7. Viktor

[ 7 ]

VIKTOR

“Let me go.”

Freedom was a complex concept. Nuanced, it meant different things to different people, a fact I had not appreciated until I had gained and lost mine several times over.

I stood in the dark hallway, a hostage to the brown eyes staring back at me. My phone was in pieces in the sink, every camera on the property disabled, save the ones that watched over my sister and her husband. Their children.

Family.

I loved them. But terrible things called my name, and Katerina and Ivan were as far from my mind as it was possible for them to be with the herbs in their evening meal scenting the wind—a scent Lida wanted to investigate with me, drawing me down the hill to a place where I should’ve felt whole.

But I was not whole, and the last year had taught me that perhaps I never had been, not without the kind of help that would kill me.

I want it to kill me.

No. No, I didn’t. I just wanted it to stop.

Regardless, this canine conversation was on borrowed time. I had moments to escape before Jake noticed and took remote action severe enough to cage me in, but with Lida’s gaze boring into me, I could not move. “Let me go.”

She made a sound low in her chest—a habit she had brought home from her time with the Rebel Kings, and I could only assume she had picked it up from one of them. Or all of them. They were primal beings, and now my dog was trying to alpha me into staying home.

Was it him?

Of course, Ranger popped into my head. But I dismissed it—I dismissed him. I had to, or I’d never leave. I’d never move from this spot. I’d die of old age with him imprinted on my brain, and I could not wait that long.

To die.

To live.

To breathe.

I stepped around Lida, ignoring her whine, pushing away the paw that scraped at my legs. “Come now. I will be back.”

She whined again, daring me to repeat the hollow words.

I did not.

I took her down the hill and steered her through my sister’s gate.

Then I left, weaving through the orange groves until I came to the electric fence. The disabled electric fence if my rudimentary hacking had worked. A nasty shock I did not care too much about if it hadn’t.

Shock me.

Kill me.

I was not that lucky. I wrapped my fingers around the metal and nothing happened, my chest brushing the dirt as I ducked beneath the wire.

My conscience made me repair the gap. For my sister. Her husband. Her children. For Lida. And it cost me valuable time. I had to run to escape the reach of Jake’s security system, and my damaged body did not thank me for it.

Pain.

It flared, sharp and cruel, and at home it might’ve sent me to my knees. But outside, my boots still pounding the earth, I didn’t mind it so much. Because it would be over soon.

I lived on an island. Sixty square miles of mountains, forests, and sandy beaches. Port towns and rural villages. A bustling island capital known for its nightlife.

Our property was at the highest inhabited point. By design, so we would see the end of the world coming for us, the roads unfinished to slow it down—to slow me down as I made my second grand escape of the week, my body already tasting the burned powder on my tongue, the smoke in my lungs, even if I did not get that far this time.

I didn’t always. Sometimes I was stronger than I was today. Others, I did not remember the climb.

The descent.

You do not remember anything properly anymore.

I hit a steep ridge that would be even more trying on the way back. My legs moved freely, but gods, it hurt, and if not for the warm air wrapped around my lungs, I’d have found myself lost to the last time I’d dragged my broken body through the wilderness in the dead of night.

You were not alone then.

In all probability, I wasn’t alone now, but back then I had cared about reaching my destination, if only to save the life of the man who’d saved mine. I did not care much about anything tonight. I felt nothing as I reached the top of my ascent, my sweeping gaze catching the tarpaulin shadow I’d come looking for. The bulky shield that concealed the fastest motorcycle on earth. One of them, anyway. Alexei Ivanov owned the other.

I dragged the tarp from the Ducati. Even in the dark it was unapologetically Panigale red, and if I did not think too hard about it, I did not miss the black version my Sambini kidnappers had tossed into a ditch somewhere close to the Cornish coast—for whatever reason, I couldn’t remember where.

What I did miss?

Strength in my arms. Balance in my core, and the sure-footedness that had allowed me to live a life where I did not pay much attention to where I put my feet.

Cursing, I steered the Ducati down the steep path, trying to recall how I had managed to return it to its hiding place a few days ago. The possibility that I had not—that Jake had paid someone to do it for me—singed like acid in my throat, but in this moment, I did not care if his minions had seen me crawl back to my house on my knees. That they could see me now, fighting with the rocks to be free. I needed this, like I needed air.

Like I need him.

Sometimes, thoughts of Ranger kept me upright. Others, they made me stumble. They left me weak at the knees, like he always had, and tonight was one of those nights.

