Page 51 of The Beast of Moscow

“Anybody willing to talk to get a regular, small monetary payment that has valuable information.”

She considered that statement, and what it meant. She rolled the words around in her mind, mentally flipping through the people in her life that could be beneficial to an arrangement like Alexi discussed.

“My neighbor?” she asked.

“One.”

“Mr. Anatoly?”

Alexi barked out a short laugh. “Right, fuck no. That man told me to shove my money up my ass. To be fair, though, he keeps an eye on you. He did take my number, assured he’d call me if he thought you were in danger or something. Nothing else.”

Good to know.

Vera was going to start paying attention to the other people near or dear to her life and those inside the small bubble of her world. She understood how her father justified his reasoning for keeping tabs on her while she was away from him, but the time for that was long over. And she’d made that clear when she turned eighteen, or so she thought.

Demyan had been happy to let her think so, however.

“What kind of things do they tell you?”

“Vera—”

“Just tell me,” she snapped.

“If anyone has been around. If you’re keeping your regular schedule. Any changes that might be important, or something new they noticed. Nothing serious or too personal, I promise. They’re not the kind of people who even know those sorts of things about you, okay? It really is just to make sure you’re safe away from the Avdonin family’s reach and control. That’s all. Except you never cared about that, you just didn’t want people in your goddamn business, girl.”

Vera let out a slow, steady breath to attempt to relax. It didn’t really work.

Shocker.

“What are you doing here—that’s what I want to know. Right now, Alexi. Or get out.”

The man nodded. “Okay, so someone noticed you were having unusual guests. Strange cars parked out front, things left on your doorstep. I looked into some stuff, and found out that you had dinner with—”

“Tea, actually,” she interrupted, her voice only a murmur. “I had tea with Vaslav Pashkov, and I’m going to Paris with him, but considering there wasn’t anyone around to hear that conversation, I bet you didn’t know about that.”

Alexi let out a woosh of air, pursing his lips and staring Vera down. “That is a dangerous man, Vera.”

“Any worse than my father—my brother, or grandfather? Or you, even. You have the stars on your chest, don’t you?”

Alexi didn’t even blink. “It’s more than that, Vera, trust me.”

“Let me guess, you’re here to warn me?”

“I came to chat.”

“Why?”

Because she kept asking that.

She didn’t think he’d answered it, yet.

Not truthfully.

“Let me put it this way—this situation you find yourself in, I mean,” Alexi explained, lifting one shoulder and letting his gaze drift back to the luggage in her hallway. “You know how your father would hear if someone so much as breathed wrong in Little Odessa—all of New York even, I’ll give him that.”

“What about it?”

“The man you had tea with owns every dirty and bloody rouble in this country, Vera. You think the tattoos you can see on his hands tell you a story?” Alexi rocked back and forth on his heels, leaning closer to her when he chuckled and added, “Vera, what you can see about him is the warning. I don’t even know how you managed to find your way into his company—”