Page 47 of Wicked Vow

“A long fucking time,” I bite out when I can speak again. “I didn’t count the years, but it’s plenty of them. Good enough?”

“You’ve got a smart mouth for a man who’s so careless with his life,” Viktor says, crossing his arms. “I remember it being a bit more deferent when you worked for me.”

“Sure. When I worked for you. But I don’t anymore–since you decided to assume I was a traitor before I could even have a chance to prove myself innocent.”

“A mistake, as I’ve said before.” There’s still no inflection in Viktor’s voice, only a calm tone that approaches boredom as he looks at me. “There was no need to take all of that into your own hands, Mikhail. Proof that Obelensky was behind the kidnapping and torture of my wife and my associates’ wives would have been enough. I might have even been inclined to consider your word worth looking into if you’d come straight back. Instead of spending a year in Moscow and then torturing Obelensky’s daughter for something she had nothing to do with.”

“I might have done that–before I found out what he did tomyfamily, you son of a fucking bitch!” I snarl.

Viktor’s face hardens, and I know the punch is coming before the man comes towards me again. I force my body to relax with a strength of will borne of long discipline, knowing the hit will hurt far more if I’m tensed up. Still, it takes the air out of me again, and the room swims for a moment before Viktor’s face comes back into focus.

“Did you ever consider,” Viktor says conversationally, “that I might have helped you get revenge for your family if you’d come to me? You know I’m a man who understands such things. If you’d come to me, I might even have been able to get to Obelensky before he was killed. There was over a year, after all, where he was untouched. I would have been willing to go to war with him over what happened to my family–and yours would have been avenged, too. I would have let youhelp.”

He shakes his head. “So much might have been different if you’d trusted me, Mikhail.”

“Like you trusted me?” I spit out, and Viktor clicks his tongue against his teeth.

“I wouldn’t have killed you on sight the way you thought. You should have known me better than that. Look at this. You openly defied me, and yet you’re still alive, having this conversation. I would have heard you out.”

“It was a risk.”

“So was what you did with Natalia.”

There’s no answer for that, and I fucking hate it. He has me up against a wall with that, and I glare at him, seething through my teeth as the man comes forward and hits me again, this time just below my ribs, in the upper part of my stomach.

“Is that all you can come up with?” I gasp, glaring at him, and Viktor chuckles.

“Do you want me to be more creative? My men learned from the best, after all–or rather, from the best who learned from you. I can find ways to make you regret not scrubbing Natalia from your brain the instant she walked out of that door, if you like.”

“You can’t make me regret that.” I shake my head at him. “You don’t understand.”

“I do.” Viktor presses his lips together thinly. “She’s under my protection, Mikhail. She helped Levin and Max do a job that might have gotten them killed otherwise, and helped them fixmymistake. I owe her a debt. What good is my word, my protection, if I let you walk out of here after you directly defied me?”

He takes a few steps closer, his expression grim. “You should have stayed away, Mikhail. It was that easy. I gave you your life, your freedom, money, and a way out. All you had to do was let her go.”

“Would you have let Caterina go?” I glare at him, daring him to fucking lie to me, to tell me that he would have walked away from Caterina that easily. “You can’t tell me that you would have.”

Viktor’s expression hardens, and he nods to both men.

I’ve taken beatings before. This is the most precise of them, both men narrowing in on me and delivering blows where they’ll hurt the most, where I can feel my insides turning to jelly and can’t catch a breath between each punch, and yet nothing is broken, and I can tell that nothing is permanently damaged. This is for pain, pure and simple, and they deliver it in spades. When they finally step back, I feel as if I’m gasping for breath, airless, unable to speak.

“You talk too much,” Viktor says, almost pleasantly. “I don’t remember you talking so much when you worked for me. You followed orders. You did your job. You didn’t have the balls to talk to me with such familiarity, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t work for you any longer,” I repeat, when I can form words again. “So I’ll speak how I please.”

Viktor shrugs. “Have it your way.”

The beating goes on for a long time after. Viktor watches, impassive, and I know then beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m going to die. Not like this, not at this exact moment, but soon. I know there’s a ticking clock, a finite amount of seconds between now and when Viktor decides I’ve had enough punishment and that it’s time to end this. And I feel something that I’ve never felt before in any circumstance like this.

The urge to beg.

I want to see her again. As the pain washes over me in red waves, my body going almost numb to the fists pummeling me, all I can think of is Natalia. I see her in that room, terrified but as beautiful as ever, her face pleading, and I remember what she made me feel.

I’ve so rarely felt love in my life that it’s hard to pinpoint the feeling. But I think that this is what it must be.

If I die, she won’t be alone forever. She can’t be. If I die, some other man will fall for her and make her his. I’ll lose her in life and in death. I can’t let that happen.

Even if it means begging.

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