Page 62 of Essence of Fear

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d stood outside on a beautiful day and stared up at the sky. He wanted to do that.

Pav stood out on the back deck and looked over the rear side of the estate’s large property as the sun beat down and soaked into his skin. A good acre of maintained, thick grass eventually melded into a line of trees that seemed to snake with trails. He wondered what those trails led to, but that was something for another day.

If he got the chance …

“Zhatka, a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Pav tensed at that nickname and the voice who said it. There was only one man in this large, lonely mansion who continued to use the name, even when he refused to answer to it because he knew that he no longer had to.

Vadim, that was.

Glancing up in the direction the voice had come from, Pav found Vadim standing at the railing of a smaller deck. Winding metal stairs led up to the second level—a private porch. The double French doors made Pav believe it likely connected to the man’s master bedroom, not that it was important.

He would not have come outside had he known his private moment would be interrupted by Vadim. Never mind the fact that he didn’t know how long Vadim had been standing there, watching him enjoy the bright sun.

“Well?” Vadim asked him.

Pav’s gaze narrowed slightly. “Well, what?”

“The day. Beautiful, even.”

“It’s … nice.”

He couldn’t trust Vadim. He’d spent fourteen years of his life being controlled by this man; being told that he belonged to this man like a pet to be abused or otherwise, if he decided it was to be so. Vadim had taken away his entire life, and there wasn’t a single part of Pav that believed the man intended to give it back to him at some point.

He was always meant to be a Boykov dog.

But that collar was gone now, wasn’t it?

Mostly.

“Come up and join me,” Vadim said, waving a hand and turning away from the railing. “I have coffee and food up here, yes?”

He didn’t sound like he was giving Pav the option to choose. He could have refused and gone back inside the house without a word, but he decided not to. The entire point of him being here was to keep an eye on Viktoria and make sure she was okay. He didn’t think making their situation more uncomfortable would be to their benefit for the remainder of their stay. So yes, even though he hated Vadim with a passion that burned him from the inside, he headed for those winding stairs to join the man on his upper deck.

Vadim was already sitting down at a two-person, glass table when Pav reached the top of the stairs. He carefully took the only free wicker chair and kept his gaze on the line of property at the horizon. It was better than the war that seemed to blow up inside his head every time he was forced to make nice with this man across from him.

“Coffee?” Vadim asked.

Pav shook his head once. “No, spasibo.”

“Food, then? I suspect you haven’t eaten this morning.”

Was it smart to eat food from the palm of the Devil?

Pav didn’t think so.

“I’m not hungry.”

Vadim made a noise under his breath, which drew in Pav’s attention. He stared at the man while Vadim worked on stirring half a spoon of sugar into his black coffee. The man added nothing else—no milk or cream. Coffee would be good right now, but Pav still wasn’t keen on taking anything from Vadim.

“You must feel … bitter toward me,” Vadim murmured.

“For what?”

A slow, sly smile curved the edges of the man’s lips, and instantly, Pav felt a strong fucking need to reach over and wipe it from Vadim’s face. That cold grin … he’d seen it one too many times. He’d seen it out of the corner of his eye as Vadim ordered men to beat the hell out of a sixteen-year-old Pav when he hadn’t done his job properly. He’d seen it when he was still a fucking kid, and Vadim had told him the monsters in his dreams were nothing compared to the monsters that he would find behind the walls of the Compound.

The bastard was right, too.