Page 46 of The Beast of Moscow

“Shut up.”

Hannah rocked side to side with her laughter, and it was only her friend’s wide smile that kept Vera from getting too in her feelings about the teasing. Truth be told, it was only once Vera met the woman—younger than her by only a year—at The Swan House that she loosened up a little. Hannah was good for that.

Vera sunk deeper under the chunky, woven blanket that she liked to snuggle with while she read and the television across the living room played some soap opera she didn’t even like. That was her nightly routine, certainly nothing special. The occasional phone call she took from her parents back in the states, or Hannah, in Italy, was the extent of her current social life.

Compared to the hustle and bustle of what her social and nightlife used to be like, her current choice of relaxation and entertainment probably seemed pretty boring to an outsider. Even to Hannah, who never missed an opportunity to still enjoy the luxuries Italy had to offer. Especially to the wealthy, or well-known.

“I really am fine, even if I haven’t had a proper date in a year,” Vera said once Hannah’s laughter lightened.

“He was rich, though.”

“And married.”

That was one problem with liking older men.

Hannah made a noise at that, considering before she replied, “For some people, that’s not a problem.”

“It is when he was looking for an arrangement.”

“Again—”

“That included paying me, Hannah.”

On the screen her friend tried not to smile. “Like I said, for some people, that might not be a problem.”

Well, it had been for Vera.

Considering the way her personal and dating life had been complete shit before that last date as well, she hadn’t been exactly hyped to get out and try again.

“What does it matter? There isn’t a man in Moscow that could do for me what any one of my battery-operated toys can currently do, frankly.”

“You sure?”

Hannah didn’t know about Vera’s trip the week before to have tea with the man in Dubna. The strange man, with a name she couldn’t quite forget but had yet to whisper to another soul, who hadn’t been too far from her mind since the night she rode away from his estate. Not his gorgeous, scarred face, their open-ended conversations, or his promise of another time for them to meet. She thought about him constantly.

Maybe too much.

“Yeah,” Vera said, hoping her friend hadn’t noticed the way she’d drifted off in daydreams for a minute. If she did, Hannah never said. “I’m pretty sure.”

“You sound like the worst liar. Vibrators don’t have hands to hold you down or a mouth to call you a dirty whore—I know what you get off on, and anything with batteries isn’t only getting it done. It’s not doing the whole thing, Vera.”

“Go to hell,” Vera joked.

The two women broke into a fit of giggles, one sitting in her Milan apartment, and the other, in her Moscow villa. She was grateful, at least, that the distance between them and the length of time they’d gone without seeing each other hadn’t affected their friendship at the end of the day. Even as their laughter quieted and their conversation stalled while Vera scrolled through the options of the TV and Hannah tapped away on the screen of her phone, she just enjoyed her friend’s presence.

Even if it was only digital.

“I am quitting, though,” Vera said.

“Sent, there. Ma can handle that. What did you say?”

“I am quitting, I didn’t tell the kids and couldn’t even go in yesterday because there was a water leak Sunday night inside the south wall of the studio. There won’t be any classes for at least two weeks, so I couldn’t give the kids the news, anyway. But I will ... and I’m going to promise them I’ll stay until after Christmas.”

“The new year, then?”

Vera shrugged under her blanket, her attention drifting back to her friend on the laptop screen resting between her folded knees. “Feliks has until January first to figure something else out.”

“Well, he can’t blame you, and it’s more than he deserves.”