Page 23 of The Beast of Moscow

“Oh, fuck you,” she spat at him in Russian.

Vaslav only smiled.

She didn’t deny it, though.

The fact that he was now able to control his mother’s purse strings—because the nearly twenty years of his life dedicated to the oath he spoke for his brotherhood allowed him all his blessings—worked to his favor more often than it didn’t.

He didn’t blame her, really.

Forced to grow up too young, cruelty was in her blood, and she’d passed that poison right to him. She never should have been a mother; he’d been sent to prison for fifteen years trying to prove he was a good son.

Their time, whenever it was that they could have been what each other needed, was long over.

“Whatever,” Natalia spat, turning on her heels and rounding the arm of the sofa to head for the back of the large house.

Vaslav didn’t move. “Say goodbye to Nico on your way out.”

It would likely be the last time she did.

At that, she paused.

“You won’t kill him.”

He was the one who decided to wait to respond that time. Vaslav was far from stupid, and he knew what she was doing. Fishing. For information likely, because the less time she spent in her son’s vicinity or home meant the more she had to pry information out of others. It was just her way; woven into her nature as a means of survival.

It’s why he couldn’t trust her.

Or anyone, really.

There was only one person—besides Igor, and that bastard wouldn’t go within five meters of Natalia if he weren’t forced to—who might have overheard certain things regarding his recent displeasure with Nico.

The air that slipped past his lips was the only cold thing besides his heart, but he needed that breath to chill the next words he spoke.

“You’re wrong,” he replied, “and stop manipulating information out of Mira. It takes more of my energy than I care to spend playing your fucking games, Natalia.”

There.

He’d dropped the mat entirely. Vaslav wouldn’t even call her mother, if that’s what would get her the hell out of his face at this point.

Over her shoulder, her hard gaze locked into his. She lifted one shoulder, saying only, “No you won’t. He’s been your best friend for fifteen years; stood beside you when you married Irina. Had the bitch birthed you any bastards, he would have been there for that, too.”

Pain unfolded in Vaslav’s chest.

Like the tentacles of a sea monster exploding from his heart and wrapping his entire torso in a tight, heavy agony that he couldn’t escape, the pain was instant, vicious, and he hated Natalia for it.

The physical pain was one thing. He’d been dealing with that for years. Every so often, though, that emotional trauma living inside the crater that had once been his heart released its brokenness to the rest of him.

Death would be kinder.

Goddamn his mother for knowing that button, and for pushing it every fucking time.

“Last warning,” Vaslav said, his flat affect never once wavering while his gaze zeroed in on the far line of the property where it melted into a climbing hill of trees, and a laugh began to crawl its way out of his chest. “Talk about her to me ever again—to anyone, Mat—and I will have you burned to death on the steps of the Kremlin while the whole city watches.”

He didn’t turn to see the expression on her face, but the answering silence said it all. Only that small breeze remained until the sounds of Natalia’s footsteps started to creep away.

He did not make threats he would not see through.

One last time, she would light up the city.