot to boot the thing open if he didn’t respond.

But the water shut off. I heard him moving around and stepped back a split second before the door swished open.

Viktor stared through the steam, a faint energy in his colourful gaze that I hadn’t seen in forever. “Do you ever sleep?”

I propped a shoulder on the wall. “Do you?”

“These days? Yes.”

“You’re not asleep now.”

Nope. And he was naked, save a towel wrapped around his waist. A towel I knew from experience he’d drop in the doorway of his room, daring me—in my head, at least—to keep my gaze on him.

I hadn’t.

Yet.

And perhaps now that I knew how he felt about sex, I never would unless he outright asked me to.

Viktor came closer, the heat of his skin seeping into me. “If I promised to stay, would you sleep then?”

“No.”

“Because you would not believe me?”

I didn’t have a straight answer to that. So I didn’t give him one. I let him back up and walk away before I did what I always did and followed him.

He dropped the towel.

I nailed a glare at a pot plant. “I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

“How you’re so chill being naked around me.”

“I am okay being naked around anyone. I do not care.”

“Clearly.” I heard him pull some clothes on and peeled my gaze from the cactus. “That’s what I don’t understand.”

Viktor opened a drawer and rummaged around in it. “You think being forced into sex work made me shy?”

I cringed, more horrible knowledge slotting into place. “Maybe.”

“It did not. And in any case, I grew up in a home for children. I have never had the luxury of caring that I can be seen.”

I wondered if Russian group homes were like the ones I’d spent eight nights in before Jean had rescued me. It killed me to know they’d probably been a thousand times worse. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Viktor glanced up. “I am not offended. I do not think I ever learned how to be.”

“Lucky you.”

“Are you offended, Ranger?”

“All the fucking time.” I crossed the threshold into his room, something I hadn’t yet done while he was awake or around to see, stepping over the clutter on the floor. “There a reason you’re surfing your gun stash? Thought we were staying in tonight.”

“It is morning.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Then why are you awake?”

Irritation found a new BFF in the scratchy exhaustion rolling through me. Was this part of a master plan I couldn’t be sure existed? To keep me awake for weeks on end, then talk in circles until I lost my fucking mind?

A slow thump started in my temple—a warning, more than a headache, that my fuse was burning short.

I kicked the safe shut.

Viktor opened it again like my foot was a fucking sea breeze. He finally chose a gun and held it out to me.

“Fuck off.”

He shrugged and armed himself, rising to face me, nothing in his gaze except the wryest fucking amusement.

Bastard. He was playing me and he was so close to winning, if goading me into a fight was his intention.

A fight you’d lose.

Possibly.

Definitely.

Maybe.

I had him cornered at the side of his unmade bed. He had a gun. I didn’t.

You really think he’s going to shoot you?

No. Mainly cos he hadn’t noticed I was in his way yet.

Then he did and his gaze latched on to the healed slash on my torso, skating lower down my abdomen to where Jake’s posh joggers hung low on my hips.

His nose flared. “I have always been around men. Good and bad. Clothed and naked—especially in military barracks. But I have never seen anyone how I see you.”

A different heat threatened the rising frustration simmering in my blood. It took all my focus not to shove him onto the bed. “I didn’t know you were a real soldier.”

Viktor shrugged. “For a while. My employer rescued me from . . .” He searched for words. “From a terrible place. In return, I learned the skills he needed in his operation, and the military was the best place to do that.”

“How long did you serve?”

“A few years under an alias. Then I became what I am now—what Sergeant Whitlock would call a mercenary.”

Viktor whole-naming Folk caught me off guard. He saw and a frown flickered across his face. “Is how I met Folk. In Syria, many years ago. You did not know this already?”

Shock barrelled into me. Then genuine hurt. Folk didn’t talk about the wars he’d fought as a marine commando and an SBS operative, for obvious fucking reasons, but this shit? If Viktor wasn’t taking the royal piss, I was going to have words for my old friend.

“Ah. Now you are offended?”

“Fuck off.”

“You keep saying this. I wonder what would happen if I tried to leave without you.”

“You know what would happen.” I spoke absently, my voice distant, my head elsewhere. In fucking Syria, with one of my oldest friends, and the only bloke on earth who made my heart combust every time he looked at me.

Viktor touched my face. “It was a long time ago.”

“What was?”

“When I met Folk. And it was brief. I did not see him again until he rode with the Crows.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that. Where are you going?”

Viktor blinked, as if he’d forgotten he was going anywhere. He let his hand drop. “To see if I can still do something we may need in the near future.”

“And what’s that? Cos if it’s rowdy gangster shit, I really do need a kip before I’m down for that.”

“It is not rowdy.” Viktor closed the drawer behind him. “You may sit down the whole time and enjoy the view.”

Wariness warred with curiosity. “That could be you base jumping without a parachute while I watch.”

“It is not.”

“Is it so hard to just fucking tell me?”

Viktor leaned in and caressed my cheek with a featherlight kiss. “Come, Asher. Where is the fun in that?”