Page 62 of Vasily the Nail

“What is wrong with you?”

“It was sweet, actually. Like, hardcore as fuck and not okay on a lot of levels, but then I was watching how you touched him and he touched you and yeah, sweet.”

I groan and lean against the wall next to me, thankful we asked for this table when the boys exchanged a nervous look when we were initially led to a middle table.

Seriously, we’re not anyone, and we’re at a niche tea house on the posh side of Flagstaff. No one is going to randomly look in the window and see us and decide to take us out.

“There was so much in that video.So much.”

She laughs and takes one of the finger sandwiches off the middle tier of the display of snacks between us. “It was hot. You could sell that shit. You should make more.”

“Speaking of,” I say more softly, not sure if our voices are going to carry up to the lobby, “did you bring it?”

She pats her giant purse. “Of course. But seriously, I did a ton of research on these things. Gino’s probably going to shit a kitten if he looks through my browser history, but they don’t really mean anything. I mean, you two are fucking like bunnies.”

“We are not!”

“That face, right there, is the face of a woman who lost her virginity a week ago and has been fucking like a bunny ever since. This test is for people who aren’t fucking like bunnies.”

“I wish you’d stop saying that.” Seriously, Camilla might not be anyone, especially in Flagstaff, but she has the looks of a supermodel. Her make-up is straight out of a runway tutorial, her clothes are all custom designer, her hair is a rockstar mullet that, with her build, just adds glamour, and she has that playful, sexy smile that I’ve never been able to replicate.

I’ve only ever been the good girl.

She’s always had a reputation. In our teens — well technically, I’m still in mine, but when we were in high school together — the only reason Tony let me hang out with her is that her family is every bit as powerful as ours and everyone insisted she wasn’t nearly as bad an influence on me as I was a good one for her. She did everything wrong, bragged about all her notches on her bedpost.

And in the end, despite the twenty years between them, she got a good match with Gino. He knew exactly what she was, and he was smitten.

I’ve never thought much on it, but what Vasily said the other day when I admitted my motivation for the video has stuck with me. Gino and Camilla are proof enough that a video where it looks like I’ve been raped by a Bratva second-in-command might not damage me all that much. They say they care about virtue, but that’s another generation they’re parroting the words but not the actions of.

Which is why I need what’s in Camilla’s bag right now for my own peace of mind.

“I just need to know if it’s worth me hoping for.”

“Are you still sure this is even what you want?” she asks me. “You didn’t sound completely confident in Vasily last time we talked.”

“He’s not perfect,” I tell her. “But I understand him better now, and I think . . . I think there’s room to grow. I think I can help him.” I hope I can, and not just for selfish reasons. “But I don’t think he’s ready for this, you know? We don’t talk about it, about the situation between us, but I don’t think he’s consideringnotsending me back.”

Camilla shoots me a peevish side-eye. “Why don’t you talk to him about it?”

Because he’s going to say no, and I’m going to be devastated.

I don’t say that, of course. That will make me look weak. I am weak. Camilla knows I’m weak. But I can’t show it now.

Instead, I shrug helplessly. “It’s complicated. Everything’s complicated, right? If I push too hard and he rejects me, where will that leave us if I do get pregnant? And I can’t stress enough that there’s no way he’d willingly get me pregnant.”

“Hates kids?”

“I don’t know, actually. But the family thing is complicated. He thinks his family is cursed. Like, that they’re all doomed to die young. So I know not to talk about having a baby.”

“He literally said he was going to put a Russian baby in you.”

“And I literally came when he said that,” I admit. It was hot. I don’t know. I don’t get my brain anymore. “But he thought I was on birth control. Which I have for you, by the way.”

“Maybe you should keep it.”

“But you need it.”

“If Vasily doesn’t want a baby—”

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