Page 26 of Vasily the Nail

Vasily flips his pancake with a soft smile on his face, and it makes my heart ache. He says it so matter-of-factly, practically wistfully, but I have to hope that smile isn’t because he’s looking forward to his death. Hopefully, he has some happy memory of his mother or his father that he’s thinking of.

“Dry your eyes,zvyozdochka,” he murmurs.

But I can’t help it. My mother ran off when I was so young I don’t remember her, but my father? I loved him so much that I thought I too would die when I lost him. I hate knowing this is something we share. We’ve both lost our parents.

“Here, look at how nice these pancakes are coming out. Just little adjustments, and they’re perfect.” He takes a step back to allow me to try for myself. “I’ll be gone all day again, but hopefully that ends soon. Don’t forget if you need anything, just ask Igor. Andzvyozdochka?”

“Yes?”

“Highlight whatever you want in that e-reader.”

Vasily

I stand inthe doorway to my bedroom for several minutes as I consider the potential consequences of my actions tonight if I follow through with my plan.

I did tell Ana to highlight what she was interested in.

And this is very much how things began with us.

But this is . . .

My sigh has a squeak to it.

Not for the first time since the notifications started popping up on my phone, I question if she thinks this is just how it is. But no, she went through seven different books, far too many for anyone to read in one day, and she skipped over plenty of other scenes to highlight the same tableaus over and over again. This is what she chose.

I run the tip of my tongue over my gums, relishing the scrape of the piercing on the back of my teeth. My dentist hates me for my tongue ring. But he hates me even more for the cocaine I rub on my gums, so I figure it doesn’t matter if I’m terrorizing my enamel, as well.

I doubt I’ll live long enough for tooth decay to be a problem.

In fact, this little stunt that Ana is asking me to pull —hopefullyasking me to pull, and fuck me right in the goat ass if I misunderstood the highlights — could absolutely get me killed. In a more manic moment while I was setting this up downstairs, I sent an invite to Tony. I don’t know, that fucker rubs me thewrong way. I know he’ll get wind of this regardless, but the dirty fuck got an erection while I was raping his sister, and now I’ve got this disgusting curiosity welling inside me.

I was clear in the link I sent that I’d get a log of who viewed so they should all feel welcome to comment, as I’ll know if they saw any part of it, but I didn’t tell them I’d know how long they viewed for. I want to know if Tony wasn’t any more capable of preventing his erection than Ana was of preventing her orgasms every time she came around my fingers, my tongue, and my cock in that strip club.

Or if Tony is so fucking foul he got off on the rape of his sister.

Ana looks so cozy right now, sound asleep, curled around Dima’s pillow. I could get in bed behind her, hold her close and breathe in her scent, feel her heat. I could draw her thigh over my leg and make space for myself, take her gently. Her highlights were invitation enough for that.

But it’s not what she asked for.

So I grab the blanket and tuck it around her roughly enough she wakes with a startled shriek as I separate the pillow from her. She struggles but is too well bound in the blanket and too disoriented, having been ripped from sleep.

I haul her to the elevator, using the 30-second ride as an opportunity to say, “You need me to stop, you saygraveyard, you got it?”

“It’s a . . . a safeword?” she asks, and damn her because I hear the excitement in her voice. She does want this. She isn’t going to say it.

“Say it now so I know you heard me correctly.”

“Whygraveyard?”

I’ll take that as close enough. “Because you can threaten to put me in the graveyard.”

“I would never do that,” she protests.

“Perhaps not, but you’re the actress,zvyozdochka. I figure you want to put on a good show for the cameras.”

The elevator doors open then, and it’s time for action.

She screams as I wrap the rope — silk, but it’s the color of jute, so it looks like it’ll tear her up — around her wrists. She complains that it hurts when I wrap it up to the hook the punching bag usually hangs from. She begs me to stop as I take a blade to her tank top.

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