Page 9 of The Arrangement

Chapter Three

Viviana couldn’t shake the feeling of a heavy pressure holding her down. Blinking rapidly, she breathed and attempted to see, move, or just do anything.

Nothing happened.

An ache had settled in the creases of her arms and legs. Bending them only served to settle the throbbing pressure deeper into her muscles. Pain radiated from the right side of her jaw as she opened her mouth to call out. With dry lips, a soreness that wouldn’t seem to disappear, and grogginess saturating her senses, she couldn’t focus long enough to remember where she was. Never mind what had happened that got her … here.

Where in the hell was she?

Breathing in, she could taste something familiar in the dark air. Like city air, gunpowder, cigars, and a woodsy cologne that reminded Viviana of home. Her fingers tightened in the blankets.

Hadn’t she been at the university dorms with Sam last night? Hadn’t she been drunk, and hadn’t Sam taken her home? Didn’t she go to that lecture in the morning?

“Sam?” Her voice was hoarse, words mumbled and barely intelligible. Her throat felt sore like she’d been screaming her lungs out for hours. “Sam, wake up.”

It wasn’t a second later that she heard shouts from somewhere outside her dark confines. A voice that resonated deep in her confused mind yelled angrily in a language Viviana couldn’t understand. A woman dressed in a grey-and-white uniform, her hair tied back, looked about as frightened as Viviana felt as she scurried past the opened doorway.

The shouts continued before something shattered, the sounds of tinkling glass spreading over the floors echoing down the hallway. The familiar voice grew scarily quiet as he spit his words out with sheer venom.

Viviana didn’t have to understand the words to know the man was livid; just barely hanging on the ledge of control. More than once growing up, she had heard that kind of anger while she stayed hidden in the safety of her bedroom. Her father’s voice carried through the house as he handled misbehaving men in the basement, or office, whichever served his purpose, depending on the soldier who’d done him wrong.

Forcing herself from the confines of the blankets, Viviana managed to get caught up in all the fabric and tumbled off the bed. Landing on the hard floor with a loud thump, she was surprised no one outside the room heard the noise. Crawling until standing was possible, she swayed on the spot, her legs feeling like a mixture of brittle sticks inside a bag of jelly. Nausea rolled through her insides like a tidal wave of sickness ready to drown and destroy.

Hangovers didn’t feel like that. Nothing felt like that. Unless death did. She wasn’t sure.

“Sam,” Viviana called out again, heading toward the lighted hallway.

Had he checked the hallway before leaving?

Just as she reached the door, something on a small stand caught her eye. The light from the hallway illuminated the framed photograph enough that she could discern the people being pictured. Finally, she remembered.

The face of Nicoli—a former boss of the Bratva, and an ally to her father—stared back at Viviana. Her shaky hand reached out to touch the photograph, snapping back almost at the exact instant she realized what she was doing.

There would be no photo of Nicoli in her dorm, nor would there be a picture of him in any house she visited. It was only then Viviana remembered the sounds of a silenced gun firing off three deadly shots. Sam hanging limp and dead off the edge of a bed. A man hitting her face and spitting words in Russian.

Pop.

Viviana shuddered.

Pop.

Blood bled red in her memories, but the too big T-shirt she now wore hung loose around her bare legs, unstained and pristine white.

Pop.

She was in a car with a Russian … Boris … terrified and trying not to cry.

“Anton.”

The name was thick on her tongue and heavy in her thrashing, thundering heart. Stumbling, she moved from the room and braced her hands on the wall, needing that solid ground to steady her swaying as she moved closer to the shouting.

“Anton!”

Looking at her hands, Viviana noticed the blood that once stained her skin was now clean. Fingernails had been buffed, chips filed down, and the natural white crescents at the tips shined brightly under the light. Confused, she reached up to run fingers through her black hair. Instead of the tangled waves from this morning—or was it yesterday now?—she was met with no resistance. The locks felt clean and soft, brushed all the way through and hanging loose down her back.

Someone had washed her. They took meticulous care in cleaning any evidence from her hands and body, changing the clothes she wore and leaving her somewhere they thought was safe for Viviana to wake up in.

Was it him, she wondered. Was it Anton who did that for me?