Page 60 of The Beast of Moscow

“I thought he let it slip—he’s done it before with you. Talked more than he should.”

“He’s nice, and probably does his job well, from what I know.”

“Which isn’t very much,” Vas bit back.

God.

Even his teeth clenched now.

Vera sucked in a gulp of air, setting her jaw in a line by gritting her teeth. “What is your problem?”

He took a step forward, and then another. Another few, and he’d be close enough to reach out and grab her, if he wanted. He didn’t come that close, but his energy and that heaviness he carried around with him became all the more pronounced to her in that moment. More palpable in his anger, she bet it could swallow another person whole.

She could understand why someone else might step back when he came forward. Why they might want to bow to him, in some way, submit to his very presence. In another circumstance, maybe she would have, too.

But what had she done wrong?

Really, what?

Vera stood tall, chin up, gaze locked on his, and wouldn’t budge, asking, “Well, what?”

“Let me make something very clear to you, yes,” Vaslav murmured as he pointed a finger her way. “I understand you may have questions; accept that I will rarely answer them. My trip here is a carefully planned event—even the passport I handed over was chosen out of a stack, kisska.”

Honestly, Vera figured she’d been kind not to look surprised as they were taken through customs, and the officers, with their French accents, questioned Vaslav using a name she didn’t recognize.

“You are welcome to do whatever you like for the next forty-eight hours, as long as you are here to be picked up when the driver arrives on the third day. Other than that, you needn’t ask or know anything else, and you won’t even have to see me in between if you so choose.”

“Why even bring me here, then?”

What was the point?

Vaslav only grinned—a bit. It didn’t tilt the scarred corner of his mouth enough and left him looking all the meaner when he did it. “Because you’re useful.”

“What?”

What did that even mean?

“And find a new question,” Vaslav replied as he turned around to leave. “That one gets boring fast.”

18.

She thought he forgot—or maybe that he decided not to push—but that was far from the case. Vaslav had not missed the way Vera didn’t hand over the name of the person who disclosed his infamous moniker, but one way or another, he would find out who let it slip. Oh, it was fine and great for him to say he was a beast; it wasn’t quite the same when others did it behind his back.

If they wanted a beast, he could show them one.

Nonetheless, he’d opted to let the young woman stew in her feelings about the incident because that was the better option for him. For now. Everyone learned eventually ...

He never once said he liked the fucking name.

Vaslav hadn’t expected to smell a hint of cigarette smoke floating down the stairwell, but he decided to follow it once he had. He was surprised to find Vera swinging in the freestanding, woven hammock with the cause of the smell dangling from between her manicured fingertips.

She even had French tips.

When in France, he mused.

Even in his head, he was dry.

Vera didn’t notice his arrival to the apartment’s upper sunroom—there was also one at the bottom, rear of the house attached to a private office. It led out to a stone desk and pathway through the rose garden at the back. He couldn’t see her eyes hidden behind the sunglasses as she pulled another long drag from a red filtered cigarette, and he chose not to notify her that he was there for the moment.