Page 230 of Mile High Ruin

It’s not a warning exactly. More a reminder.

Vadim’s gaze doesn’t leave mine. “I told you to stay upstairs.”

Around us, the circle tightens another inch, but all I can feel is the distance between Vadim and me, smaller than it should be and impossibly wide at the same time.

Viktor moves before anyone else does. One second, he’s standing behind me, still and almost elegant in the center of Vadim’s trap, and the next his arm locks around me from behind, dragging me back against his chest so suddenly that the sound I make is more shock than fear.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer.

My hand flies to his forearm. “Viktor.”

“Quiet.” The word is low, almost gentle, which somehow makes it worse.

Vadim goes completely still.

“What are you doing to me?” I repeat.

Viktor still doesn’t answer me.

The realization comes slowly. Then all at once.

“Viktor.”

“Stay calm,” he murmurs near my ear.

“Let go of me.”

“Not yet.”

My stomach turns cold.

Across from us, Vadim goes absolutely still. It’s not the stillness of a man who is calm. I know him too well for that now. This is worse. This is the terrifying control that comes over him when every violent instinct in his body has been forced into one narrow, deadly point.

Anton’s hand is already inside his jacket.

Vadim doesn’t look at him. “Don’t,” he says.

“Unlike you,” Viktor murmurs. “I’m not easily weakened.”

Anton freezes.

Viktor’s grip tightens. I try to pull away, but he drags me back another step, and the pressure of his arm across my body makes panic flare bright and immediate.

“Stop,” I say, my voice breaking despite my best attempt to keep it steady. “Viktor, stop. You’re hurting me.”

His hold loosens by a fraction. Only a fraction.

“I’m getting you out of here,” he says.

“No, you’re using me.”

Something in his face changes, but I can’t see enough of him to read it properly.

“Right now, those are not different things.”

My eyes lock on Vadim. He’s looking at Viktor’s arm around me. Not at his face. Not at the men. At the place where another man is holding me.