The bike wrenched sideways. I heaved it back, shoving him and the long hair he’d got bladdered and hacked off out of my head, accepting that I could do little about the open wound of feeling he left behind. That perhaps I needed the shiver in my bones more than whatever madness I would reach tonight.

You are addicted to a man you will never see again.

A tragedy that spurred me down the path and to the road, scrambling for my first hit of the night.

I need this.

I needed a lot of things.

The Ducati finally reached level ground, giving my muscles a break. I eased my weaker leg over the seat, thankful for the enduring stability in the other, and gunned the engine, closing my eyes to the deafening roar. I had become so used to the quiet that I was scared to be without it, but this—this noise. It was life, even if it symbolised an existence I’d forever lost.

Temporary vigour washed over me. I twisted the throttle and the bike catapulted into motion, zipping down a road lit only by long casts of moonlight, every moment snatched and yet prolonged enough to feel eternal. My perception as nuanced as the freedom I chased leaning into the curves, the energy I’d lacked since I’d last smuggled my bike down the mountain finally flooding my veins. It wasn’t enough to soothe the itch, but it would do until I reached the bright lights of the island capital in the distance.

Until I found something better.

The Ducati was fast enough that it did not take me long to reach civilisation, and my ride, despite the recklessness that plagued me, was uneventful.

I hit the busy streets. My bike was loud enough to draw some attention, but that was not a bad thing. I did not mind being seen. Being mistaken for an ordinary idiot. It was safer. We controlled every stretch of land and sea around this side of the island. Aside from genuine tourists, there were few people here that Jake and I didn’t know about. But those few . . . it would take only one for Jake’s deepest fear to be realised.

The main strip in the capital housed too many bars and clubs to count. One way or another, we owned most of them—the premises, the licensing. The security firms who manned the doors. The invisible agents who mingled with the crowds, ensuring our monopoly on every trade that passed through.

Product.

Documents.

Protection.

The only business we did not embrace was flesh and bone, but it did not stop foolish men trying to sell the women and girls they picked up on the mainland. Trafficked girls. Because it did not matter how much of myself I had given to stealing oxygen from that fire of evil, it continued to burn. A flame that invaded my conscience whether I went looking for it or not.

I rolled up on a club and coasted the Ducati into a spot around the back. It was not reserved for me. Ninety percent of the people on this island had no idea who I was. That Jake and I even existed. And I liked that too—I liked it a lot. It allowed me to slip into the crowd seen but not seen, just another soul looking to dance and get high—on the music, on life. On the bundles of powder passed back and forth beneath the sultry lights.

Molly.

Ketamine.

PCP and coke.

None of it was what I wanted, but I moved through the club anyway, soaking up the seductive beats, letting them swallow me up, wishing it was enough.

I could dance with him here.

An errant thought that made me smile. I had pictured Ranger in many realities—too many—but not on a sweaty dance floor, with strangers in his personal space. In a dark corner, maybe, pushed against the wall⁠—

I collided with someone. A frequent occurrence these days when I found myself in a crowded place, as if my eyes no longer moved fast enough to see everything.

Because you do not care to look.

A truth I could not deny. My brain was not damaged. I was choosing not to use it and I did not know how to stop.

The faceless body moved on. So did I. I trekked every inch of the club that I could without revealing my identity. A dare, perhaps, to anyone watching, friend or enemy. But no one bothered me, and I exited the club without incident.

Another lay close enough that the bass of the music warred with the one I had left, a blur of sound that carried me along the strip and into the next establishment.

A darker place awaited me in every sense, sinister energy tainting the air. It should have clued me into the unwelcome gaze that followed me to the bar, but I had become hooked on not paying attention, and distracted by the sharp pain spidering from my groin to my ribcage, vicious tendrils flaying my nerves.

Vodka.

I gritted my teeth, catching the bartender’s eye, and pointed to the back shelf.

He poured me a measure that did not touch the sides. I signalled for another, shoving my focus to the burn as I swallowed, the fire in my belly. But the relief was short-lived. This pain, literal and otherwise, was stronger, and it was all I could do to stay on my feet.

Find something.

Anything. At this point, it did not matter. A hit, a fight. A woman to fuck.

No.

My body rejected the prospect before my brain caught up, nausea adding to the mess I was already in. I drank more vodka, kill or cure, and eventually, the sickness softened the discomfort grinding my bones to a dull roar.

