Essence of Fear: Boykov Bratva, page 2
She still wanted to love her father. She still wanted to adore him, even in his much-deserved exile from their family and life after all that he had done. He was her favorite, too.
“You know,” she said, “you asked about Konstantin and Kolya …”
“Mmm, my sons may hate me, but does that mean I have to hate them, Vik?”
Maybe.
Maybe not.
That wasn’t what she meant to ask.
“But you’ve yet to ask about her,” Viktoria said quieter. “Zoya Bennett, I mean.”
Vadim stiffened, but his expression didn’t flicker with even a hint of his emotion at her blatant, pointed statement. The other daughter he had—the one he’d hidden from them. The child she had never known about until the girl was practically grown, and even now … instead of embracing the young woman, Viktoria felt cold toward her. Like just her presence was enough to make Viktoria feel like her entire life with her father had been a lie.
My only girl. My printsessa. My favorite.
Maybe she was spoiled. Maybe she had an unhealthy adoration for her father, and that’s why this stung her so badly. Maybe it wasn’t Zoya or Vadim’s fault at all for her feelings, but rather … her own.
Zoya, the half-sister her father had decided to keep hidden and lie about, was just another piece of the puzzle. Viktoria didn’t see the girl—never said more than a couple of words to her when she did meet her. It wasn’t like the young woman had a problem with that, or so it seemed. Viktoria didn’t have room in her life for yet another person she was meant to care for, but didn’t feel like she could trust.
So, she stayed away from her half-sister.
She was still pissed at her father for lying to her for all these years, though. Although, if she were being honest, Zoya was just one piece of many. And not a piece that Viktoria cared to think about very often.
Why was she still here again?
Viktoria really didn’t know.
Vadim tucked one of her stray strands of straight, blonde hair behind her shoulder. A tender action for a man she knew had almost killed one of her brothers and tried again with her other. “I haven’t asked because there is nothing I need or want to ask about her.”
No, that really didn’t help.
Viktoria still felt cold.
“Sir, your lunch is ready to be served. Will you take it in the enclave again?”
At the sound of a man’s voice—unknown to her, despite her visit having lasted several days here at her father’s Russian estate—she stiffened all over. It was like in a second, she couldn’t breathe, her gaze tunneled and blackened at the edges, and her heart raced out of control. All it took was the voice of a man she didn’t know coming from behind her, and Viktoria felt two seconds away from passing out or throwing up.
Either one, or both, was likely. That was the thing about fear. There really was no controlling it. She wasn’t good at hiding it.
Vadim’s gaze darted to her, and then to the man wherever he stood at her back behind the bench seat. “In a moment, Anatoly.”
Footsteps receded.
Viktoria still wasn’t okay.
Her father knew it.
“Izvini,” Vadim murmured, his gaze drifting down to her shaking hands she’d balled in her lap. “I never thought to explain to the men who work here about your … issue.”
Issue.
Yeah.
That was a good way to put her absolute terror of unknown men. Which was funny because the man who had caused this hadn’t been unknown to her at all.
“And I’m sorry it happened at all … this,” her father added, nodding at her.
Viktoria forced herself to speak—if she didn’t, she might not say a word for hours. “Can we just eat, yes?”
Vadim nodded. “We’ll eat, but then you’re going home.”
Home.
Where even was that anymore?
• • •
From up above, Chicago seemed bright in the darkness, what with the clusters of lights from the city. And yet, Viktoria knew the second she stepped foot into the city, the wind would remind her just how cold the place was on its good days.
The pressure in the plane’s cabin released just a fraction before it started building again. Viktoria focused on the sights down below, which were getting closer and closer as the plane dropped for its final descent. There was always a brief moment before the plane’s wheels touched down to the tarmac that would have her heart leaping into her throat, but for the most part, she enjoyed flying.
What could happen twenty-thousand feet in the air?
Very little.
She shot the guy sitting next to her a look. Well … except when she had a chatty neighbor. It wasn’t like she gave off the let’s talk vibe, but God knew this asshole had tried again and again to engage her. He’d finally gotten the hint when Viktoria had literally stared him dead in the eyes, put her earbuds in slowly, and then cocked a brow as she turned the music on in her phone before turning to face the port window.
She was sure it’d hurt the guy’s feelings a little bit. And if not that, then it certainly hurt his pride. She wasn’t the chatty type, honestly. She certainly wasn’t going to talk to some stranger on a plane just because she was sitting beside him, he was bored, and he figured she would be a good conversationalist.
Surprise.
She wasn’t.
Did that make her a bitch?
Absolutely.
Did she care?
Absolutely not.
Bitch and Viktoria had become synonymous in her world. People threw that word at her like it was a knife. They said it with the intention to hurt her—to cut. It was funny, really, because instead of letting it affect her in a bad way, she just turned it around on them. They wanted to see a bitch? They didn’t like that she was cold?
Okay.
Then she could be worse.
