Page 63 of The Beast of Moscow

“What?” Vera asked, and he swore he heard the hammock’s bars creak like she had moved.

Her confusion made him chuckle.

Vaslav let his voice carry back to her as he entered the hall. “The supper you made last night. I found the plate you left me in the fridge. It was delicious.”

Even cold.

He couldn’t figure out how to turn on the stove or run the damn microwave to warm it up that morning when he’d stumbled on it. She hadn’t needed to cook; an entire stack of take-out menus from restaurants that offered delivery—on top of the popular fast-food options—waited for her in the middle of the dining room table.

Instead, she had taken the time to cook. Finding everything she needed between the cupboard, fridge, and freezer. And she’d even considered him enough to plate him his own food whether he sat down to eat it with her or not.

That was why he came to speak to her after her run; why he followed that scent of cigarette smoke to the top of the apartment where he found her looking like heavenly sin in the hammock, kissing the end of a cigarette, and wishing it was his fingertip instead.

She had cooked for him, it was delicious, and then he felt like shit because she’d done all that even after he’d been a prick.

Vas wasn’t one to feel guilt, and if he was mindful not to lie, he’d have to say he probably wouldn’t feel it for very long. While he did, he might as well put what conscience he apparently did have left to use, even if he hadn’t technically apologized.

Better yet, maybe she’d make him more food—then he wouldn’t have to put those damn menus to use, too.

“I liked it a lot,” he added as he reached the stairwell. The cheese on top made it perfect. “Next time, I’d like to try it hot, no?”

It took a second.

Her soft echo eventually came, though.

“Sure, okay. I won’t be here to make something tonight, but the rest is still in the fridge. In the dish under the tinfoil.”

Good to know.

19.

“How’s the head?” Igor asked, his Russian smooth over the phone.

Vaslav appreciated—if nothing else—the fact that the man could ask the right question without asking the right question. “Nothing unbearable.”

He expected Igor to press the issue. Maybe even ask a more direct question regarding his boss’s pain level while he was currently out of reach, but Igor didn’t. Well, not then.

“Pierre has a nice place there, yeah?”

“I appreciate his willingness to work with my demands,” Vaslav replied instead of directly answering the prod Igor tentatively pushed him with.

“How many times are you going to use him for a middleman before you just agree he’s worth the cost, Vas?” Igor asked quietly.

Another good question and considering the work Igor had been putting in for the bratva’s business since Nico’s unfortunate end, it was a question he didn’t mind being asked. He had a lot on his plate—brigadiers to mind, collect from, and handle issues on top of his security duties between Vas, and the rest of the organization. Adding the responsibility of the brotherhood’s money on top of a large pile, and they found themselves in their current situation.

Igor staying behind so no one knew an especially important man was missing and wouldn’t cause issues—while Vas headed alone to a meeting made possible by a middleman who seemingly proved himself trustworthy.

So far.

Until Igor managed to vet every man he intended to work with, inside or outside of Russia, through Vaslav when it came to business, the man’s plate of responsibilities would simply stay full. There was no other safe way.

Not without his enemies or rivals—or even the snakes in Vaslav’s own grass—seeing the openings they had to a throne that he’d taken out from under every one of their feet without barely even trying. Some called him a king; others said he was a beast. Neither meant he was beloved.

Far from it.

He’d never forgotten it, either.

“Forever,” Vaslav finally admitted. “It feels like I’m waiting forever to prove people are worth anything at all to me, Igor.”