She swallowed, throat working. “I just… did what I had to.”
“Katya,” I said. “You did more than that.”
Viktor leaned back, crossing his arms lazily. “Face it,kotenok. You were an absolute badass.”
The blush hit her cheeks so fast she looked like she’d been caught doing something indecent.
“Don’t call me that,” she grumbled.
“What?” Viktor smirked. “Badass? Orkotenok?”
“Both.”
He chuckled. “You love it.”
She glared. “No, I don’t.”
I raised a brow. “Lie again. I dare you.”
Her mouth opened, then shut and her blush deepened a bit further.
I let myself smile, albeit slowly. “Good girl.”
The limo hit a stretch of clean road, the engine humming like a predator settling into a long-distance pursuit. City lights flickered ahead, distance making them shimmer like stars.
For the first time since this nightmare began, I let myself breathe.
Viktor did too. He slouched back, stretching one arm along the seat behind Katya, not quite touching her. Just close. Protective in his own reckless, careless way.
I leaned forward again, elbows on my knees. “We’re not out of this,” I said. “But the hardest part is over.”
“Is it?” Katya asked.
She wasn’t afraid. She was calculating.
“Until Revenant figures out that we have their drones,” I corrected.
The driver’s voice crackled over the intercom, nervous but still calm. “Two minutes to the safe route. The other vehicle is behind us now.”
“Good,” I said.
Katya’s fingers brushed my arm.
Only for a second in a touch so light she could claim it never happened. But it did. And it hit me like a small explosion.
She drew her hand back quickly, staring out the window as if the world outside suddenly mattered more than this small, electric moment inside the car.
I didn’t push it.
But I knew what it meant.
Viktor studied her profile for a beat more, his eyes uncharacteristically soft. Then he looked at me, smirked, and said in Russian:
“She’s ours, little brother.”
I didn’t correct him.
For once, he was right.
