The Professional: Part 2 (The Game Maker #1.2)(18)

He exhaled. “Then ask.”

“What will happen to Paxán?” My voice broke.

Gaze fixed on the horizon, he said, “If those defending Berezka win, they will see to . . . they will take care of him.” His voice was a rasp. “Once I feel it’s safe enough for you to return, we would have . . . the funeral.”

I’d never looked at a man and known he was dying inside. But how could I expect anything different? Sevastyan had chosen me to live—over the man he hero-worshipped.

He’d saved me over his own savior.

How conflicted he must be. For myself, I felt a deep welling of grief. But it was pure.

Sevastyan looked like he was slowly crumbling.

I reached for his good arm. “I only knew Paxán for a couple of weeks. If I loved him this much, I can’t imagine what you must be feeling. I’m so sorry you had to choose.”

“There was no choice,” he said, but the guilt was plain on his face. “You heard his last words.”

I tried not to think about that. About being given. A decree sanctified by blood.

I changed the subject. “Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“I don’t know. Don’t know who we can trust. Everything is different now,” he said. “And though Travkin is dead, there will still be danger until all the players know the bounty has expired. The snake still twists even after it loses its head.”

Travkin. Just the name made my blood boil. I wanted revenge against that nameless, faceless thug, blamed him so much more than even Filip. My cousin had merely been the deceitful, ungrateful weapon; Travkin had pulled the trigger. “You truly killed him?”

Sevastyan nodded.

Then even from the grave, Travkin had effected my father’s death. “How did you get to him? He must’ve had an army of guards.”

With a menacing look, Sevastyan bit out, “I was unexpected.”

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” I asked in disbelief. “Did you know that Travkin had put a bounty on me too?”

Sevastyan finally turned to me. “I found out five minutes before I walked into his customary haunt and plugged a bullet between his eyes.”

I swallowed, trying to imagine this man striding into the lion’s den like that. For me. “You could’ve been killed.”

Gaze back on the water, he said, “You need to rest, Natalie. You were in shock earlier. Go below.”

“I don’t like below. I’ve never been on a boat like this.” The farther we got from Berezka, the rougher the water had become. Hearing the waves slapping against the bottom of the boat terrified me. Surely it was only a matter of time before the hull cracked like an egg. “I’ve never been out on the water when there’s no land in sight.” Strange, even though I had no visual of the shore—no lights shone in the distance—I still felt like the world was burning all around me. Being close to Sevastyan made that feeling recede.

When we hit a larger swell, he muttered, “It’s not a boat; it’s a ship. And you’re perfectly safe on it.”

“All the same.” I climbed up onto the spacious captain’s bench beside him, sitting thigh to thigh. Maybe I needed to be near Sevastyan because of what we’d been through together. Maybe we needed each other because we’d both left pieces of our hearts back at Berezka.

Time passed. I lost my battle against tears. While I silently cried, Sevastyan stared out into the black.



Boom. Boom. Boom.

I woke in one of the cabins, tucked under the covers. I had vague recollections of repeatedly jerking awake against Sevastyan’s side, until I’d gone under for good. He’d moved me? And changed my clothes? I was dressed only in one of his undershirts.

It was still dark outside, but I had no idea what time it might be; fall in Russia meant vanishing hours of light.

I could tell we were stationary. Maybe Sevastyan had come down here to rest.

To grieve.

Boom. Boom. What was that hammering sound? I rose to investigate. As I made my way toward the source, I wondered how it would be with Sevastyan and me today. Would he expect us to abide by Paxán’s dying wishes?

Would I abide by them? Accepting Sevastyan as mine? I remembered how I’d felt at the thought of losing him too.

As if barbed wire had been tightening around my heart.

Boom. Boom. I followed the sound to another cabin. When Sevastyan didn’t answer my knock, I eased the door open. I heard the shower running in the attached bathroom—the booming was coming from within.

As a sinking suspicion took hold, I hastened into the bathroom. I sucked in a breath at the scene before me.

Naked under the spray of water, with his eyes glazed over and his teeth bared, Sevastyan was punching the stone shower enclosure with his battered fists. The steaming cascade hit his chest as he struck, over and over, as if at an invisible enemy.

If he’d been granite under pressure, now he was fracturing right before my eyes—just like the stone he pummeled.

“What are you doing?” I cried. How could he keep this up? His fists bled; more blood trickled from a knot of cloth he’d tied tight around his bicep, his idea of a bandage for his bullet wound. It formed a groove between bulges of muscle. “Please stop!”

He didn’t.

“Stop!” I tore open the shower door and scrambled inside, grasping his uninjured arm with both hands.