Page 14 of The Beast of Moscow

“I did, thank you.”

Demyan hummed, clearing his throat before he asked. “And did it make you smile?”

“You always make me smile, Papa.”

“I try, anyway. Sometimes, you make it hard.”

Or the distance did.

“I wasn’t sad when Ma called,” she said, “by the way.”

Only after.

“She was pretty sure—”

“Claire worries. That’s all. I was just lonely. Other people were busy, so I called her.”

Demyan didn’t reply right away which made Vera think he heard the lie in her words even though the cadence of her tone hadn’t changed. She was still her cheerful, bright self but as hard as she tried to keep that demeanor and outlook, there was still something wrong inside.

She felt it there.

Thick, and heavy.

Right in the middle of her chest.

She just didn’t know what.

“Hannah moved back to Italy last month, didn’t she?” Demyan asked, referring to Vera’s oldest, and last real friend that she could count on.

Well, used to.

Hannah remained in Moscow even after she retired from ballet two years ago because she’d met and married her husband, a man with high status in the Kremlin. Their divorce had been vicious and spectacular. It also chased her friend back to Italy where her mother, a former supermodel, waited to soften the blow once the ink was dry.

Vera hadn’t blamed her.

They talked as often as they could.

“I have other friends here,” Vera said before her father could go ahead and point out the obvious.

“Acquaintances, I think.”

She sighed.

Demyan chuckled deeply on the other end of the phone, adding, “It’s okay to say that a lot has changed in Moscow since you moved there ten years ago, Vera. Everything changes.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to leave.”

“According to your mother, you don’t have to.”

“She just—”

“Worries,” Demyan interjected. “Because she raised you from the time you barely reached her waist. Claire knows.”

Part of Vera’s issue with admitting life wasn’t entirely roses and sunshine stemmed from the fact that she really didn’t want her parents to concern themselves with her problems. They had enough to deal with between her younger, wild brother, Roman, who constantly found trouble wherever he went, and her father’s business that constantly kept him on the radar of men who either wanted him dead ... or behind bars.

Vera could take care of herself.

And once she figured out what she needed to make her smiles real again, then she would do it. Her parents couldn’t help with that.