Page 108 of Essence of Fear

Pav already knew.

He said it before Kolya could.

“He’s talking about Konstantin.”

“Boris is going after Konstantin,” Kolya said.

Vadim smiled again. “Good job, boys.” Then, his gaze drifted back to Pav’s as he relaxed a bit under the knives digging into his body. “In case you don’t know what that means, Zhatka, she wasn’t the goal for me. Viktoria is something I can use—something to dangle in front of a man who has little to no control over his baser urges. If I could give her back to him, he would do almost anything for me.”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Pav hissed.

“Not yet,” Kolya muttered from behind him.

“But—”

He pressed those fucking knives harder.

Kolya snapped, “Nyet, Pav. Not yet. We have to wait—let Konstantin take care of Chicago.”

Vadim laughed darkly. “You keep saying that, son, but I already told you. He has no one he can trust in Chicago. I made sure of that.”

“How little faith you have in him,” Kolya returned. “I guess now is the time we wait and see, hmm? Grab a chair, Pav, and we’ll sit while we wait. I’ll call Konstantin, and we’ll go from there.”

Pav didn’t move, but he did remove those knives from Vadim’s body. He crouched down a bit, enough to be eye to eye with the man. He used the tip of the bloody knife to point between his own eyes, and Vadim’s.

On the other side of the room, Kolya’s cell phone rang and rang on speaker but no one picked up. Konstantin wasn’t answering his calls.

“Come on, brat,” Kolya muttered. “Pick up the phone.”

Pav didn’t look away from Vadim.

The man kept grinning.

The phone continued ringing.

“Pick up, Konstantin,” Kolya growled.

He didn’t.

The voicemail picked up instead.

Kolya called again.

And again.

No one answered the calls.

Vadim looked all too happy.

Pav would fix that soon enough, telling Vadim, “What happens in the next few hours will determine what happens to you. What happens to her will determine how I will kill you, Vadim. Whether I get her back, or not, will determine how much you suffer. And believe me … either way, you will suffer.”

19.

“YOU LOOK lonely in here all by yourself,” Boris said as he darkened the doorway of the sitting room, his large figure filling up the entire space. Looming would be an apt description, but Viktoria didn’t want to get stuck in her head when this man was around. “Care for some company?”

“Not highly.”

His gaze flashed with violence.