Page 83 of The Breath Before Forever

Vaslav nodded at the gun, repeating, “Talking or shooting, huh?”

“My bet’s on three before they’re all under the table or out of the room,” Igor said, and readjusted the rifle so his gaze stared down the scope.

“Kills?”

“Kills, murders. It’s all the same.”

Right, right.

“Fucking messy,” Vaslav agreed.

22.

“Wake up. We’re home.”

Vera blinked more than a few times before she remembered where she was and who that voice belonged to. In the driver’s seat of the Hummer, Kiril was already yanking the keys out of the ignition and had his seatbelt unbuckled.

Actually, she couldn’t remember him buckling it at all if he even did when they left the hospital earlier in the morning.

“I swear, the second I turned the engine over, you were out,” Kiril said to Vera as she yawned and stretched until her back cracked in the passenger seat. “I knew you were tired.”

Vera tried to roll her eyes, but it was a half-assed effort. Nothing he said was a lie, anyway. When he strolled into Hannah’s hospital room just after breakfast had been served saying it was time to go home, Vera couldn’t find a reason to argue.

Other than the obvious.

Just because she desperately wanted to stay by Hannah’s side, whispering to her friend and the unborn baby also listening to all the secrets told between them, didn’t mean she reasonably could. The promise of a familiar bed called to her in a way she couldn’t refuse.

Vera still wore the sweats and hoodie that she’d flown home in. Jet lag was a real thing that, even after a solid night’s sleep and a nap on the two-hour drive home, nothing helped but time and rest. Even so, Vera still had to convince herself to leave because what good could she do for her friend when she was tired and practically useless because of it?

“I did get some sleep,” Vera told Kiril. “And the nurses didn’t even wake me up until the shift change in the morning, so it was a good stretch.”

Kiril cocked a brow in disbelief. “On those hospital chairs? Yeah, right.”

“Mine reclined.”

“It’s not any better.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong.

“Maybe my back hurts a little,” she admitted.

Not that Vera wanted to complain. She didn’t have any standing to do so compared to her comatose, pregnant friend she’d left behind—alone—in the city.

Eyeing her companion in the unmoving vehicle, who didn’t make a move to open his own door, Vera wasn’t quite ready to exit just yet. A part of her was waiting for the stiffness in her back and legs to ease up as the rest of her body woke up, but the other side of her had already noticed the black Hummer parked next to theirs in the circular section of drive in front of the house.

Vas was home.

All the days that had passed since she last spoke to her husband now felt like a wall she had to climb over for some unknown reason. It wasn’t even that many days, just four since he called to say he’d chartered her a jet, but it seemed like more.

Vaslav had a way of stopping her entire world right in its tracks, and she didn’t get any say in the matter. Sending her away wasn’t all that different from bringing her home when it meant it would be done on his timeline, and how he demanded while Vera was left to deal with the emotional whiplash and unanswered questions that wouldn’t leave her alone because of his choices.

Constantly.

“You look like a deer in the headlamps,” Kiril noted.

Were her thoughts written on her face?

Vera sighed, not able to take her gaze from the vehicle beside theirs. “Sometimes, the people you love will make you angry, Kiril.”