Nobody had ever thought to figure out the reason why Viktoria was the way she was, anyway. Other than her brothers, maybe. Not that they needed to figure it out—they already knew. Everyone else, though? It was easier for the people who didn’t know her to just label her with a slur, and go on their way.
She just owned it.
The remainder of the flight passed by rather quickly. Before she knew it, the plane had taxied into the gate, and they were allowed to deplane. Slinging the messenger bag that she’d used as a carry-on over her shoulder as she came down the arrival’s escalator, her gaze landed on the person waiting a few feet away from the bottom of the moving stairs.
She might have been surprised to see him, but she couldn’t be, given he always seemed to know everything anyway. Even when he wasn’t directly told something, her brother, Konstantin, just seemed to have … a way about him.
Kolya, her oldest brother, was the one who scared everyone because of his size, and ever-changing moods. His coldness could rival hers on his good days, but it was the sudden bursts of violence that he was very capable of that really lingered in the minds of those around him when he was long gone.
Konstantin, though?
He was a little different.
Konstantin was calculating—he was the king on the chess board, in a lot of ways. He thought several moves ahead, and he never let anyone know what those moves were before he made them. Some people might call that unpredictable, but she didn’t know if that was the word she would use. The fear Konstantin invoked in others came from his ability to seem harmless until it was far too late, and he was never obvious.
Nothing he did was obvious.
Standing there in his three-piece suit, Konstantin looked almost out of place in the rest of the crowd. There was just an air about him—something that warned people from his aura alone to stay back; don’t engage. His usual smirk was gone as he looked at something off to his left, giving her a good view of his profile and the hard lines of his face. It was his features, that strong jaw and the coldness in his gaze, that reminded her of their father. But it was the structure of his face that reminded her of their long-dead mother.
Kolya looked just like their dad.
Her and Konstantin, though?
They took more after their ma.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about her brothers, but more importantly … she didn’t know how she felt about Konstantin. He’d been the one to send their father away, after all. He’d made Vadim leave Chicago and exiled him to Russia.
Viktoria wasn’t stupid. She knew that the way her father treated and raised her was quite different from the way Vadim had behaved toward his sons over the decades. She’d always blamed that on the Bratva—on her father being the Pakhan, and her brothers being his soldiers. But she couldn’t ignore that there had never been a time when Vadim acted like their father, either. It was always just the boss and his men. Even when they were young, Kolya and Konstantin had needed to be men and not boys.
She was always able to be Vadim’s little girl—his daughter. Nothing more and nothing less. It was that reason why seeing Konstantin waiting for her because, apparently, he’d gotten news she was coming back home without her actually telling him, put her on edge. It left her feeling confused.
She loved her brother.
And her father.
Now, her father had been taken from her. Konstantin had done that. It left her with a complex that she wasn’t exactly ready to deal with, not that she knew the first place to begin with it all.
All at once, Konstantin turned, and his gaze leveled on her. That was another thing about her brother. His stare was always penetrating—yeah, that was the best way to describe it, she supposed. Penetrating.
A person didn’t need to say a thing when Konstantin was around. He didn’t need words and explanations to know what someone was thinking or feeling. It was like he just stared at you and he knew it all, anyway.
Viktoria was not an exception to that rule.
“Your trip was good?” her brother asked.
Viktoria came to a stop a couple of feet away from him. It allowed her enough distance that he wouldn’t assume she wanted to greet him with something like a hug. “Good enough.”
Konstantin nodded. “And Vadim?”
“You don’t care.”
Her brother arched a brow. “Vik—”
“You sent him away. You wanted him to go and you took over his place here. You don’t have to pretend that you care about how he’s living in Russia, brat.”
Konstantin’s jaw tightened before he relaxed and offered her a smile. “I wasn’t asking for him, actually. More for you, hmm?”
Well …
“He’s making do,” she replied.
That was about as much as she wanted to give her brother, regarding their father. She had no doubt that Konstantin had a whole handful of people to watch Vadim. Likely the same people who reported back to him on their father’s behavior and actions while he lived out the rest of his life in exile, away from his family. He didn’t need her filling him in on the details.
“Was the trip … worth it, then?” Konstantin asked.
Viktoria sighed. “If you’re asking if it helped me with anything, then the answer is no.”
“I figured.”
“Where is Kolya?”
“Busy with Maya. You know how he is about that wife of his. She comes first.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Konstantin smirked. “No, I don’t. You simply hear it that way, sestra.”
“You can’t tell me what I hear. Unless, of course, my ears have suddenly become attached to your head. Let me know when that happened.”
She didn’t even try to tamper the coldness in her tone. She didn’t particularly have a reason to be icy to her brother, but this was her life, now. It was easier to keep people at a distance, and let them know their place, than it was for her to keep fighting them when they tried to get too close. Better to make that line in the sand clear before they ever got started.
Konstantin nodded. “I take it you don’t want to tell me the things you discussed with Vadim, then?”
“Nyet.”
“A hard no, huh?”
Viktoria smiled thinly. “Take it how you may.”
