Page 47 of The Beast of Moscow

“True.”

“So, are you waiting two weeks to tell him that, too?” Hannah asked.

Vera laughed. “Oh, no. I decided to tell him tomorrow. I heard he’s going to be busy—it’s his birthday.”

She couldn’t wait to ruin it.

“That’s cruel, I love it,” Hannah crowed.

“But it’s a weekday, so he’ll be there when I go into The Swan House. Might as well just rip that Band-Aid right off.”

Hannah was still laughing. “I never should have retired. The drama was always the best.”

“You retired before you divorced, Hannah.”

Her friend winked on the screen, saying, “Yeah, but Viktor paid for that too, the prick.”

Vera didn’t doubt it.

*

“Is this going to be a regular thing?” Vera asked the man she found waiting at the end of her driveway later that evening when she stepped out for a walk. She posed the question to Igor after she had locked the villa, and finally noticed his presence.

The sky was just beginning to streak with pastel hues of the oncoming sunset.

Igor even had the nerve to smile where he leaned against the shiny black paint of a Range Rover. “What? I was just in the neighborhood and thought you’d like to see my new ride.”

“I wondered if that was new.” Vera eyed the car, appreciative of the rugged lines. “And that’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard. You being in the neighborhood, I mean.”

She liked the white accent lines on the matte black rims.

“How long have you been standing out here?” she asked.

The man shrugged. “Not long.”

“You could knock on my door next time.”

Igor’s left eyebrow arched higher than his right. “There continues to be a lot of that between the two of you—this next time game, yes?”

Vera only smiled, but otherwise, didn’t comment on the statement as she took the steps down from her villa’s stoop two at a time. “What does he want?”

“How do you know he wants something?”

Vera came to a stop at the edge of her drive, just three short feet away from the towering Igor. She had to look up at him, much like Vaslav, but only amusement stared back from this man.

A friendly amusement.

She bet he was funny. He seemed like the type to be the life of the party if the timing was right.

He didn’t, however, watch her with the same stormy-blue, piercingly haunted gaze that the man in Dubna did in his backyard while the sun set around them.

“Can I tell you something?” she asked him.

Igor squinted one eye down at her. “You didn’t answer my question first.”

“Well, how do you know what I have to say won’t answer it?”

“I’m not much for the whole question for an answer thing,” he returned.