Page 67 of Pretty Little Assassin

Viktor’s voice is certain. Unwavering. Unchallengeable.

“Yeah, I know you will. I just don’t know if anyone can keep her safe from her own feelings tonight.”

“You’ll take care of her mother’s—” he stops before he says the word body.

Zero nods without answering.

Alley Cat leans up on her toes and gives me a quick kiss on the head. I don’t know what that means coming from her, but I think it means “hang in there”.

“We’ll reassess things tomorrow,” Donnie says as we all start to walk away from the building. “He’s still out there, your stepdad. We’ll get him next time, Valentina.”

Next time. There won’t be a next time for my mom and me. Our time together is now permanently over.

That hurts almost more than I can bear.

When we get to Viktor’s car, my body feels heavier than it should against the seat. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never felt like I couldn’t jump up and keep going.

I’m not sure what it means.

Mr. Pickles is waiting at the door when we get back. He’s having an unusual night too, I guess. He never waits by the door. I think he considers it beneath him to do so, like dog-level behaviour.

Tonight is different.

I walk in on my own two feet. Heels intact, dress feeling tight enough that I’m ready for it to come off. Emotions wrecked.

As soon as the door is locked behind us, Viktor starts peeling off his shirt and dropping both clothes and weapons at the door.

“You should bathe,” he says. “You’ve got blood all over you too.”

“Are you trying to tell me what I need?” My words are sharp; my voice is not.

“No. I’m offering to help you.”

“I don’t need your help bathing, Viktor.”

“You don’t need anything, little assassin. But would you like my help getting through the motions so that you don’t have to think for tonight? мой суженый.”

He walks down the hallway, turning to look at me briefly before stepping into the bathroom. I hear the bath water running, and something inside me makes my feet start walking toward the sound.

Viktor sits on the edge of the bathtub, one massive hand in the water to check the temperature, shirtless, with his chest muscles taking up half the space in the small room.

“Are you going to stand there staring at me from the doorway, маленькая убийца?” he asks. “Or do you want to get into the bath?”

When I don’t move yet, Viktor stands and steps toward me. I half expect him to reach out and try to unzip my dress. Instead, he walks past me with the restraint of a saint, not a black-eyed demon, and closes the door behind him. Leaving me with the warm bath and the clean shirt he was going to change into himself.

Normally, I like my baths hot and fragrant, with a glass of bubbly on the edge of the tub and a replay of the schematics from my last job running through my head. Tonight, I sit and soak in the water until the blood is washed off; the memory of my mother’s last breath is drowned in my head, and my toes start to morph into little prunes.

When I step out, I feel clean but not as put together as I usually am.

I feel like tonight stripped something else away—the ability to hide things from myself.

In the mirror, as I tie up my hair and look back at the green eyes, which seem more open to me, I see the reflection of a girl who built herself into something unstoppable, only to have tonight turn everything on its side.

Viktor’s shirt is huge when I put it on. I could fit three of me inside it, and yet for some reason it feels like it wraps around me. It smells like him too—leather, pine, something dangerous. Something even more dangerous now. Something that I have gone from pushing away to wanting.

That makes all of this more risky.

When I step out into the hallway, the lights are off in the living room. The whole apartment is dark except for a light coming from Viktor’s room.