THE CURE
1739 Words
Chapter Two
Viktor Koshnov liked his women pretty. Made up. Perfect. Polished, and thick in the right places.
The woman currently sprawled across his guestroom bed looked nothing like that.
She was thin. Disheveled. Her hair looked like a raccoon had hosted a dance party in it. And his eyes, despite himself, zeroed in on the faint line of dried drool at the corner of her mouth.
“Disgusting,” he said quietly, not realizing he’d spoken aloud.
Her eyes flew open.
“Are you calling me disgusting? Who the f**k are you? And where am I, you sick f**k?” With how quick she scrambled upright, he almost thought she might actually launch herself at him.
She was loud.
Very loud.
He blinked once, absorbing the volume.
She had a foul mouth.
Another thing he didn’t like in his women.
“You’re in my house in Miami,” he said calmly, rising from the chair and straightening the cuffs of his shirt as if they were discussing the weather. He barely looked at her. “One of my staff will bring you fresh clothes. You’ll shower. Then we’ll discuss why you’re here.”
He started toward the door.
“What the f**k?” she shouted, throwing the covers off herself. “You kidnapped me! How the hell did I get from New York to Miami? And you’re going to tell me right now why you f*****g took me!”
She threw the covers off dramatically.
He paused.
Turned.
Studied her.
“You are shouting,” he observed.
“Yes, because you kidnapped me!”
He ignored that.
“You have dried saliva on your face. Your hair is uncombed. And your breath is unpleasant.” His expression didn’t change. “I dislike disorder. Fix it.”
She stared at him like he’d grown another head.
“I don’t care how I look! You abducted me!”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I did.”
“If you continue screaming, I will have you sedated again. I prefer not to. It’s inefficient. And please stop yelling, you spit when you do.”
That was enough to shut her up.
Her palm flew to her mouth as she glared at him, fury burning in her eyes.
Viktor gave a small nod, satisfied with the silence, and left the room.
He did not slam the door.
He disliked unnecessary noise.
He made his way downstairs to his underground negotiation room, the place where he handled hardened criminals, corrupt government officials, CEOs who preferred their deals off the books.
It was where empires were built and destroyed.
And today, he was about to conduct the most ridiculous negotiation of his career.
With a writer.
*
Viktor had pulled on his usual black gloves before stepping into the negotiation room.
The room was immaculate. Every surface gleamed. As it should.
Viktor Koshnov hated disorder. Diagnosed with OCD at ten, he had spent years being observed, corrected, and analyzed. No one had imagined the boy who refused to touch doorknobs would run a cartel at thirty-two. Especially not his old therapist, who had spent months trying to convince a fifteen-year-old Viktor that kissing a woman was not inherently unclean.
He disagreed.
At thirty-two, he had never shared saliva with anyone.
He did, however, enjoy s*x.
Not for intimacy.
For regulation.
It helped him sleep. Slowed his thoughts. Reduced the static in his head.
But he kept it transactional. Controlled, brief, and detached.
He did not linger. He did not explore. He did not improvise.
And he always showered immediately after.
Gloria was led into the room by one of his men. Her hair was brushed. Clothes clean. Face scrubbed. She looked presentable.
She was pushed into the chair across from him, her wrist cuffed to the metal loop embedded in the table.
He glanced at her, scanning her body clinically. Thin. Breasts small. Arms long. Legs slightly asymmetrical. Nothing remarkable. Nothing appealing. Certainly nothing that made him want to linger.
Good. That kept things simple.
He closed the document in front of him and leaned back.
“I do not like you,” he said, eyes fixed on her face.
“And you thought I liked you?” Gloria shot back, smirking despite the cuffs. “Man, you must be really slow.”
“Unlikely,” he said flatly.
She raised an eyebrow. "Do you always sound this way?"
He ignored her question, and pushed the documents he had been reading, to the side of her table.
He steepled his gloved fingers. “I want you to finish your book, A Good Girl’s Guide to Loving a Killer. I am displeased with the break you’ve taken.”
Gloria blinked.
“You kidnapped me over a book?”
“Yes.”
Gloria wanted to laugh. She couldn’t hide the amusement creeping onto her face.
