“Mariya, breathe, baby, slow breaths, you got it…” I was sitting on someone’s lap. They were cupping my cheek, talking in my ear.“Dyshi seychas,breathe now.”
It was Konstantin. He’s worried, his icy blue eyes are warmer. Why is he worried? “Lucya-” I cough and cough, wincing a little as I wipe a trace of blood off my lips.
“She’s fine. My dad is with her. She shot someone who was trying to run off, the fucking coward,” he chuckled, and it didn’t bother me as much. “Why did you leave the dining car? You were safe there!”
“Because we were trying to find you and your father!” Lucya said sharply, crouching down to look at me. “Can you breathe,moy dorogoy, my dear?”
“M’ okay,” I rasped.
Her gaze darted to the two dead men next to me. “Did you kill them?”
“She shot one of them with her rifle half under her and this fucking moose on her back,” Kon said, “he was choking her out with her rifle strap.” He picked me up, making my head swim, looking at me critically. “You look like something I just cut out of a shark.”
“Go to hell,” I tried to snarl, but it came out as more of a croak.
“I can’t,” he said cheerfully, heading back through the train, “the devil has a restraining order against me.”
Even his father laughed at that. No wonder Kon thinks he’s so funny.
Chapter Three
In which Kon and Mariya had A Moment.
Bad Idea, Right? - Oliva Rodrigo
Mariya…
Present day…
“Bozhe moy!Oh, my god!” Tatiana gasps, her face sheet white. “I had no idea- why didn’t you tell me how bad it was!” She gets up, hurrying across the room, returning triumphantly holding a pint of pistachio gelato. “Here, you need this. For your throat.”
“Sweetie, my throat was fine within the hour,” I said, digging into the pint anyway, because no human being turns down gelato.
“So… what happened then?” she asks, settling back down.
“They had the track cleared and a doctor examining us within a couple of hours,” I said, savoring my spoonful of gelato and twisting away when she tried to take it back. “Whoever attacked us lost over fifty men, along with a tank and their helicopter. We figured out that the guy trying to strangle me was speaking Hungarian, but the two survivors said they were hired as mercenaries. Yuri isverypersuasive with torture,” I said, cringing a bit, “but that’s all he got out of them.”
“Okay… I wish I could create a flowchart for this whole cluster so I could keep track,” Tatiana frets. “So, the train kept going after all of this?”
“Well, we were all going to be picked up at Ulan-Ude the next day, so we had to keep moving,” I said. “Ironically, nearly all the sleeper cars were undamaged, can you believe that? When the doctor was examining me, Kon kept swaggering over to check on me like I was some fragile flower.”
“He did save your life,” she says tactfully.
“Hmm… I think that was the only reason I opened my door,” I said, jamming another spoonful of pistachio heaven in my mouth. “It made me soft.”
“You opened your sleeper car door,” she grins, “you could have told him to fuck off.”
“I know…” I groan.
On the train…
When the knock on the door startled me out of bed, I knew it was Konstantin.
Eyeing the flimsy slab of wood between us, I wondered what he’d do if I just didn’t open the door. He knocked again, the sound sharper. “You’re making me wait,” he said, and I took a step back as if he was reaching for me, just with the sound of his voice. “That’s going to come back around and bite you on the ass. Specifically,I’mgoing to bite you on the ass if you don’t open this door.”
“You sweet talker, you,” I sneered, even as I was unlocking it.
Konstantin was leaning against the door frame, looking down at me with a menacing little smile. He hadn’t changed or showered since the attack, there’s still blood on his shirt and soot across one sculpted cheekbone, but his eyes were glowing with malice or violence, something savage that brought them to life instead of their usual chill. He sucked in all the light around him like a black hole, and I swayed slightly, leaning in toward him too.
