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“I-I–”
For the first time, when someone knocked on the apartment door, I was more relieved than anxious. It drew Viktor’s focus off of me. He set me down carefully on the bed, giving me a look when he thought I might get up.
“Stay here, ?????. You need to rest.”
I didn’t really have any other choice but to agree with him. There was only one way in and out of the tiny apartment, severely limiting my escape plans. I stayed glued to my spot on the bed, listening for who had arrived. Viktor came back a moment later, Doctor O’Connor following behind him. He gave me a soft smile, moving to stand by my side.
“I hear you’ve had a fall.”
No kidding. Not only did I run directly into Mount Dmitriy, apparently, I was falling for another Russian without my permission. Why else would I stay put when he left the room to make dinner, other than because he asked me to? Yuri wasn’t the idiot. I was.
* * *
There wasn’t a lot that Doctor O’Connor could do to help me. Broken ribs had to heal on their own. He put some new tape around my ribs and offered me some medicine. When I refused, he left them with Viktor instead and told me to call him if the pain was too much to bear. He left right as Viktor finished with dinner, setting the bowl of spaghetti in my lap before walking the doctor out. He came back with the medicine in his hand and I shot him a wary look. I wasn’t going to take medicine that made me tired, not after earlier. I needed to stay alert.
Viktor didn’t mention the meds right away, setting them on the bedside table before getting comfortable in his chair with his own bowl of food. He must’ve felt me watching him because he jerked his chin at my bowl, urging me to eat.
“It will get cold, ?????.”
Biting my lip, I glanced down to the bowl in my lap. It did smell delicious. Not too much sauce, lots of seasoning. I saw him pull out the meat before, so I was pretty sure the meatballs were homemade. My stomach rumbled, the sound making my cheeks burn.
We sat quietly for a little while, eating our food. Viktor didn’t seem bothered by it. He looked more relaxed than before, his tie loosened and his jacket tossed over the back of the chair. Nowhere near as terrifying as he was earlier. It was hard to tell where that came from. Stoic silence was what I was used to from him. But when Yuri was here earlier, he looked like a criminal, violent and feral.
He looked up like he could feel me staring at him again and I jerked my gaze to my plate, taking another bite.
“Do you like it?”
I nodded. “It’s really good. Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“My mother. She says a man who cannot cook is useless.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth, stifling a smile. “Sh-She sounds like an interesting woman.”
He nodded, his focus on his plate as he scooped more sauce onto his bread. “She is. I have not spoken to her in a while, though.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
If my own parents were still alive, I’d talk to them all the time. Every day if I could help it.
He sighed. “She is angry with me. When Volkov relocated to Chicago, he offered for me to stay behind and run things in Russia. I chose to follow him instead.”
Fascinated, I shifted closer as I listened to him. Like me, Viktor didn’t talk a lot about his life. Neither one of us was very upfront about our history, so any tidbit I could get was a treasure.
“She wanted you to stay?”
“Yes. She wants grandchildren. She wanted me to marry and settle down.”
My stomach clenched at the thought, and I dropped my gaze to my lap. “You don’t want that?”
He was quiet for a moment before he spoke. “I do not think my life is meant for things like that. I don’t want the people I care about to get hurt.”
There was a lot of emotion in his words and when I looked up, he was watching me, a deep frown on his face. I drew in a breath. Gabi mentioned more than once that Viktor blamed himself for what happened to me. I’d been trying to work up the nerve to tell him it wasn’t, but I still worried I’d say something wrong and make him hate me.
“Viktor…”
“What about you? Is your family demanding like mine?”
Unease settled in my belly. He hadn’t let go of what I’d said earlier and I didn’t have a visitor to hide behind this time. Telling him about my past felt dangerous. At the same time, I worried that if I didn’t start to offer more, his patience would run out and he would stop helping me.
