Page 36 of Frequency of Attraction

Quinn felt ill. “What happened to the girls? To your brother?”

“I don’t know. My friend never reported them. That had been on me. I’m positive my brother moved the operation before I could go to the police. But I didn’t check. I let fear win that round.”

He looked at her then, letting the full force of his shame, his disgust, shine through. It was a dark, dull light.

“I went through rehab and got stronger, then much stronger. I wanted to be ready to take Adrik down if I had to. Mostly, he left me alone. Later, years later, I got my first tattoo to cover this up. You have to be perfect to be a candidate at Star City. Physically and mentally perfect. I knew they’d never let me in if they knew about my leg.”

“That started your tattoo obsession?”

He shrugged. “The first one hid my injury. The rest…I guess all my tattoos come back to my brother.”

Pain and anger turned into art. She wondered if Vadim saw his tattoos that way, or if he only saw permanent pain.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Before Star City. I’ve only been back once. My mother won’t let me visit; she gets too scared. He skulks around there making empty threats about me. He still hates me for getting out of that shithole. But he’s already showed me once that he can’t really hurt me.”

“He broke your leg,” she pointed out.

“There are worse kinds of pain, and he knows it. And I wouldn’t let him hurt me again.”

“Sounds like you have real issues to work out.” And Quinn thought an apathetic brother was a problem. Vadim dealt with a psychotic one.

“We do. Someday.”

Every part of his family had been broken. But there was one piece, the smallest yet the biggest, that might have a chance to heal.

Mila.

Quinn decided it was time to make a few calls to Boston on his behalf.

18

The little blonde had gotten underneath his skin.

Vadim didn’t recognize his behavior from Friday. Following a woman, sharing his deepest shame,kissing?

He’d kissed Quinn. First on accident, then on fucking purpose. He’d liked how she’d lit up in a new way. He’d liked her small noises and soft sighs that argued with her writhing hips and forceful fingers. Kissing Quinn was like tasting salty and sweet, like feeling the sun at night. He had let himself indulge in her contradictions. Stupidly. He’d stewed about that kiss all weekend.

No more story time. No more staring at her lips. Vadim needed to smash that wall that held Quinn back from orgasms, blow her mind with her first, maybe second and third, and let her move on. He had a lifelong dream to fulfill: Fly Stratos and see the stars up close. Little blondes played no part in his future.

Monday morning, Vadim met Harvey in the locker room in a back corner of the hangar. It was time to fucking fly. Finally.

Was he scared? A little.

Vadim hadn’t been in the cockpit of a training jet since the practical unit in college. A commercial airliner, like he’d flown for the footballers, was like driving a metro bus. Being in the jet would be like screaming down a wet highway in a Ferrari: far more dangerous, and he had far less practice.

Harv wore a shit-eating grin that Vadim didn’t like. If he wanted, Harv could run him through a gauntlet today. He had a second set of controls in the training jet, after all.

He stripped down to black boxer-briefs and a snug undershirt and did his best to pour his body into the flight suit someone had scrounged up. But he couldn’t zip the suit up all the way. His shoulders were too wide. Harvey guffawed at the straining fabric. Vadim frowned at himself in the mirror. He hoped Quinn didn’t have a fucking camera. Lord knew she liked to document everything, and this day, his first time flying for OrbitAll, would be noteworthy.

Mastering Stratos’ simulator was more important because Vadim wouldn’t be flying a T-38 jet, he’d be flying a spaceplane. But Thomas insisted on putting Vadim through real-world flight conditions in the jet until he could handle any issue Stratos might encounter.

He donned the rest of his safety gear, then he and Harv walked through the hangar together toward the airstrip, gloves and helmets in hand. Vadim searched for a distraction as his nerves ballooned. “Why aren’t you pilot-in-command?”

Vadim had often wondered why Chen and now himself had taken the starring role away from the veteran pilot who had been at OrbitAll since its inception. Tate wasn’t a dick. Vadim was sure Harvey had been given the option for the title.

“I’m a pilot, not an astronaut. I’ve been up five times already on test flights. We’ll probably go up five more times before we launch with passengers. I retired twenty years ago from the military, you know. Like George, our fallen friend, I have a family I’d like to spend more time with. A world I want to see with my wife.” The shorter, slimmer man glanced at Vadim. “It’s your turn.”

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