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“Maybe a truce,” I suggest. “Between you and Sonya.”
He laughs. “Impossible. You heard Popov.”
“You cannot possibly entertain doing what that man wants!”
He hesitates for too long before he answers, and that’s enough to scare me.
***
I can’t sleep later, thinking about what that awful man said. I waited for Andrei to get angry, be insulted, and say he would never do anything like that intentionally. But he did no such thing.
As soon as I close my eyes, endless scenarios plague me, slowly revolving around my mind. I can’t allow this to happen, but how will I stop it?
How can I?
How can he even consider doing such a thing to his own sister? I could never imagine shooting Emma. Plan B is starting to look good again—leave Andrei and run away with Emma.
Leave all of this behind.
In the morning, I take Viktor with me to run errands, but I insist on driving my own car with him in the passenger seat. His long legs are bent at odd angles as he tugs at the white collar of his shirt. His hair is growing fast, and he has more visible tattoos on his hands. I decide not to ask how he earned them.
“I won’t take long,” I reassure him as I pull into the parking lot.
“I must go with you.” He barely looks at me. “Your actions don’t concern me unless I’m asked, Paige Geraldovna.”
I watch Viktor from the corner of my eye. “So, I can trust you unless it poses a problem?”
“My loyalty is to my pakhan.” He shrugs and stares out the window.
Of course. Why did I think it would be a different answer than that?
I move to open the car door. Viktor leaps out and walks behind me until I make him walk by my side.
Inside the store, he relaxes until my phone starts buzzing. I refuse to answer it. A store manager approaches me, holding out a wireless phone, insisting that I answer my husband.
It seems that Andrei called the freaking store after Dmitri located my car using GPS. I blush a red brighter than the staff’s polo shirts, quickly pay for my purchases at the self-checkout, and run outside to my car with Viktor trailing behind me.
He helps put my bag containing a small safe into the trunk. “It’s smart to get one of those,” he says, buckling his seat belt. “But it would be smarter to get a safe deposit box in Emma’s name instead.”
I nod, but keep my mouth shut. I know how to take a hint. I’m about to turn on a podcast for the drive home when he starts talking again.
“I know what you’re planning, Paige Geraldovna,” Viktor says. “I cannot help you.”
“Not even if I paid you?” I ask. We don’t make eye contact as I concentrate on pulling out of the parking lot, and he stares out the window.
He shakes his head. “You’ll need all your money to run.”
“My father had money,” I reply. “It’s in his will.”
Viktor brushes his hand over his crew cut, and the short hair immediately falls back into place. “Not enough. I understand your pains, Paige Geraldovna. Truly, I do. You and your sister don’t belong here.”
“You weren’t born Bratva either,” I reply as I pull onto the Thruway.
“Yes, but the difference is that I wanted this,” he replies. “Thearmydoesn’t even recruit in my shitty neighborhood. I heard from the older guards how you were brought to the estate against your will, and Andrei Vasileyvich married you to keep you there. No one understood exactly why then, but we do now.”
“Andrei did it to protect me.” I sit up straighter in my seat, repeating the same lie that I’ve said so many times.
“That’s why I won’t help.” Viktor sucks his teeth. “You’re still hiding from the truth. You could have allies if you wanted. Eva didn’t deserve her death. Igor, yes, but not her.”
