Page 50 of Wicked Vow

A chill goes through me at that, a tight, anxious feeling settling in my gut as I look at him. “I’m fine. Viktor is keeping an eye on me. I have his protection.”

“I’m not sure if that will be enough. Not with a man like that after you.”

“I don’t think he will be after tonight.” I swallow hard, standing up, too, as I put a little more distance between us. “I came in here to make sureyouwere alright, Erik–I feel bad about this. I definitely didn’t mean for anything to happen to you–this was just supposed to be fun–”

“Well.” The word comes out like the crack of a gunshot. “I think I’ve had more than enoughfunfor tonight.”

I open my mouth, still not entirely sure what to say, when a knock comes at the door, and it opens. I spin around, thinking it might be more of Viktor’s security, but to my surprise, I see Levin as he steps through the door.

“I thought you were in Boston!” I gasp, staring at him in surprise. I haven’t seen him since he left Santorini with Max and Sasha. I feel a sense of relief at seeing him standing there–in the short time I’ve known him, I’ve gotten the impression that if Levin is somewhere, things are being handled.

I’m just not entirely sure that the way this situation is going to be handled is the way I want it to be.

“Viktor called me back, not long after you got here.” Levin pauses and then glances at Erik. “He says you’re welcome to stay in the office for as long as you need to recover, and then your car can be brought around, or someone can give you a ride back to your home, if you don’t feel well enough to drive.”

“How very kind of him,” Erik says sarcastically. “I think I’ll be able to get myself home, thank you. Once I have a moment to rest.”

Levin looks back at me, clearly uninterested in Erik now that he’s delivered the message. “Viktor wants to see you,” he tells me gently, and something in the tone of his voice makes me feel more afraid than I was before about what might be happening to Mikhail. “We should probably go.”

I nod, following him out of the office. I don’t look back at Erik as I go. I know that, in a way, what’s happened to him here is my fault. I just don’t know what I could possibly have done to change it.

“Is Mikhail dead?” It’s the first question I blurt out as I slide into the passenger’s side of the car Levin brought around, my heart hammering in my chest. “Did Viktor kill him already?”

“Not so far as I’m aware.” Levin pauses as if considering what he’s about to say next. “Natalia–do youwantMikhail dead? Would you feel safer if he were?”

“No!” The word comes out before I can stop it, before I even really have time to think about it. “No, I don’t. I truly don’t. I–” I feel an ache spread through me, like grief settling in before I even really know if I have a reason to grieve. “He said he made a mistake.” I glance over at Levin, wondering if he can tell me anything that would help me–anything that could possibly make me understand. “He never said anything like that before. He seemed so desperate to explain to me–”

Levin lets out a long breath, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he looks over at me. “How much do you know about Mikhail before? When he worked for Viktor?”

“Sasha told me some.” I bite my lip, leaning back against the seat. “I know he did a lot of very dirty work for Viktor.”

“Viktor used to be in some very dirty businesses,” Levin says grimly. “The thing is, Natalia–and I think you know this as well as I do, being who you are–in this world that we live in, the line between a bad man and a good one is very thin and often very gray. Which side of that line Mikhail falls on, and even Viktor, is largely up to interpretation. Someone’s personal feelings–their own morality.”

I look at him in surprise. “You’re a good man.”

“Am I?” Levin glances at the road and then back at me. “I was an assassin before I worked for Viktor. My hands are stained so red with blood that I don’t think there’s anything that could wash them clean. My wife died because of who I was. I went to work for Viktor when he still trafficked women. Even if I never laid hands on a single woman, never brought any of them back here, I still worked for him. I still kept his records and talked to his clients, and I knew what he was doing. Even if I knew it was wrong and despised the business.”

“Why did you do it? Did you have to?”

“It’s complicated.” Levin rubs a hand over his mouth. “There were things I had to agree to, in order to leave the organization I worked for before all of this. Things I had to do in order to get permission to take revenge on the men who killed my wife. Part of that was going to work for Viktor. The Syndicate wanted someone to keep an eye on him. Eventually, they saw that there was no reason to interfere with him, that he was doing nothing that would cause them concern for their own ends. But I stayed, even after that.”

“Why?” I want to understand. Levin is, so far as I can tell, one of the best and most honorable men that I’ve ever met in the world of the Bratva. And yet, it’s clear that there’s a darker side to him, as well.

“He was a good man caught up in a bad business,” Levin says simply. “I stayed as his conscience, I suppose. There are very, very many evil men in this world. More than there are good ones, I think. Viktor needed the influence of someone who would steer him away from his darkest impulses.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “Once Caterina came along, of course, she took over that task entirely. I’ve never seen a man change his life so much for a woman–not since I uprooted everything for Lidiya. Of course–Viktor and Caterina’s story had a happier ending.”

His voice softens, sadder as he speaks of her, and something in my chest aches at the sound of it. I can hear, every time he talks about her, how much he loved the woman he’d married.

“And you think Mikhail wants to do that? You think he’s had a change of heart and is trying to tell me that?”

“Maybe.” Levin sighs. “I would say that when Mikhail worked for Viktor, he was on the darker side of that grey line. He picked up women for Viktor’s business. He shipped them like cargo, and he had no compunctions about it that I could tell. He kidnapped those Viktor wanted to be taken. He tortured and killed for Viktor, and so far as I could tell, he enjoyed it. He was a violent, dark man.”

“That sounds like the man I know, too.” I can’t explain the heaviness that washes over me at the thought. I know I’m not wrong about the glimpses I saw of him the night he killed my stalker or the way he’d looked at me and spoken to me tonight.But how can a man who does such things ever change?

“There was good in him, too, though.” Levin runs a hand through his hair, his stern, handsome face fixed on the road as he speaks, slowly, as if measuring his words. “I think there are very few people in this world that are wholly bad, Natalia. Mikhail did things that I could not condone. That I wouldnevercondone. But he was also loyal. Devoted. He loved the family that he had left. Viktor paid us well, and Mikhail sent a lot of that money to his sister in Moscow. And he had a code, as we all do for ourselves. He wasn’t so worried about innocence or guilt like a few of us are, but he never tortured or killed women or children. So for him to do what he did to you–”

“He thought I was responsible for his family dying,” I say quietly. “That’s why I understood it, in a way. I tried to think what I might have done to someone who hurt Sasha in the way his sister was hurt, and truthfully–” I take a deep breath. “I might have done some horrible things. Just thinking about it makes me angry.Violentlyangry. I was glad my father died, even just for what he did to her–keeping her locked up, neglecting her until she was sick, plotting her death. What he had his men do to Mikhail’s sister and nephew was a thousand times worse.”

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