I scooped the little beast up, fitting her to Viktor’s uninjured hip, taking my payment in the soft smile he had for her. The murmured words that meant nothing to me, but everything to the tiny human who looked just like him.
Copper-streaked hair. Greener-than-green eyes. The world was fucked when she grew up.
Like you.
Like Viktor if I couldn’t get him to eat and sleep anytime soon. When his niece had gone back to her parents, we moved on up the mountain. It was the fourth time we’d trudged this route today, and Vik was getting slower.
I walked close behind him.
Waiting. Cos I’d catch him if he fell. But he didn’t. Not yet. He kept going until we reached the house and made it inside.
Viktor drank tea the colour of amber ale, loaded with sugar. I swear to fucking god, it was the only reason he hadn’t dropped dead over the last few days.
I watched him brew it in his favourite glass cup. “Is it always like this?”
“What?”
“Detox,” I clarified. “Withdrawal. Whatever. I get that you’re hiding a lot from me, but I thought you’d be sicker with it than this.”
“Hiding from you?” Viktor clattered a spoon into the sink. “I did not know such a thing was possible.”
“Maybe you should try harder.”
Viktor slid a coffee mug across the counter. He’d been deathly pale since I got here, but as the light outside faded, it seemed more pronounced. “Maybeyoushould eat dinner with Katya. She would not mind.”
“Fuck off.”
“You like chicken?”
“Excuse me?”
“Chicken.” Viktor opened the fridge. “There is some in here. If I cook it, will you eat it?”
“Will you?”
He blanked me again and lit the flame beneath the griddle plate on the fancy stove he’d cooked eggs on my first morning here.
I’d eaten nothing but bread, peanut butter, and weird Spanish crisps since. He’d eaten nothing at all, unless he had more than guns stashed in his room. And he didn’t. I’d checked while he’d slept that first night.
I mainlined coffee while Viktor grilled chicken and something green that he could put straight in the fucking bin.
My third cup was jittering down nicely when he shut the stove off and dumped a plate in front of me.
I eyed it, fighting the growl in my belly. A scratchy hunger that warred with suspicion at the giant pile of vegetables. “Where’s yours?”
Viktor moved to leave the room.
I lunged faster than my brain ever could, snapping a hand out, catching his wrist, triggering an instinct in him that should’ve killed me.
’Cept he didn’t kill me. He launched me against the fridge. I didn’t let go. And momentum did the rest.
Vik collided with my chest, bracing a fist on the fridge door. It jarred him, I could tell, but he stood his ground, skewering me with a mobster glare. “What?What?What do youwantfrom me?”
It was fucked up, but his frustration turned me on. And I didn’t mean sexually. Okay, maybe I did, but not entirely. Cos after days and days of drifting silence, the sharp anger lighting his gaze was fucking heaven, and I nearly bit his snarling lip. “I want you to eat.” I chose my words with more care than I spared anyone else. “And take a nap that lasts longer than six minutes. Then I want you to get back to doing whatever it is you bought this fucking island for. Cos I know it wasn’t for the shitty smack you’ve been scoring down the beach.”
Viktor’s mouth twisted in a sneer he’d never sent my way before. “Jake really did tell you everything.”
“He told methat. There’s loads of shit I don’t know about you.”