I did not like this bar. The crowd was older, and it reeked of business not pleasure. Business I should have been aware of. Faces I should have recognised as I did nothing but drink, searching for the oblivion I would not find at the bottom of a vodka bottle, but searching all the same. Always searching. Sinking, as I accepted that I could not drink my way out of this, my tolerance for alcohol too high. I had not been truly drunk since I was a teenager, and whatever else I may have lost, I was still Russian.

The bar grew darker, the music deeper, the beat so low it was as discordant as my thrumming pulse. I needed out. I needed air. But I did not care enough to move. To do anything but stare at a swirling imperfection in the wood beneath my clammy hands.

This is not what you came here for.

Vodka. It was not enough. I needed a stronger hit, and again, my mind derailed, unbidden, to sex, as if something unseen laced the air, dragging my thoughts in a direction I had not turned in months. Longer than that. I had not taken a woman to bed in more than a year. Since before Ranger had found his way to my living room floor, and I had not . . . anything with a man who was not Jake since someone long dead had put a gun to my sister’s head, metaphorical and literal, and forced me.

I pushed away from the bar, turning slowly—at least, it felt slow to me—to face the heavy crowd that had built behind me while I had drunk vodka and regretted my life choices. Perhaps. This . . . it did not feel good, but I could not say for certain that staying home would’ve felt better. I could not be sure of anything save the fact that I did not want to be here anymore. In this moment, in this dark and miserable bar. In this strange state of flux that had me believing that even fucking someone could fix it.

The bar exit was twenty feet away through packed bodies. I stepped into the throng, glancing around in a belated attempt to watch my own back, though why I chose to do it now held even less logic than the grind in my hip that was too anarchistic to attach itself to actual movement—to be a pain that made sense.

I do not have a weapon.

The thought penetrated my headspace a split second before a spark in my peripheral woke me up. A shape—a man—blurring towards me in the crowd, taking advantage of the squash of people to move undetected by anyone who had not spent their entire life evading death.

Anyone who was not me.

The man was fast. Close in the blink of an eye. Hands low, posture subtle, but everything about him screamed danger, and I dialled back into the world in time to catch his wrist as he lunged, breaking it with a sharp twist, the syringe in his fingers falling to the floor.

Or perhaps it was a knife and I saw what I wanted to see.

Perhapsthe man’s rough shout was my own. I could not tell, and combined with the push and pull of the crowd, my rusty concentration fractured when I needed it most. The man tore his arm free in the same moment a woman bumped me. Another micro-second in time, but it was all he needed.

The man melted away, swallowed by the masses, leaving me in the crowd with no phone, no weapon, and a newfound obsession with whatever my would-be killer had dropped on the floor. A fixation that roused the insatiable hunger that had driven me down the mountain in the first place.

Stone-cold sober, I ran from it, letting the crowd take me, elbows and shoulders, hair in my face, the scent of sweaty skin that was not mine. For years, I had craved time to myself—a day, an evening, an hour to just be. Now I was alone so much that surrounded by strangers, even ones who wanted to kill me, were some of the only moments I felt truly human. But like everything, it did not last. Whoever these people were, they had the wrong hair and the wrong skin, and they did not smell of smoke and sandalwood.

Get out. You are vulnerable here.

Jake’s voice was as loud as the throbbing beat of the music.

Louder.

Perspective hit faster than I had the capacity to appreciate, and I was in motion before I chose to be, darting through the bustle of the bar and to the fire exit, resisting the pull of the main door and the busier strip. My assassin had escaped, but that did not mean he had conceded, and the quieter street gave me more room to manoeuvre. More chance to see him coming as I jogged to the beach, drawing him out if he wanted to play, following the glow and smoke of the bonfires on the sand.

Fight me by the water. We will see who drowns.

A strong sentiment. But no match for the relentless beast clawing at my insides, the abrupt enthusiasm for violence did not last either. I reached the water. No one followed. I spread my arms, tilting my face to the sky, inviting a sniper to take his shot.

Nothing happened, save an anticlimactic wave lapping over my feet.

Crouching, I dipped my hands in the ocean. Cool foam splashed my skin. A long time ago, such simple things had given me pleasure, but that version of myself was gone now, overcome by a bitter storm raging inside. A wretched thing—because that’s what I was . . . wretched. And craving more vodka.

You do not want vodka. A cold, hard fact as madness swept over me. Consumed me and drew me from the wet sand to the dry, my feet sinking into the soft grains, a sensation I had enjoyed when we first came here, but that I’d grown to hate as I made this walk over and over to the patsani who skulked by the bonfires.

