Page 42 of The Beast of Moscow

Was Mira still knocking?

He wasn’t even sure.

Igor wouldn’t come near the den when his boss was already raging mad, so he didn’t worry in that regard. Vaslav was alone with his pain.

For the moment.

He’d barely stumbled beyond the threshold of the bathroom down the hallway at the rear of the room when he started puking. His gut could only churn for so long before it began to rise. At least, he managed to make it to the bathroom this time.

*

The echo of soles slapping against hardwood dragged Vaslav back to awareness. Not that he had truly reached the blissful state of sleep in the past handful of days, but in that moment, he’d been close to it.

As close as ever ...

His peace was precious; nothing irritated him more than someone interrupting it.

“Mira said you were feeling better, yeah?”

Vaslav didn’t respond to Igor’s question, but he took in the way the man’s footsteps lightened a bit once he was inside the den. Once Igor was close enough that the man’s presence was beside his boss, he turned into a statue.

“Does that help?” Igor asked. “That on your face?”

The facecloth, he meant. Vaslav didn’t even bother removing it to pretend like he wanted to have this conversation in the first place. After soaking the cloth with ice cold water, using it to cover his face from the nose up helped to soothe the remaining pressure pain as his migraine waned.

“We can do this another time, if you—”

“The door is open, isn’t it?” Vaslav finally asked back, referring to his den doors, the words taking any breath he had left and leaving him panting at the end.

He cursed low and pressed his palm against the facecloth to give it a bit more pressure on his face. Unfortunately, the damn thing was already warm from his body heat.

Of course.

He did not want to get up again.

And no, he didn’t want to talk, either. This was the least amount of pain he’d been in for ... days. Nonetheless, he could form words and without dry heaving at every other sentence, so he might as well get this meeting with Igor over with so the two could move forward with their week.

“My bad,” his head of security apologized. “I did see Marrow was outside last night, too.”

Vaslav left out a sigh and reminded himself that of all his men ... Igor was the most loyal; the only one that continued to have constant access to the man who ran Moscow’s underworld of criminal enterprises. He never breathed a word about Vaslav’s medical issues to people who may use it to their benefit, and he did every job placed into his hands regardless of the bloodstains left behind.

He’s chatty, Vas told himself, but if you have a friend here—he’s it.

“Made a damn mess of a hare in the front yard,” Igor muttered to himself. “Mira loved that.”

Vaslav almost asked if his man cleaned up the dog’s first hunt after he’d finished a job well done—looking after his master—but he already knew the answer.

“I watered your shrubs along the front this morning, too. Been a while since we’ve had any decent rain,” Igor noted.

“This fucking thing is warm again,” Vaslav grumbled, pulling the facecloth away from his face. He regretted the choice immediately, because even though he’d pulled the shades in the den to prevent light from filtering in through the windows, there were cracks in the black velvet curtains. A few streams of light was enough to damn near blind him in pain all over again.

He barely had time to think about the facecloth that was pulled from his hand before footsteps carried further away from him, toward the rear of his den. Shortly after, water was turned on while Vaslav swore enough to make a priest blush as he pressed the heels of his palms into his face.

Igor returned to his side just as Vaslav dared to pull his hands away, only to find his companion had the facecloth cold, rung out, folded and ready for his boss’s face. He said nothing as he placed it over Vas in the same way the cloth had rested before, not even acknowledging the fact he had done it in the first place.

The chilly cloth gave him relief all over again.

This time when Vaslav sighed, he wasn’t even ashamed to hear the bit of bliss that slipped into the breathy noise.