“You seem like you’re feeling …”
“What?”
“Extra nasty.”
Viktoria stared at the people passing them by instead of her brother. It was just easier. She didn’t need him to see the war in her gaze—a battle of emotions that was ever-present, and always constant in her heart and mind.
Life was not nice to her.
Not lately.
“We have an upcoming party,” Konstantin said when Viktoria kept quiet. This was typical for them. He’d try to engage her, and she just stayed silent until he gave up. “A baby shower for Maya and Kolya. I expect you to be there, be pleasant, and bring a proper gift.”
“Fine.”
“Oh, and since I know how Vadim always puts you in a headspace, perhaps you should go see your therapist while you’re back in the city, yes?”
Her jaw ached from how hard she was clenching her teeth.
He wasn’t wrong, though.
It wasn’t just Vadim and her brothers who left her with a complex whenever she was in her father’s presence. It was far more than just that. It was like every conversation with Vadim thrust her right back to a time when he had failed her the very most.
That made her feel angry.
Guilty.
So ashamed.
Dirty.
She didn’t want to blame him for what had happened to her, but she still did. She loved him, and she hated him.
“I think I will visit her, actually,” Viktoria said.
Konstantin smiled briefly as she looked back at him. “Good.”
“But not because you told me to.”
“Of course not.”
2.
THERE WAS nothing comforting about the smell of musty cement. The putrid mixture of dampness having seeped and collected for far too long inside the walls of the chambers of the Compound was ever-present. It lingered on everything, too.
Dying bodies.
Clothes.
Skin.
It didn’t matter which chamber Pavel entered to do his job, that same smell remained. And though he occasionally left the Compound at night when he was allowed, that scent followed him. He often kept clothes tucked away in a plastic storage box, just to keep the smell from remaining on the items, but he still smelled it.
He figured he always would.
After living and working in this Compound for fourteen years, the smell was as much a part of him as this place was. It was strange, in a way. He could walk these dank, dark halls with his eyes closed. He knew the scars on each prisoner’s body and he could still hear their raspy, pained voices long after he’d closed his eyes to go to sleep. He could pinpoint each and every creak or moan from this old building.
But he couldn’t remember his own birthday, although, from his occasional trips out of the Compound where he could find out the date and year, he knew he was twenty-six, now. A lot of the time, he didn’t know what day of the week it was because that wasn’t an important detail for him. Or that’s what he’d always been told.
Pav had learned to find comfort in discomfort. In a way … Here, in the deepest part of the Compound where the light rarely touched, fresh air was rare, and the mold was beginning to grow in the corners, comfort was nonexistent. Even his living quarters felt a little too much like the cells where the Boykovs kept their prisoners.
Not that it mattered.
Here, he felt at home. Here, he did his best work. In the musty darkness. Alone, usually. With death all around …
Pav walked into one cell with a bucket of cold water ready, and a cloth hanging from his other hand. Most of the cells didn’t even have doors to close—although there were a couple that did—not that they would need them, anyway. His gaze found the man who stayed in this cell huddled into a corner, and the reason Pav had brought the bucket and rag smeared on the wall beside him.
Shit and vomit.
The man, shackled to the wall by a thick rope of chain connected to his ankles, and one around his neck, too, looked Pav’s way when he came into the cell. His eyes connected with Pav’s, but he found no life staring back. Just a wild gleam and a rotted smile.
Pav blinked.
The man’s teeth hadn’t been rotted before.
Blyad.
Fucking hell.
Shit—that’s what was covering the man’s mouth. Shit. His feces. Pav had seen far worse things in the chambers, that was for sure. He’d seen bodies after they’d been beaten to a pulp. He’d seen a man skin and debone a human body. He knew what someone’s insides looked like when they were on the fucking outside.
Bodily fluids came with the territory.
They made his stomach roll, sure, but he usually just put it out of his mind, and went about doing his job. He’d then spend a couple hours in the shower making sure he’d washed every bit of it off that he could.
But this?
Feces smeared on the wall?
In the guy’s mouth?
The gleam in his eye?
The crazy smile?
The man didn’t even say anything and he still seemed like, despite the fact he was staring right at Pav, he was actually looking past him. As though Pav were nothing more than a ghost standing there in the doorway, and he wasn’t seeing him at all.
Add in the wild look in his eye and the madness in his smile … well, sometimes, a mind just couldn’t take what happened in these chambers, day in and day out. Sometimes, a mind broke from it all.
Not that it changed anything. Pav still had a job to do. He headed farther into the cell and made quick work of washing what he could. The wall, and the parts of the floor that had also taken a few smears of the waste. The man wouldn’t let him touch him, and even hissed Zhatka at him when he tried to wash out his mouth.
Pav wished he could be surprised that even in his madness, the man remembered who he was, except he couldn’t be shocked at all. The people he shared these chambers with—while he lived his life unshackled and with less punishment than them—they were still the same in a lot of ways. Owned by people they rarely saw. Their futures determined by men whose names they rarely whispered.
