Page 28 of Ruinous Need

LISETTE

I FEEL USELESS as everyone works around me, busy with strategy meetings that I’m not invited to.

Viktor’s unruly black hair is cropped close to his head, not a strand out of place. He’s clean-shaven, and his smooth skin glows with authority.

“Mr Zakharov.” Markov nods at him.

He’s barely recognizable from the messy-haired assassin I’ve gotten to know. He emanates authority, even if it’s intermingled with a healthy dose of danger.

He’s…

Leadership material.

The thought catches me off-guard, but it slots into place like the missing piece of a puzzle.

Viktor is going to make a play for power. That’s why he took so long to get here. The unhinged, mercurial energy is still there, but Viktor is channelling it into one powerful focus: taking over control.

But how? He doesn’t have the right.

From what I’ve picked up — eavesdropping on Merc and Ben when they gossip about mafia politics, mainly — the Bratva is a loose web of families. The one thing that entitles people to power, in this old-fashioned and backwards kind of society, is birthright.

And Semyon’s the Pakhan. Viktor’s his cousin, not his brother. He doesn’t have the right to lead.

“You’re trying to become the Pakhan, aren’t you?”

“I can’t hide anything from you.”

“The haircut gave it away,” I tease him. “I don’t understand how you would be entitled to it though.”

He pauses, his black eyes boring into me. As though he’s considering whether to tell me something.

“The old Pakhan, before Semyon, was my father.”

I pause with a forkful of pasta halfway to my mouth. “Then, why are you not the Pakhan?”

“I didn’t want it. Being Pakhan means less choice for me, the people I love, it leaves me stuck in the New York Bratva with all its problems.” Viktor pushes away his plate of food, leaning back in his chair.

His eyes are distant. “I would have been trapped in some loveless marriage with a daughter of a Council member.”

“I’m glad that didn’t happen.”

“My father took power after a bloodbath when I was a child. He’d been working on it for years. I didn’t like how my father used his power and I thought I would do the same thing. Hurt the people closest to me.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Viktor snorts, his face twisting regretfully. He meets my eyes “I can’t name a single person in the Bratva my father didn’t hurt.”

“But I imagine those who were closest to him got the worst of it. Just because he hurt other people doesn’t mean your suffering doesn’t matter, Viktor.”

“My mother got the worst of it.” I take his hand and squeeze it tight, keeping my eyes on his. “But, yes, he hurt me too. I think that was his favorite pastime. Playing games that would hurt other people. Like Semyon.”

“You’re not like that.”

Viktor shakes his head and tries to pull back. “Who knows what I’ll be like once I’m Pakhan?” A shadow passes over his face.

“You won’t be like that.” I loop my arms around his neck. “I won’t let you be. But why even do it, if you hate it so much?”

Viktor tilts his head to the side, and sweeps a strand of hair behind my ear. “You.”

That’s when I realize. Viktor’s not just doing business. He’s starting a war with Semyon.

I freeze as I process what this means. “But… Won’t it put you in danger? Is it really worth it?”

Viktor pauses, looking at me with surprise. “Is it worth it? To keep you? Of course it is. You are the only reason I’m doing this.”

I can’t stop staring at Viktor. He’s really going to take on a job he never wanted, at great personal cost, all to keep me.

“You’re sure?”

He pulls me onto his lap and rocks me back and forth. “Never been more sure of anything.” His lips brush the top of my head as he speaks.

I bite my lip. This is so much more than anyone’s ever done for me, and I have no idea how to respond. Or whether I can even trust what Viktor’s saying.

As his charcoal eyes melt into a sparkling river that sends heat to my stomach, it feels like he means it.

I don’t make a sound as the pain rips through me. There’s no point. I don’t want to interrupt whatever important, secret discussion he’s having that doesn’t involve me.

I know I’m being unreasonable, and bitter, but sometimes, when all that fills my head is pain, I can’t think around it.

I lie curled up on the mattress as the pain rips through my body. Turning me inside out until I’m a sweaty, sobbing mess.

Viktor probably didn’t bring the painkillers with him.

He probably doesn’t even care, I think, but just as the thought makes its way into my brain, he’s at my side.

His hands are tender and reassuring, the way they always are when I’m hurting.

He carries me to the bathroom, filled with the scent of the essential oils and steam. He pushes the bottle of pills into my hand.

“I forgot to bring them, Lisette.” He kisses my hair. “I’m so sorry it took a while to find a supplier.”

Then he strips his own clothes off and joins me in the bath, positioning me on his lap.

The firewood and salt scent of him calms me. I inhale against his chest and he places a steady palm on my cheek.

We just stay there, breathing together, until the pills start to make me sleepy and the bathwater turns tepid. He wraps me in a towel and dries me off, bringing me to his bed, made-up with fresh sheets.

And he doesn’t leave my side for the rest of the night.

I wake up curled on my side, his arm gently slung over me. He’s awake, staring down at me as I look up at him with roaming, pain-filled eyes.

The room is fading away as the pain moves inside me, spreading. Deep and intense and immobilizing.

I try to stay grounded, to remember where I am, to content myself with the fact that Viktor is here, now. Even if I don’t know what’s going through his head or what he’s been plotting.

I try to take deep breaths, but the air stops in my throat until I’m sobbing in frustration. My body is betraying me. Unable to even function because of this chronic condition that rears up, right when I need to be present and functioning and able to move my limbs.

“Show me.” Viktor places his hand in mine. I will myself to focus on his face, his dark eyes, his intricate tattoos, the solidity of his presence.

“What?”

“Show me how much it hurts.”

I look away. “There’s no point us both hurting.”

“Lisette.” He growls. “You’re mine. That means I want every part of you. The suffering, the pain, I want all of it. Let it out.”

He wraps my hand over his. I squeeze it weakly.

“There’s more. I can see it in your eyes.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to hurt you, Viktor,” I whisper.

“You do. Give me all of it.”

Something breaks loose in me as he looks down at me with those infuriatingly unreadable onyx eyes. The knife that stabbed through my heart when he told me he was just using me. The confusion when we had to leave. Every part of himself he’s hiding from me. It feeds into my pain, ripping through me.

I grip his hand so hard, digging my fingernails in, that maybe he really does get a slice of what it’s like. How it makes me hate my own body for putting me through this.

As the blood wells from the half-moons I’ve left on his hand, he doesn’t try to move away. He lets me grip him tighter and tighter, until the pain eases enough for me to lie back and sleep.

Even then, when I wake up, my hand still covers his. I didn’t want to let him go. In case, when I woke up he was gone again.

I look at him in the soft morning light. His face pale, his new sharp haircut making him more powerful, less chaotic. Like he’s corralling that unhinged energy into something precise and focused.

I trace the bloody marks I’ve left on the back of his hand and I start to believe that maybe he is doing all this for me. My heart starts pounding as I realize that for the first time since I was eighteen, I have something to hope for.