The heat of the flames hit my face, prickling my skin with dry heat as I searched for the local boy who would help me live, die, or sleep; whichever came first.

Juan.

He was alone for once. A dealer without his friends, loitering by the fire furthest from the strip. With the crack of my assassin’s wrist echoing in my head, it should’ve struck me as strange, but tunnel vision plagued me, and I did not give it much thought. I did not give much thought to anything, save how I planned to spend the next few minutes of my life.

In the light of the flickering bonfires, Juan saw me coming and rose to meet me, hand already in his pocket, familiar enough to predict I would not want conversation. That our encounter would be brief. He had stopped trying to talk to me after the first three times I had come here. He had never tried to touch me, but as our wordless encounter completed, his lanky fingers brushed my wrist, his eyes flared, and the raw fear in his young gaze jump-started my pulse all over again.

Run.

Me, not him. And this time, it was not Jake’s voice in my head. It was my own.

I spun away from Juan, fresh danger in the air sharpening the breeze, the paper-wrapped junk I was about to smoke burning my palm with the regret I didn’t feel in my heart.

Yet.

A word that filtered through my tunnel vision as I considered the half mile that stretched between this end of the beach and my Ducati. Despite my decrepit state, I was still fast. But my endurance was not much better than when Locke Halliwell had carried me onto the compound of the Rebel Kings, and the odds that I would be caught were high.

Too high.

I shoved the wrap in my pocket and moved faster, every nerve braced for a fight. For the impact of a blow my assailant would not survive—not this time.

A shadow passed behind me.

In front.

More than one.

It weakened my odds, but I had beaten better odds.

You are not fit.

A reality I could not ignore, but perhaps my reputation—and the broken bones I had already inflicted—preceded me, and I made it to my bike unscathed.

Still breathing, I checked for trackers, gunned the Ducati’s engine, and peeled out of the car park, hitting the road at a physics-defying speed, my kneecap scraping concrete, road burn I would pay for if I made it through the night. If I escaped the capital and reached the open road where no man would catch me. How sad that the wrap in my pocket held more motivation than my sister. Than Jake. Than my soul bond with the dog I’d left behind while I danced with death in as many ways as it was prepared to take me tonight.

Lida.

Guilt chewed my heart and spat it out. My hand faltered on the throttle, but a hum of awareness at my six wrenched me out of my head before the Ducati lost speed. A vehicle close enough to take a shot if I did not evade them as civilisation petered out.

A taxi cut in front of me. Innocuous. Unaware and innocent, but in my way.

Blyad.

Other expletives rattled my brain. The island had narrow streets and the dilapidated people-carrier moved erratically enough that passing it was a whole new game of roulette.

Still cursing, I swerved hard, fighting gravity, but I was not superhuman, and my knee hit the ground again, jolting my hip and rocking my balance. That I survived the manoeuvre and the complimentary blast of adrenaline was as miraculous as the emotion that coursed through me, overriding everything else.

Defiance.

I did not fear death, but apparently I resented meeting it in a tangle of twisted metal at the side of the road.

The bike levelled out, the lights of the town dwindling, open space in front of me. I opened the throttle and let the Ducati loose, peeling away, leaving any soul behind me for dust.

To be sure, I took the scenic route to where I needed to be, zigzagging through the countryside until I was sure I didn’t have company.

Then I headed home, to the spot at the top of the mountain where I would not have far to stumble the rest of the way to my house. To my bed. To the bathroom floor. It did not matter. Nothing did, save the hum of barbed anticipation even a botched assassination couldn’t kill. Even the belligerence of the ride faded as I hauled the Ducati to her hiding place and covered her with a tarp. A brand-new throb in my knee plagued me, but I ignored it, knowing it would be gone soon enough.

I limped down the hill. My house taunted me, Katya and Ivan’s too, but I kept my gaze on the ground as I stopped short of the fence and the path that would take me home. Head bowed, muscles and tendons wound tight enough to snap. But with the answer to everything burning a hole in my pocket, it did not matter.

The highest tree on the mountain hung over a ledge. Shady by day and shadowed by night, it was my favourite spot to chase the disconnect I needed to breathe, and I found it as I had left it—scarred by sin. Burned paper and foil crumpled on the dry grass. The pipe jammed in the earth, so I did not have the luxury of denying what I had done. Of forgetting, even as I dug the wrap from my pocket and tipped the contents over the edge of the mountain. Every rock, every hit.

All but one.

