Page 38 of The Breath Before Forever

“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Vera asked.

Worse, her hands left his head altogether even if his scalp could still feel the way those last rakes of her fingernails had glided over sweaty skin.

“No, only a little,” he admitted.

Vera grumped a sigh, flattening her arms over her chest.

Vaslav really needed to follow along with Vera’s conversation if he was going to give her a valid reason to drop all of the nonsense. Even if that meant laying his overheated, overly sensitive body on a cold tiled floor while his wife—who really should be sleeping—eased his pain by barely a notch with her tired hands.

He knew they were tired.

The lack of give and flex in her fingers before she’d stopped, probably stiff by now as the two of them had been at this for a good hour, was proof even if she didn’t complain. The most selfish creature he’d ever known was himself, and yet, the guilt gnawed at him with every sleepless night he dragged out of this beautiful, vibrant woman.

“I was listening,” Vaslav corrected as he squinted through the slits in his eyelids to eye his quietly contemplating wife. “I stopped, no?”

A disapproving tilt of her head answered him back.

Vaslav tried not to let it eat away at his heart too much. Goddammit. Why did she have to be the one who made him feel human?

“Not on purpose,” he added after another few seconds of silence.

It wasn’t a lie, and he wouldn’t have said it otherwise. Locked in pain left him trapped in his mind and thoughts; Vera knew those troubles of his all too well.

Her anger softened only slightly above him. He let out a small breath, and closed his eyes to avoid the strain of seeking out her face in the dimly lit space.

“Let me paint you a picture,” Vaslav started, still keeping his eyes shut.

Vera snorted. “Another one of these, huh?”

“Stop it, there’s only one time I enjoy the sound of your whining.”

He heard the pop when her jaw snapped close.

“Rude,” Vera muttered shortly after.

And yet, not untrue.

“The picture,” Vaslav continued, one of his hands lifting from the floor and waving a circle like he was making an invisible frame before he dropped his arm back down to the tiles with a slap. “Let’s go back to that, yeah? The kid is being watched by certain people to see if he’s usable for them. He’s also a runner for Igor—doing whatever, whenever. I have to be a silent, uninvolved observer or skin is in the game.”

“What about the picture?” Vera asked.

At another time, he’d truly enjoy her sarcasm. This wasn’t one of those.

“The point is that I’m not fucking in it,” Vaslav snapped, scowling. “Isn’t that obvious?”

Vera gave no warning before her weight lifted from Vaslav’s body, and he opened his eyes wide enough just in time to see her heading for the bathroom’s door.

“Where are you going?”

“To bed,” Vera replied without a pause to her steps. “I’ll call the car service we used when my parents were in the city—I’m sure they’ll have something. You’re right, I need to learn to drive.”

Vaslav didn’t move from the floor to stop Vera from leaving other than the slight lift of his hand that reached for her, even if only in a silent demand to wait. Frankly, he didn’t have the strength for more, and it was going to take him a moment to get up, if he really needed to.

“Vera—”

At the door, she turned to look back at him, shrugging. “It’s fine. You rationalize something as ridiculous as Kiril driving from the city to here, but have no issues with me making the drives. Alone, by the way. Like somehow saying you’re retired, changing a tattoo, and a few rumors change anything about who you are or the things you’ve done.”

That made him squint.