Page 80 of Vasily the Hammer

I go silent for a few more seconds, reminding myself that this is my thinking time. But I can’t stop myself. “Hey, Dima?”

I hear the laugh in his voice this time. “Yes, Lace.”

“What Vasily did to me, six years ago in Flagstaff, was it unforgivable?”

The silence is much longer this time. No one should ever ask someone else to decide that. That he takes so long to answer is a testament to his character and how much I can trust him. He’s a thug with a crooked nose and tacky gold chains in a black track suit, but he’s trying to help.

“I don’t have a good answer for you,” he says morosely.

“Because Vasily’s your best friend, so you don’t want to go against him?” And he’s right here, snoring away, but you never know.

“Nah, fuck him. He tried to kill me. When this is all settled, we’re going to have a serious fucking problem. But for now, he’s mypakhan.”

“Why can’t you answer my question, then?”

“Because I don’t know that I would have done anything differently in his shoes. And I’m not going to say life has been easy. Definitely not for you. But not for him either.”

“He’s the Bratva king. He lives in a giant penthouse apartment.”

“Yep. Lap of luxury, that guy. Not saying otherwise. But he’s been waiting to die since you left. No matter what he’s done, he’s been watching the clock tick down. You know he hasn’t seen Kseniya in three years? She has a baby, and he’s never seen her.”

“Too big for Flagstaff,” I huff.

“Too scared to leave an impression on her, just to die. Fucking coward.”

I’m not going to say Vasily heard that, but something happens in his subconscious. His arm tightens around me and his legs tuck up under mine.

“Tony sold my virginity to him to settle a debt, and instead, Vasily decided to keep me. But only for two weeks, right?”

“Fifteen days, yeah.”

“And then... and then what? If that was always the plan, then... I hate him for sending me back to Tony, I know this, but why if that was the plan all along?”

“I don’t ask questions. But I know you two were so obsessed with each other it was disgusting. Like, super revolting. Gross. I think you were planning to run off together like some fucking Romeo and Juliet nonsense.”

“How? He was your... brigadier? Is that right?”

“His brother wasavtoritetover Flagstaff. But the night before he sent you back to Tony, Artyom was murdered. As his second, Vasily replaced him. And at that point, his brother, his father, and his uncle had all died after taking over Flagstaff, so Vasily thought it was his turn, that he was going to die next. That was how he justified sending you back to Tony.”

Hmph. I attempt to squirm out of his arms if only to climb out of the trunk and up into the front seat with Dima, but Vasily’s hold is firm as ever. “That’s stupid,” I huff. “He’s stupid.”

“Yep.”

“How was that any better? My brothersold meto him.”

“That’s why I was in charge of watching out for you.”

I refuse to be satisfied with that. “I was pregnant!”

“Yeah, but Vasily didn’t know that.”

“I saw the videos; I know he was trying to get me pregnant,” I hiss.

Dima snorts at that. “Oh, ho, ho. So let me tell you about the soft opening for your restaurant, when you drank too much homemade medovukha when we were closing up, and by the time I was pouring you into the car, you were admitting all kinds of things.”

“No!” I gasp, horrified before he can even say what I confessed.

“You told me that the entire fucking time you were with Vasily, you lied and told him you were on birth control—”

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