I made myself move and caught up with him at the car, sliding behind the wheel without asking him if he wanted to drive. Viktor’s energy levels were bossing it along with the rest of him, but bless his heart, he’d stayed awake the whole time we’d been in the air, and I wanted a reason not to look at him.
He had two phones. After weeks of him barely acknowledging an outside world existed, if his face wasn’t attached tome, it was in one of these fuckers.
I drove.
He texted.
Fifteen silent minutes in, he held a screen up. “From Ivanov.”
Unknown:Remember, nomad
I sighed. As if I had the bandwidth to spend three days deciphering his cryptic bollocks. “Why is Alexei texting you?”
“He is not texting you?”
“What do you think?”
Viktor eyed me as he tossed the phone on the dashboard. “I think it is a strange coincidence that you would be so upset about something two minutes beforeAlexeitells me not to do it.”
“I have no shitting clue what you’re talking about.” More silence. Uncomfortable fucking silence that leeched oxygen from the air as a humourless laugh broke free of my lungs. “You don’t believe me?”
Viktor flicked the radio on. Spanish dance beats filled the quiet and made me want to punch something as I wracked my brains for whatever forgotten fucked-up wisdom Alexei was trying to remind me of.
Only one came to mind.
Plan with your head.
Shoot from your heart.
Do not let anyone tell you how to love them.
With Alexei, shit like that always came out of context. I hadn’t understood it then, and I didn’t understand it now. None the fucking wiser, I drove on until something occurred to me. “I didn’t know you and Alexei were friends.”
“We are not.” Viktor extended his leg, rubbing his hip. “This is business—what is that look for?”
I unfolded my face from whatever it was doing. But not fast enough for Viktor to give up on an answer. “I’m trying to understand the hierarchy. Jake’s the big boss, right? And so’s Cam. But every time Alexei’s in the room, everyone does what he says.”
In the darkness that had fallen as we’d driven home, Viktor almost smiled. But it was tainted by something I didn’t understand any more than I understood anything else. “You would like a Sidorov family history lesson?”
“A what?”
“You have cigarettes?”
Course I did. It was the one requirement I’d managed to communicate to Katya with no trouble.
I passed them over.
Viktor lit up.
I didn’t bother, knowing that whatever mood he’d fallen into, he’d share.
The road began to wind in steep curves, ascending the mountain. Viktor relinquished the cigarette as Katya’s house came into view. “It is not fanciful to tell you that Alexei falling in love with Cam O’Brian changed the world.”
I jammed the smoke between my lips, keeping both hands on the wheel, navigating the shady road. “Whose world?”
“Mine. Yours. Every criminal in Europe.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m not a criminal. And I don’t give much of a fuck where Cam puts his dick.”
