Page 52 of The Beast of Moscow

“Luck—or not, considering.”

“Considering what?”

She thought about Vaslav’s fall; about how those around him didn’t want to acknowledge it had happened, and how even he refused to engage any mention of it with her after the fact. She certainly wasn’t going to discuss a man’s private business with just anybody.

Even if that anybody was Alexi Volkov.

“I ran into him one day in the city. He sent someone to ask me over for tea. It really is that simple, and there’s nothing else to it.”

Alexi glanced down at the luggage. “And now you’re going to Paris with the man?”

“Looks like it.”

“When you make a deal with the devil, Vera, he owns you forever.”

She wasn’t concerned.

“I’m nobody to Vaslav Pashkov, Alexi. I’m not worried about it.”

“Wrong.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Have him tell it, and I bet Vaslav would say every person he’s ever let into his world is somebody to him. There’s a reason he graces them with his attention, after all. No matter what form that attention takes. Trust me when I say, there are men who would prefer they didn’t have his attention, and you’re a woman who’s about to jump on a plane to Paris with him, apparently. How do you think I know he’s the goddamn devil?”

“Are you going to take this back to my father?”

“In two weeks—when he expects my next update—yes. That’s what he pays me for.”

But that wasn’t why he was here.

She’d finally figured that out.

Vera nodded. “You’re giving me a head up, then?”

“And a warning. He will be concerned. Nature of the business.”

“And you are, too.”

“Pardon?” Alexi asked, arching a brow.

“You’re concerned. About my involvement with Vas.”

Alexi didn’t acknowledge her shortening of Vaslav’s name. “Vera, they don’t call that man The Beast of Moscow because he’s spent his life doing amazing things. They call him that because they’ve never heard or seen a more violent, unstable bratva boss in this country’s history of criminals. He spent most of his youth and adult life inside prison walls—inciting gang riots for shits and giggles—and for the last decade and a half, he slowly took over a criminal empire. Do you understand that?”

Well, she’d suspected one of the things Alexi revealed—Vaslav’s connection to the brotherhood, the Russian mob—based on the upturned spider tattooed on his hands and the other inked rings on his fingers. The rest?

That was all news to her.

“I hear it.”

The man groaned under his breath. “Yeah, right.”

“I do hear you—I just don’t think it’s relevant to spending a bit of time with him. I am capable, and will, make my own choices about my life. Like I always did.”

“Fine, don’t say I didn’t try, Vera. It was good seeing you.”

“You don’t have to lie, I know I always pissed you off. Papa must pay very well.”