“I know your kind,” she said, shaking her head. “I know what men like you do. And you must think I’m stupid if you think I’ll believe you kidnapped me for a book.”
Viktor’s expression didn’t change, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
“Why do you think I abducted you?” he asked calmly.
“Why do sick men like you abduct women? To traffic and turn them into personal s*x slaves or strippers!” she scoffed. Viktor looked like he might actually gag.
“There’s nothing sexually appealing about you, Gloria,” he said evenly. “Flat ass. Very small breasts. You talk too much. These are traits I never want in a s****l partner. And, sorry to break your daydream, but all I want from you is to finish your goddamn book.”
Gloria looked down at her chest. She didn’t want to admit it, but it stung. She wasn’t deluded about her body, but his bluntness was brutal.
“You can do your worst, Mister,” she said, leaning back in the chair. “But I’m not writing any book. It’s my intellectual property. I’ll do what I please with it.”
“If you read the document in front of you,” Viktor said, sliding it across the table, “you’ll see it’s a one-year contract. All you have to do is finish your current book, with at least one chapter daily and start a new book for me. When you finish both, you’ll be paid a sum of two million dollars. Then you can return to your normal life.”
“I’m not doing anything you ask me to,” she said, flashing him a grin. “You can shove your contract and filthy money up your tight asshole.”
“Finish the gaddamn book, you American thing!” Viktor exploded, slamming his fist on the table.
Gloria slowly stood, eyes fixed on him. “And if your slow ass can’t tell by my accent now, I’m British, not American, you Russian thing.”
“You don’t want to mess with me, Gloria,” he said, his voice had dropped low.
“I sure can,” she said, chin high. “I’m not going to do one thing you say. Uncuff me, and maybe I won’t march to the nearest police station and give a very accurate description of you.”
Viktor stepped away from the table and walked to the corner of the room. He pulled on a long, black plastic coat, then opened a briefcase.
The briefcase was turned away from her, Viktor’s back to her as he spoke, calmly removing items one after the other.
“I have attempted to be civilized with you, Gloria,” he said evenly. “Yet all you have shown me is how uncultured, lazy, and hot-blooded you are. Traits like that get people killed.”
He paused.
“Or,” he added, turning slowly, “in this case… amputated.”
In his hand was a small dagger. In the other, a tourniquet and a large white towel.
He smiled.
Gloria’s eyes widened in pure terror. For a horrifying second, she thought they might actually burst from their sockets. She was on her feet instantly, yanking at the cuffs chained to the table, metal biting into the skin of her wrists.
“What are you doing, you psychopath!” she screamed. Sweat broke out on her forehead, tears burning her eyes as panic clawed up her throat.
“If you cut off my hands, what would I write with?” she cried desperately. “Have you thought of that, Mr. Hacker?”
Viktor tilted his head.
“Who said I was cutting off your hands?” he asked mildly. “You have legs. And they would be quite useless if you were doing a lot of writing.”
The grin he gave her then made something inside her go cold.
That was when it truly sank in.
She wasn’t dealing with just a powerful reader.
She was dealing with a deranged one.
“I went to medical school,” Viktor continued calmly, stepping closer. “I have five years of experience with amputations. You know Joseph Stone? CEO of Lifers Insurance?”
Her breath hitched.
“Of course you’ve heard the story,” he said. “The one about the Italian mob hacking off his arm.”
He leaned in slightly.
“That wasn’t entirely accurate. I removed his arm. Personally. And I enjoyed it.”
Gloria shook her head violently.
“After that,” he went on, unbothered, “his company stopped stealing from elderly people who spent their entire lives paying for insurance that never paid them back. That was… a noble outcome.”
His eyes darkened.
“But do not mistake me, Gloria. I do not require a cause. I would do it for my own satisfaction just as easily.”
He raised the dagger slightly.
“So tell me,” he said softly. “What is your foot worth to you?”
“You call that noble?” Gloria screamed. “You piece of s**t!”
The door opened.
Two men marched in and grabbed her arms, pinning her in place as she struggled violently.
Viktor stepped forward, the dagger swinging lazily at his side.
“Well,” she murmured, staring at the blade, “this is one way to cure writer’s block.”
And for the first time in her life, Gloria began to imagine a future where shoes were no longer a concern.
- Writer
