“Good,” Petya said, so fiercely that my chest hurt. “Good. Don’t.”
“I need you to promise me the same.”
He breathed out. “I promise.”
“Say the whole thing.”
“Nadia.”
“Say it.”
“I won’t go to Gennady. I won’t answer him. I won’t leave the apartment unless Lev’s men take me.”
“Thank you.”
“I hate this.”
“I know.”
“Do you hate me?”
The question came so quietly I almost missed it.
My eyes burned.
“No,” I said. “I’m furious with you. I’m scared for you. I may yell at you for several years when we have time. But I do not hate you.”
His breath broke.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
A knock sounded on Petya’s end of the call. A muffled voice said something. Petya answered away from the phone, then came back.
“Lev says I have to hang up because they’re changing my phone.”
“Then listen to him.”
“I don’t like him.”
“You don’t have to like him. You have to survive him.”
“He says the same thing about me.”
This time, the breath that left me almost became a laugh. “That sounds fair.”
“Nadia?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t let Sorin think saving me means he gets to keep you.”
I looked at Vadim again.
His eyes met mine without apology and without defense.
“He doesn’t think that,” I said.
