Page 45 of The Beast of Moscow

After all, Vaslav was otherwise occupied.

He still couldn’t get off the damn couch.

Before Igor’s footsteps could creep away, Vaslav asked, “Is it Monday?”

It felt like a Monday.

“Tuesday, Vas.”

Dammit.

He hated losing days.

14.

“Well?” Hannah demanded.

Vera couldn’t even lift her gaze to look at her friend in the chat screen. “I didn’t tell the kids I was quitting.”

“I knew you wouldn’t do it.”

“Actually—”

“You’ve always had more class than that asshole deserved,” Hannah interrupted.

Vera did smile at that. Her best friend wouldn’t even breathe Feliks’ name. She hated the man that much.

Understandable, really.

“But I was going to tell them,” Vera said. “Sunday night, when I was talking to my mom, she said as long as I gave them time to make it right for the kids, find somebody yes, you know?”

Hannah nodded on the laptop screen. “Sure.”

“Yeah, then it wouldn’t be so bad. And it’s not entirely on me if the company had time to replace me, plus I don’t have to feel like I’m just walking out on the kids, too.”

“They deserve you. That other thing, though ...”

Vera only laughed.

It was still too weak, and her friend heard it.

“Sorry, Vera. I swear this is worse for you because nobody’s there to help. I wish I could be there, but you know what Viktor would do to me if I stepped off a plane in Moscow after everything.”

“I know, don’t worry about me.”

“I still do. You don’t even go to the movies anymore. I haven’t been able to get you to take time off since I moved back to Italy to be with Mom, either so it’s not like you’re traveling. Vera, you gotta do something.”

Nobody asked her friend to point it out, however.

“I like what I’m doing, though,” she replied to Hannah, adding silently to herself, mostly. She wasn’t entirely able to keep the edge out of her tone. A defensive clip to her words that Hannah, the queen of passive-aggression, wouldn’t miss.

And she didn’t.

“Okay,” her friend replied, twisting the word with her sarcasm and rolling her pretty green eyes on the screen. “When was the last time you even went out and got a good fuck from somebody, Vera? You don’t even need to pretend to care about somebody to just do that. Jesus—wait ...”

“What?”

“No, I had to think about it, but I don’t think you’ve even been on a date since—”