Page 69 of Vitaly

Vitaly considers this for a few moments. “Or maybe it was for me.”

My chest puffs with a snort. “For you? Alik hates you.”

“Like you hate me?”

My mouth closes as the humor leaves my expression. Vitaly doesn’t seem bothered. He looks off, thinking.

“I wonder if he’s the one who sent the picture?”

“Picture?”

He brings another spoonful of soup to his lips and takes an annoying amount of time to swallow before setting the bowl on the counter and shifting closer to me. His palm flattens on the countertop as he leans dangerously close, making the air feel thinner. The ink on his chest is in my face, and while most of his tattoos bleed together to make one big mosaic, one sentence stands out.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.That’s … biblical, right? That seems like an odd choice for Vitaly. Did he get religious in prison?

“I told you why I came here,” Vitaly says, pulling my attention away from his chest. “But I didn’t actuallyknowyou were here until a week before I was released. Someone sent me a photo of you with Nikita.”

I frown. “Why would they?—”

“On the back, they wrote, ‘Nikita Petrov has what’s yours.’”

“Oh.”

He glances at the doorway then looks at me, his amber eyes holding me in place. The stubble on his face stands out to me now as I remember the feel of it against my cheek. How good his lips felt, even blue from the cold. I’d clung to his wet flesh then, and now, with him so close, it feels like such a waste that our one time had to be there when I couldn’t smell his masculine scent. Couldn’t see his tattoos so clearly like I can now, feel the warmth of his touch.

I want it again. Ihatethat I want it again, but I do. I swallow at the realization and try to pay attention when he speaks, but it’s hard to move my mind from the urge to lean in just a little bit closer. Or run away entirely. Being this close… It feels too strange.

“Somebody obviously wanted to lure me here, but they haven’t made themselves known. I think it must’ve been Alik.”

The hope in his voice sinks my lips. He cares for his old friend dearly, I can see it, hear it,feelit from him, but Alik is never going to feel the same.

“That’s not possible, Vitaly.”

His lips part, but he doesn’t speak right away, eyes dancing around like he’s looking for a way to make it so. “Alik was with you at the church, wasn’t he?”

I pause. “Yeah, but?—”

“Then he saw us at the lake. Hedidlie to Nikita, even though he could’ve given him a reason to kill me.”

Blood drains from my face. “You think he followed us?”

Vitaly’s eyes narrow like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course. Wouldn’t you?”

“H-he trusts me to tell him things. He wouldn’t have needed to follow.”

Vitaly nods slowly, but I can tell he isn’t on board with my reasoning. “What did you tell him happened, then?”

Whatever blood I had left in my face is gone until I’m certain I’m ghostly pale. I don’t say anything, and Vitaly doesn’t press. I think he trusts me. I think he knows I wouldn’t have given him up. Or that I wouldn’t have played him. Orcouldn’thave.

Vitaly doesn’t even look nervous by my response, but me? I’m just realizing Vitaly is right. Alik knows. He must know.

Because he didn’t ask me a damn thing.

“I-I haven’t spoken to him since that night.”

Vitaly shows me his palms, as if that says it all. It does. But Alik still isn’t the one who wants him here.

I look away with zero desire to crush his spirits, taking in his unfinished bowl of shchi instead. I must’ve been ten the last time I had it, when I was sick.

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