Page 27 of Blood Mosaic

“I don’t…” She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head when she looked at him. “Do you ask all your employees such personal questions?”

“You asked me personal questions.”

She sighed. “Most of my friends were from university. I don’t know many people in Sevastopol anymore. My old school friends mostly moved away.”

“The current political situation?”

“And work.” She shrugged. “It’s beautiful, but it’s not my favorite place.”

“What is your favorite place?” He didn’t know why he wanted to know, but he did.

“No, it’s my turn. What do you do for fun?”

Oleg blinked. “I don’t think anyone has asked me that in a decade.”

“Seriously?”

“I work.”

She smiled and shook her finger at him. “No, no. You didn’t let me answer with that. There has to be more.”

“I work on my art.” Why had he told her that? It wasn’t a secret, but he didn’t share his mosaics with everyone.

Her eyes lit up. “You’re an artist?”

“Eh…” Yes. Why was it so hard to say it? “I’m not a painter or anything like that. It’s something I learned to do a long time ago, and?—”

“What is it?”

“Mosaics.” He forced the words out. “I create mosaics.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Really? That’s amazing. I’ve never met a mosaic artist before.”

“That impresses you?” His eyebrows went up as he pulled his billfold from his coat pocket. “Not the planes or the yachts or the multinational corporations but the mosaic art?”

“How many people can do that?” She stepped closer as she saw his billfold. “Do you have pictures?”

“Yes, I’ll show you.” He was already pulling out a picture of the armory at the citadel. “This is from my castle in the north.”

“Of course you own a castle,” she muttered as she leaned closer. “This is so strange.”

“My mosaics?” He pulled the picture away.

“No, looking at a picture that’s not on a phone.” She smiled and put her hand on his arm, tugging him toward the streetlamp. “Move into the light. I can’t see it.”

Oleg grunted and walked with her. “I don’t have a phone.”

“How do you not have a phone?”

He nodded at the driver. “I have people who have phones. I don’t need to carry one.”

“That is definitely the richest thing you have ever said to me.” She lifted the picture from his hand. “That and the castle thing.” She gasped. “Oh my God. You madethis?”

“Yes.”

“By yourself?”

“It took some time.”

---