I necked the rest of the bottle and set it aside.
He stayed awake, which was progress. I sat him up a little more, mindful of the pain he seemed to have in his hip. “How are you doing?”
He gave me a flat stare, but it was alive with just enough humour to reassure me that the care I’d forced on him was working. That whether he wanted to or not, he was still fighting.
You have his dog.
I hadn’t told him yet. I was saving it to reveal until he really needed to hear it.
“I am okay,” Viktor murmured eventually.
I studied him in the murky light, registering the focus that had been lacking until this moment. The barest hit of colour in his cheeks.
Fuck, yeah. He was back. Still, I checked. “You know who I am?”
Viktor licked his chapped lips. “You are the Crow that became a King. One of them, anyway.” He shifted a little, searching for that elusive place where everything wouldn’t hurt.
I wondered if that was all I was getting, but he spoke again before I could, with a conviction I could only have dreamt of when I first set eyes on his broken body. “I am sorry,Locke, that you are here, but glad for me. I was worried I had already died.”
Okay. So he really did know who I was. Who said Aldi bottled water and stale digestive biscuits couldn’t save lives? “It’s good that you’re still worried about dying. They’ve had you a long time.”
“How long?”
“Three months. Maybe four. As far as I know, anyway. I’m not always up to date with the gangster shit.”
Viktor cracked a smile. “You drive the trucks instead?”
“Sometimes.”
“I think your friend would’ve liked that ending for you. Lorry driver. Lots of brothers.”
“Which friend?”
“Rocco.” Viktor shifted again, a wince creasing his face. A protracted pause stretched out before he spoke again. “He asked me once to kill the men who have us now. It was for you, and I am sorry it was not possible then.”
Anyone else, I might’ve told them it was okay. That they didn’t create the situation we found ourselves in now, but with Viktor, I couldn’t be sure. He was a dodgier motherfucker than any King I’d ever met, even Alexei.
Fuckin’ Russians.
Viktor faded out for a bit. I stayed close so he could lean on me, taking note of the body weight he’d lost. The muscle tone. Did he have internal injuries? Had they done other shit to him that I couldn’t bring myself to think on too hard?
Unlikely. Priest was a rapey piece of shit, but only with girls, and I used to consider myself lucky that it was the only way he’d never fucked with me.
What if he’s not calling the shots, though? What if it’s some other mad cunt—like Butch or McGif—running the show?
Butch Crow was long dead, McGif too, but if this nightmare had taught me anything, it was that nightmares lived forever.
That line of thought soured my gut. I pushed it away, knowing I needed to ask Viktor more about how he’d wound up in Crow hands.
No, you don’t. He’s not your problem.
But I hadn’t been Rocco’s either, and the fact that I’d survived to be Priest’s hostage twice over was testament to the man he’d been.
The brother I’d lost.
Folk’s best mate.I shivered, missing my wise friend. Missing the warmth of the fuckin’ sun. It was cold in the storage room. I still had my riding jacket. It was blood-stained and shredded, but I draped it over Viktor anyway. Shared some body heat while I let my mind wander, all the while trying to stay sharp, a feat that was growing harder the longer I went with no real food or consistent sleep. Being familiar with something didn’t make it easy.
Perhaps it made the weird calm I’d somehow found less fuckin’ disturbing. I’d spent so long afraid of these men—thesemonsters.Afraid for myself, my kids, my brother, living with such deep-rooted terror that when Nash had led me away from it, I hadn’t known who I was without it.