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She pursed her lips. “Honey, you don’t understand, do you? Viktor isn’t here. Nobody is here to help you. We’re here to collect the cash reward that we were promised.”
“You work for Viktor,” I said again, shaking my head. “Why would you—I don’t understand. Nadia, there has to be a mistake.”
“There isn’t a mistake.”
My mind flashed back to her and Viktor together on the couch. He might have chosen someone else, but I knew he wouldn’t have let her hurt me. Even if he decided to sleep with her—to be with her—I didn’t doubt for even a moment that he wanted me safe. He cared about me, too. This couldn’t be right. Viktor wouldn’t have anything to do with this after the lengths he’d taken to keep me safe.
I closed my eyes to keep my head from spinning, despite the men walking around me as if I were their prey.
“Nadia—”
“You’ve had a hold on Viktor for years. Since the first time you two met, he hasn’t been able to give up on you. He fucked plenty of women, but he never let any of them stick around. He used to flirt with me, you know. Before he met you, I was getting somewhere with him, and I think he would have chosen me if given enough time to make that decision. And if you would have given him a few more months, he might have given up on you. But no, you had your claws so deep in him that as soon as he heard you were in danger, he ran.”
“He wanted you,” I told her, shaking my head. “I saw—”
“What you saw was bullshit. He pushed me off him and threatened me. But you saw what I wanted and left the house. You did everything how I’d expected.”
I considered the snippets I’d seen and realized it hadn’t been enough to make a judgment. Not by a long shot. But I’d been so convinced that Viktor would be interested in someone like Nadia rather than someone like me, and that thought had been so consuming that it had been all I’d seen. “You—” I shook my head struggling to understand how someone would be so cruel. “You played me? How did you even know I’d be coming to his office?”
“You told me that’s where you went after Sean’s bedtime, so I beat you there. Ciara, your questions don’t matter. Nothing should matter to you anymore. I win, and that’s all that you need to know. I’ll get the guy in the end, and you’ll be taken care of.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around this level of cruelty. “You’re going to break him,” I told her. “If you care about him, you wouldn’t do this.”
“I care about the money more,” she spat, plopping on one of the makeshift stairs leading to the unfinished house's second floor. “I can fix him. I can shape him into the man he was before you, and by his side, I’ll get the power I’ve earned. Do you know how easy it will be? Stage your death, shoot myself in the foot or leg, and tell him I’d done everything to save you, and he’ll be mine. I’ll have money and the guy.”
She was crazy. She rattled off her plan as two men moved around me, arranging a tarp. I didn’t bother considering why they hung a tarp from the rafters.
How could she be so cruel?
“Don’t you have emotions?” I finally asked. “Do you not care what you have to do to get that money?”
“I haven’t felt bad about a single thing in my entire fucking life, Ciara,” she said, and from the dead look in her eyes, I could tell she meant it. “Do you know how relieving it is to feelnothing? Do you even understand how amazing it is to feel no guilt or heartache?”
“You’re a psychopath.”
She shrugged. “Technically, yes. But you say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“If you don’t feel anything, why do you want Viktor? You can’t love or care for him, so why would you do this?”
“Ciara, you’re not ignorant,” she said. “I’m not doing this just because I want the guy. If I would have been that crazy, I would have come after you years ago. The new mob boss incentivized it for me, and when there’s more than one benefit, it’s hard to say no. The power of being with Viktor is tempting, but two million dollars plus power is something I can’t turn down.”
I expected her to be catty and tell me that if she couldn’t have Viktor, nobody could. I expected her to act with some level of emotional reasoning, but there was none of that. Nadia acted with a cool and calculated grace that was unnerving. I realized that she was being entirely honest in one way. She didn’t care about killing me for vengeance. She wanted Viktor, yes. But she had captured me because she knew it would serve her better than killing me at Viktor’s home. Bringing me here gave her more time to stage what she needed before doing what she planned to do.
“You’re going to kill me then,” I whispered, working the ties on my wrists. They were tight enough to hold, but if I finagled them the right way—if she gave me enough time—I could easily pull myself free. But I was out of time. I knew I was.
“Don’t take it personally.”
I began moving my wrists in circles to loosen the ties the best I could. I just needed one chance, and I could run.
“You think these tarps will keep the area clean?” one of the men asked.
Nadia rolled her eyes and gave me a conspirator’s look before looking at the guy behind me. I didn’t recognize either of the men, but I knew they were in on this plan just like her. “Do you plan on taking a part of the cut?” she asked him with a stupid look.
“That’s what we agreed. My brother and I do the elbow work and you give us a cut.”
“Then do the elbow work and get another tarp,” she insisted, pointing toward another set of steps that I imagined led to a basement. One of the men rolled his eyes as he turned and moved toward it. The other gave her a rather heinous look, and I wondered if he planned on screwing her over in the long run.
I wondered how well they really knew one another.
