Page 13 of Vasily the Hammer

So good.

Needs marinade. Balsamic and basil. Worcestershire. Garlic, garlic, garlic.

Just a pinch of brown sugar, no one will ever know.

I can cook.

I go through the fridge and the freezer with renewed confidence, mixing and matching the components, guessing at the cheeses, hunting down spices. I jot down names as they come to me on sticky notes I find in a drawer. I fill up the burners on the stove top with all those unused pans, not caring that I’m ruining the showroom feel of them. Have we recently moved here, and it’s an obligatory new set? I don’t know. Are we trying to sell the place, and the realtor recommended new pans be hung for aesthetic reasons? Don’t care.

There are five burners plus a simmering pad on the stove. The oven is a convection oven. This is important.

I start a brioche dough.

I can bake.

Beeswax covers,I write down at the top of the fourth sticky note. I covered the dough with a piece of plastic wrap, and my brain yearns for beeswax covers.

I go back to the steak that I’ve had marinating this whole time, but now that my risotto is reducing and my frozen vegetable medley— I seem to have a strong opinion against frozen vegetables, but it’s what I have— is in the broiler, it’s time to cook the steak.

I have a debate if I want to slice it thin again, but no, I’m apparently a rare meat kind of girl. Possibly tartare? I’m not going that extreme, though, so I cut a tablespoon of butter into a pan, melt it, and then throw the steak on.

A beep behind me startles me, and I glance back to find Vasily standing at the front door, staring at me as though he’s just been caught.

It’s already after noon. His bed didn’t look slept in when I was in there. He didn’t sleep on the plane either, not as far as I can tell.Time doesn’t have any meaning for me, not right now, but Vasily hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours.

And he looks it.

His white blond hair, short and sleek yesterday, brushed forward to accentuate his prominent widow’s peak, is now sticking up and spiky. His crystal blue eyes are bloodshot. His suit has that rumpled, slept-in look from a long night of the office. I don’t know why this is what pops into my mind, but he’s giving stockbroker on a bad day in the 1980s. All he’s missing is a cigarette.

Huh.

He’s not a smoker. He certainly would have smoked yesterday, when we left the Consummate headquarters or when we were on the runway at the air strip. His wife had just been abducted and rescued, and now she had amnesia. No way that if he ever smokes, he wasn’t yesterday. We hugged several times, too, and I never felt anything on his person except a thin, solid block that was obviously a cell phone. Not even a wallet.

Yes, I groped his ass. He’s my husband, and he has a nice ass. It was an experiment to see if I remembered it from before. I was subtle about it, though.

Still, I’m having one of those gut instincts telling me that a cigarette belongs in Vasily Baranov’s hand.

I have a million questions for him, but he doesn’t look ready for them. And there’s a look of... I don’t know what because of the exhaustion mingled in it, but there’s a definite look as he surveys the kitchen.

“I know how to cook,” I tell him, but an uncomfortable sensation fills me, and now all the joy I got from realizing this fizzles away, replaced with an urge to hide.

He’s a printer. He’s the CEO of a company that handles specialty 3D prints. It’s just about the blandest job ever, but he’s Russian and has that family insignia everywhere, including my private area. Sasha works for an organization that may do good things, but they do it illegally. I’m running entirely on vibes right now, and the vibes I get from Vasily is that he’s a dangerous man.

I just don’t know if he’s dangerous to me, and nothing in the way we live or the way he’s interacted with me has helped me nail it down.

I grip the counter with white knuckles and breathe through my lips to steady myself until Vasily nods, softens his gaze, and says, “I’m glad you still do.”

“Have I always cooked?”

“No.” And then he smiles, genuinely smiles. “An uncle of mine taught you, actually. When you first moved in with me.”

“Really? Is he here, in LA? I’d love to meet him.”

Vasily sinks again. “No, he passed. About a year ago now. But you were a...” He swallows, and man, do I wish I hadn’t pushed it, because I can see the pain. “You were a favorite of his.”

I don’t know how to recover from this, but I brace myself and push forward. “Would you like to eat? I made steak and vegetables and risotto. From scratch. The risotto, I mean.”

“I need some sleep. But box up what you don’t eat, and I’ll heat it back up later.”

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