Bones aching, I lowered my body to sit, already armed with fresh foil and the disposable lighter that had lived on my person since I’d stolen it from Ranger. But I did not think of him now. This was the one moment I never could, and I built my poison chalice with a dying conscience. A soundtrack of rustling paper, the flick of the lighter, and a bubbling hiss I’d hear in my worst dreams for the rest of my life.

Acrid smoke hit my lungs, and for everlasting moments, nothing happened.

Then the world fell away, piece by piece.

A rush.

A wave.

A silent scream of euphoria that ebbed as fast as it had hit, leaving hollow space in its wake.

I closed my eyes, chasing the dregs, settling for the fuzzy static my mind defaulted to. Like the TV in the orphanage, blinking in and out for hours and hours before it settled on nothing at all, the severance complete.

How much time passed, I could not say.

The trunk of the tree became my anchor to the world, the bark digging into my spine the first sign that it was over. That nausea and self-loathing had returned to claim their place. The pain in my hip and my knee remained absent, but the wrench in my chest was too lonely to bear, and I pitched forward, a broken shout tearing out of me.

How long had I been here?

I did not know, but it wasn’t enough.

It would never be enough.

One hit. Two. Three.

It did not end.

But it was over for tonight. Somehow, I had made sure of it, and I could not think clearly enough to appreciate that. As I left the scene of the crime, heavy-footed and hazy, I felt only despair, and even that was muted.

For now.

I descended the mountain to the fenced part of our land, chasing focus.

Lida.

Guilt consumed me for leaving her. It was witchcraft that a devil whispered to me that it had been for the best. That she deserved better than to live with the man I became when I did not do this.

It was beginning to get light, giving weight to the creeping realisation that I had spent most of the night slumped against a tree. More spiked remorse threatened the detachment I’d prioritised over everything else. It broke through, and I stumbled, jarring my damaged hip back to life, a pain that still lacked the ability to make me angry enough to fight.

It is you that lacks.

Always you.

But for reasons I could not fathom, Lida loved me anyway, and the need to get back to her kept me moving until my house was so close I felt the sun-warmed tile of the floors against my cheek—I felt that I was not alone, an instinct that had saved my miserable life already tonight. A sixth sense that dropped me to the grass and had me reaching for a phantom weapon.

Lida. My girl was gentle, but she was not above ripping the femoral artery of any man stupid enough to cross who or what she felt compelled to protect. And she was trained to win—to dodge guns and blades. To survive. But she was as mortal as any living thing, and the fear that gripped my heart was visceral enough to choke me.

She’s not in the house. You left her with Katya, remember?

I tried, but the memory didn’t sit right. I sniffed the air for gunpowder and blood. Strained my ears for sounds of a fight. I heard nothing but birds. Smelt nothing but the dawn of a spring day, but still, something was . . . different.

The fence was live again. I descended further down the mountain, to the gates, unlocking them with my fingerprint and slipping through before they fully opened, disabling the mechanism, shutting them down.

It was not a soundless operation, but enough shadows lingered to cover me as I stalked towards the land that surrounded my house and the weapons cache behind the annexe.

Another fingertip swipe and I was armed, my palm moulded to a Glock. I had not touched a gun since Locke and I had broken out of a Crow prison, but as much as I felt born to die right now, this . . . it came easy to me. Second nature perhaps. Destiny.

Or maybe I just really loved my dog.

You still left her.

Urgency quickened my pace. I scoped the back of the house and rounded the east side where the sun was rising above the ocean. Anticipation lit my veins, but it was different to what had driven me away from my home. Brighter—almost luminous, as sandalwood clouded my senses.

Do not think of him now.

It was a moment—the only moment—when such a thing should’ve been easy. But the closer I got to the front of my house, the sharper the scent became, dizzying me, stealing the gravity of my pace, slowing me to a criminal stroll, as if the animal that lived within me had stood down long before the message reached my brain.

You are not a wolf.

No.

I was not.

But as my front porch came into view and I laid eyes on my dog—on Lida, relaxing in the early sunshine with the object of every good dream I’d ever had, the primal emotion that ripped me in two hurt too much to be human.

To be real.

My footsteps slowed, my scratchy gaze zeroing in on long limbs, tatty boots, and inked arms. On dark hair that was longer than I’d feared, grown out and shaggy, obscuring the soft lips and ebony stare that would send me to my broken knees.

It cannot be.

I still clutched the Glock. Lida glanced my way, drawing the attention of the man scratching tattooed fingers through the thick fur at her chest.

That obsidian gaze found me. The gun fell to the ground and madness finally swallowed me whole.

“Asher?”