Page 13 of Wicked Vow

They take us through the compound yard, into a building, and down a hall. I can hear Ruby’s quick, frightened breaths and Natalia quietly trying to comfort her as we’re taken all the way to a large, empty room. The guards stand there with us as three chairs are brought, and then the one standing next to me shoves me down into one of them.

“Sit down, ladies,” he says sharply to Natalia and Ruby. “I’ll be back with Mr. Andreyev when he’s ready to speak with you.”

I don’t think we’ll have long to wait, and I’m right. Natalia hadn’t given her name yet, but I’d suspected that I’d be enough to get Viktor’s attention.

The door opens, and he strides in, immaculate as always in charcoal dress pants and a button-down, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back. He nods at the guards.

“I’ll take it from here. You can wait outside. I’ll call if I need help.”

He stands in the center of the room, his gaze landing on me first. “Well, well. Mikhail. I wondered when you’d crawl back up out from under the rock you hid beneath.” He folds his hands in front of him, his face impassive and cold. “I would have sent someone after you, but honestly, it wasn’t worth my time.”

“Not worth your time to go after a man you thought betrayed you?”

“One who was clearly too weak to take either side.” Viktor looks at me coolly. “You weren’t there with Alexei, so I assumed you’d fallen out with him as well. Too cowardly to stand by me, but also too much so to see it through to the end.”

“You’ve got it wrong.” I struggle to keep my composure, not to lash out at the man I stood by loyally for so long, that I’d lost everything for my loyalty to, only to have him assume that I’d betrayed him.

“Oh?” Viktor raises an eyebrow. “Is that why you’re here, Mikhail? To tell me your side of the story? Should I listen? Should I even care?” He pauses, his mouth tightening. “You’ve been gone for more than a year. If you were innocent, why not come back before then?”

“You should listen to him.”

Natalia’s voice startles me, and I whip my head toward her, unable to believe what I’m hearing.

“I have my own bones to pick with him,” she says, her voice as cool and restrained as Viktor’s, every inch the powerful Bratva daughter speaking to a powerful Bratva man. It sends an emotion through me that I have to fight back because I have no time for it now. “But I believe, for what it’s worth, that he’s telling you the truth. He went to great lengths to prove that loyalty.”

“And what do you know about it?” Viktor turns towards her. “Who are you?”

Natalia licks her dry lips, tilting her chin up as she straightens in her chair, meeting his gaze evenly. “My name is Natalia Obelensky. I’m Konstantin Obelensky’s only living heir, now that he’s dead. And if you need to know more about me, you can ask your right hand, Levin Volkov, who worked closely with me to save my half-sister, Sasha Federova, from what my father had planned for her.”

Viktor smiles tightly. “I don’t need to ask him. I’ve already heard all of it. He was under the impression you were still in Santorini with Adrian Drakos. He was very grateful for your help, as were Max and Sasha.”

The mention of Drakos’ name sends a bolt of white-hot jealousy through me, and I almost miss what Natalia says after it, my head buzzing with furious, possessive anger.

“Is she alright?” Natalia asks, her voice softened. “Sasha?”

“She’s fine,” Viktor tells her, his own voice taking on a gentler note. “She’s with Max, in Boston, where they’re safe in case anyone decides to come looking for them.”

He clears his throat. “But. We still have things to talk about that has nothing to do with that.” His gaze swings back to me. “I know what Natalia did to help my closest friend and an ally of mine in Moscow. So if she says that I should hear you out, I’m willing to do so. Speak, before I change my mind.”

And just like that, I see my entire plan crumbling in front of me.

I’d constructed it so carefully from the start, believing that Viktor would want the same revenge I would, once he knew who Natalia was and what her father had ordered done to his family, as he’d done to mine. But the one piece of information I hadn’t foreseen was the one that I hadn’t found–that Viktor already knew about Natalia…and knew what I hadn’t, that none of it was her fault. Moreover, she’d helped him in a roundabout way.

“You see,” Viktor continues, his mouth a tight line. “I sent Levin with Max to find Sasha. I felt some responsibility for what happened to her–but that’s another story, one we don’t have time for now. Without Natalia, they might not have been able to save her. So I owe her a debt. I’ll repay that in more than one way, but I’ll start by hearing you out.”

I sit up straight, meeting his gaze, knowing that what I tell him now makes or breaks my future. It will, quite likely, determine whether I live or die.

“I had nothing to do with what happened to your family,” I tell Viktor evenly, keeping my voice as calm as I can. “But Konstantin Obelensky did. He wanted me to assist Alexei, to help with the coup against you. He wanted you, your family, Levin–anyone who was firmly on your side within your circle dead. He’d planned to usurp your place and leverage threats against your allies and connections to force them to work with him instead. I refused.”

I take a deep breath, forcing myself not to flinch at the details as I recount the story. “You were in Russia with Caterina. I went to the house to try to protect the staff, Sasha, and your children–but I was too late. I tried to get to Moscow to help, but again, I was too late. And Obelensky took my sister and my nephew as payback for my refusal to help him.”

Viktor’s face remains very still, but I can see a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. “I think I know what must have happened to them if you refused to help Obelensky,” he says quietly. “I am sorry for that–”

“I’ll tell you anyway,” I say, a slight edge to my tone as I look at him, “so you understand why I’ve been doing what I have for the past year.” I draw in a breath, refusing to look at Natalia. “Konstantin Obelensky let his men rape my sister, over and over, in front of her son–my nephew. The boy was forced to watch as they tortured her for information about me. She had nothing, but he didn’t believe her. And because she had nothing, he forced her son to watch as she was shot and then killed him, too.”

“And you’re certain of this?” Viktor frowns. “You saw the bodies?”

“One of the men who participated took me to them, yes. He told me the whole story–all of it. He’s in pieces now, floated somewhere far away.” I grit my teeth, looking squarely at Viktor. “My family suffered, too. But you didn’t believe in my loyalty. You didn’t believe that I’d stayed true to you. So I spent a year looking for the proof that I needed to prove to you what I knew–that Obelensky was behind Caterina’s kidnapping, behind Alexei, behind all of it. I wanted to extract a confession from him and bring you his head. But he died before I could. Which left me with one person to extract that truth from–someone who I thought had a hand in what happened to my family.”

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