Page 58 of Vasily the Nail

“But if you have no control over anything else, better to have money than not.”

“Yes.”

He swallows and says, “I have no money. I can never be your highest bidder. You understand that, right?”

I guide his hand from the console into my lap again, needing to give him something more. “I didn’t want you to bid for me. It wasn’t about that. It was about the fact that Tony sold my most valuable bargaining chip to you — or, your brother,” I correct, knowing how poorly he feels about how we met. “And I had no idea if he was going to attempt to hide that in negotiations and hope that whomever he sold me to wouldn’t notice or care, or if he was going to sell me as damaged goods, or—”

“Don’t fucking call yourself that,” Vasily snarls, every bit as angry as he was when I confronted him about the drugs.

“I don’t consider myself that, but I’m coming to terms with the fact that Tony probably does. Did you hear what the last thing he said to me was?”Don’t be such a slut. God, those words taste like bile in my throat, and I’m only hearing them in my head. “So I still don’t know what he intends for me now. But if I’ve spent the last nineteen years being my best possible self just to end up living in a two-bedroom open concept apartment with the tiniest balcony in existence and a roommate who’s accidentally attempted to kill me” —I flash Vasily a quick, bright smile to show that I’m poking fun and not seriously trashing on the home I’ve gotten surprisingly comfortable in this week, the attempted homicide notwithstanding— “I’d rather it be with someone I choose instead of just a business connection who’s willing to buy me at a clearance price.”

Vasily rubs his thumb over my hand as he mulls this over, finally saying, “You wanted to make sure not a single man on Earth would want to buy you.”

I nod.

Another bout of silence before Vasily says, “You’re beautiful.”

I frown. I’ve heard it so many times in my life it’s become meaningless. It’s become expected, evendeserved, because I’ve devoted so much of my time to it. Because my beauty, my reputation, and what’s going on between my legs are all that matter. But it feels different now, coming from Vasily. Like that’s literally all I am now, having lost the rest of it.

Even if he says it reverently.

But then he says, “And you’re so sweet and smart. You taught yourself how to cook in eight days. And now you’re wantingto try pierogies? And that video, what did it prove except something happened to you that was really horrible that you didn’t want? Wouldn’t that have protected your . . .” He pauses as he deliberates over the word, finally spitting out, “Value,” like it’s the dirtiest word he could have chosen.

I don’t want to explain this any further. Not that I’m mad at him, it’s just depressing, and when he says it like that, it makes me question whether this plan is going to work or not. Hecouldbe right. It might not matter nearly as much as I’ve been led to believe.

But I don’t want him to think I’m irritated if I simply tell him we’re not discussing it anymore, so I grin impishly and say, “Well, in all fairness, any man who saw that video is going to realize I’ll be comparing him to you, and I doubt any of them will compare.”

He laughs boldly at that and reaches across both of us to lay his hand on my cheek and hold me there as he lands a loud, wet smacker of a kiss on my temple.

“Stop!” I cry out, but I’m giggling too. I’m still laughing when I hear a buzzing sound and he fishes his phone out of his pocket.

He speaks rapidly in Russian. The sounds lack meaning to me, but I feel the temper in them. After several volleys, he hangs up and says, “We need to go to the hospital.”

Alex is conscious, thank God. Like Vasily, he carries the pungent scent of burning tobacco on him even in his hospital bed, even after surgery, and like Vasily, there’s a darkness about him that could have only come from a life of seeing too manyterrible things — of doing too many terrible things himself — too young.

That’s the wild thing about Alex, though. Heisyoung. Everyone else I’ve met is at least Vasily’s age if not much older, but Alex can’t be any older than Kseniya. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was my age.

“Hey, girl,” he says with a friendly smile as I enter the room on Vasily’s heels. “How you—” He has to stop as coughs wrack through his body and he attempts to hold his broken ribs with the arm that’s stuck in a sling. He also has a foot in a cast, and there are bandages all over his swollen face.

I hurry to his side to hit the call button to get a nurse in, but he takes the button from me and tucks it back under his good arm. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he says with a weak smile as he dabs away the blood he’s just coughed up.

Total bull, but I get it. He’s got to look tough with the guys.

“Besides, we should probably keep hospital staff out in case, you know, fighting.” He nods to the men standing in the corner: Vasily, Artyom, Dima, and Kostya. All gigantic men, too big to fit in that small space, but somehow, they manage to take up a tiny corner while they converse in Russian.

No, not converse. The moment I look their way, Artyom says something in a low, angry tone. Vasily responds by grabbing the collar of his shirt, and Dima and Kostya wedge themselves in between them. Dima’s clearly trying to calm Vasily down, but I swear I catch a shimmer of glee in Kostya’s eyes over the chaos.

I don’t like him. I know Vasily thinks highly of him, but he rubs me the wrong way every time I see him.

Also, I’m tired of the fighting. I tell myself I shouldn’t like Artyom because my situation is about as much his fault as it is Tony’s, but I can tell he cares about Vasily. They fight as brothers do, but they love each other, too, and I wish they’d fight less.

I roll my eyes and turn back to Alex. “Do you need me to kick them out so you can get some sleep? I will.”

That has him laughing even though it pains him. I only met him the one time, on the drive up to Flagstaff, but he was nice to me. They all were except Kostya, and honestly, he just gave me a bad vibe and didn’t do anything to change my mind. The fact that Kostya’s apparently happy being Vasily’s driver despite having once been ousted from succession foravtorivetmeans he’s probably not a bad guy.

“I believe you’d really try to if I asked,” Alex says.

“Try to? No, I’d succeed. You think I can’t handle those boys?” I don’t think I can handle those boys. In fact, I’m pretty sure if I said anything, Vasily would just smile with his baby blue eyes and promise me everything’s fine — and that we’d stop for ice cream on the way home or something — and I’d forget I was kicking them out of the room and toddle right on back to Alex.

---