I kicked a rock, scuffing my already scuffed-to-fuck boots.Ihadn’t been the same since I’d rocked up to the RK compound to find Lida living with Locke and his harem, but I wasn’t sure how to explain that. So I said nothing. Let Vik think whatever he wanted. Then died of curiosity as I realised Ireallywanted to fucking know. “I didn’t drug your dog into liking me. She just does. And for the record, when she was with the Kings, she pretty much liked everyone.”
“Pretty much? That does not imply everyone.”
“She didn’t like the bloke I punched the other night.”
Viktor absorbed that with a wry smile. “She is never wrong.”
“Even when you think she’s eaten an ounce of weed to like me?”
“Even then.” Viktor reached the property boundary and crouched to examine a spot in the fence that looked fucking fine to me. “Did you fix this?”
“No. You did.”
“What?”
I squatted beside him. “This is where you made your great escape from the other night. You fixed it before you scarpered.”
“Before...” Viktor’s gaze darted up and down the mountain. “This, I remember. But how did I get back in?”
“Through the gate like a normal person.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw you.”
“How?”
“Jakov gave me extra eyes.”
Viktor pursed his lips, concealing however he felt about that as his hands hovered too close to the live fence for my nerves.
Fuck this.
I grasped his wrist and rose, bringing him with me.
He arched a brow that gleamed with copper flecks in the high sun. “If you have these extra eyes, why do you feel the need to shadow my every step?”
“Cos you’re a slippery motherfucker.”
“I am?”
“Youmightbe,” I corrected. “Time will tell.”
“How much time?”
“Up to you, luv.”
“Nothing is up to me.” Viktor wrenched his arm free and stomped away, continuing his path down the mountain to the gates that would expose him to the outside world.
I was ready if he went through them, locked and loaded with a knife in my boot, every scrap of muscle and bone primed to fight for him. But I was fairly sure he wouldn’t. If there was one thing Jakov had impressed on me more than anything, it was that Viktor’s disregard for life only applied to his own.
“Sometimes I think that dog is the only reason he breathes. I need you to change that.”
Like I could teach anyone how to breathe for themselves.
Viktor bypassed the gates and led Lida on a loop of the southern boundary, letting her rootle about in the earth, the sun too hot to run her properly. The rumble of a vehicle engine reached us, but he didn’t look up.
I did. His sister was descending the mountain in her subtly blast and bullet-proofed SUV, and like the first time I’d met her, I couldn’t help comparing her to Finch, and Orla O’Brian. To Juana, even. Those women—they were fierce. Bold and beautiful.Loudwhen they wanted to be heard. Katerina—Katya—Petrenko was different. Soft-spoken. Shy. She didn’t even remind me of Viktor, save the cat-green colour of her eyes.
