Page 28 of Vasily the Hammer

I groan, not about to pull my baby sister in this. She doesn’t need to know that the reason she’ll never see my childhood best friend again is I’m going to execute him the first chance I get. He still hasn’t gotten back to me, and all of the texts I’ve sent him areon read. “It’s... I don’t know.” I rub my eyes, not in the mood to keep track of another set of lies.

She exhales slowly, letting it peter out dramatically. “Look, I’m not here to get mixed up in your shit, and I know you don’t want to be here, but I think you need to be.”

“I’m sending Janson. We’ve got shit going down with the IRA, so I’ll have him figure out where Alex disappeared—”

“I don’t want to upset you, Vasya, but I really think we need you this time.”

I scrub my face, mentally exiting this conversation by grabbing the bottle of orange juice and making a plan to bury Dima’s body next to whomever put strawberries in this fridge. “I have my own shit I gotta deal with here.”

“It can’t be as bad as—”

“It was a goddamn Molotov cocktail, and it burned down the shop I was standing in. So it was pretty fucking bad.”

Kseniya is silent for a few heartbeats, but she’s nothing if not persistent. “People don’t want Janson. They wantyou.”

“Well, they’re not fucking getting me, Kseniya!” I bellow, hanging up the phone, wishing I had something more dramatic than a light screen tap.

“You’re, um, you’re not really a printer, are you?” Ana whispers behind me.

Fuck.

Chapter 11

Ana

Vasilydoesn’t answermy question. Honestly, he doesn’t need to. Arranged marriages? Buildings burning down? People going missing? The obscene amount of wealth he has, surpassed only by the obscene amount of guns? I don’t know the specifics, but I know enough.

And despite the fact that my husband is an incredibly successful criminal, he has what I can only describe as the most controlled adult temper tantrum imaginable when I call him out on it. I’m pretty sure he breaks his phone, and he definitely growls at me, so much like a feral beast that I nearly shrink back into my room.

But I don’t. And I didn’t want to eavesdrop on his conversation either, but he didn’t even notice me as I slipped out of my room in a bathrobe and into his bedroom to get the same for him. I justwanted to be the good wife, and he was in the kitchen on his phone as naked as the day he was born.

He’s still naked as he throws open cabinet doors and gets a pot of coffee going, slamming everything around just enough to make noise without anything— or everything— breaking. I stare at him wordlessly, studying him in a way I haven’t had an opportunity to yet.

Handsome, yes. Perfectly shaped. Pale in that way that tells me that despite spending most of his life in the Southwest, he’s careful to avoid the sun. He’d probably burn to a crisp, and since I haven’t seen a whole lot of down-to-earth moments with him yet, there’s something endearing about it. It’s a weakness.

I bet he’d be a great big baby if he got sunburned, and I’d be stuck on aloe duty well past when the red went down. His man colds are likely epic. The thought very nearly makes me smile despite everything.

His pale hair is short enough that any morning hair would have been taken care of with a forward swipe of his hand. There’s a faint glow to his jaw line, I’m guessing a beard coming in; although darker than his head hair, everything south of his brows is still only barely brown.

Again, this is a thought to be stored for later, but the pale thatch of hair framing his cock is the most peculiar, fascinating sight. It’s just an odd inversion, and it makes me happy. It’s not necessarilysexy,but I don’t think that matters once we get down to sexy times.

It certainly didn’t matter yesterday.

There’s a fine network of scars, some tiny splotches and some long lines. His nose is askew. I found it captivating before. Here, in the morning light, having heard enough of the conversation he washaving, I have to assume that every mark and every twist is evidence of a violent life. Not just a past as a thug he’s since grown out of.

Despite the violence and the generally rough living, he has only a few simple tattoos and a single brand that, while horrific, I recognize as the same insignia indelibly etched on my mons. The tattoos on his chest and thigh are both words, but I think they’re in Russian, and that’s what gets me to approach Vasily.

Carefully.

He freezes mid-turn, coffee cup in his hand and fire in his eyes. His chest heaves, and I reach out to him slowly so he can watch the trajectory of my hand. He flinches when my fingers brush over his chest, but he allows me to touch him. I trace the letters on his chest, over his heart. The first letter is an A, but even with the umlaut, I can tell it’s not my name he wears in the coveted spot. “Aptem?” I read, although that umlaut on the e and the odd capitalization of half the letters have me questioning if any of that is right.

He exhales through his mouth and closes his eyes. I’m not sure if it’s my touch or his own interventions that calm him down, but hopefully, I’m helping in some way. I watch his Adam’s apple bob before he says,“Da,close enough. He is gone.”

I hold back my smile, appreciating this more casual Russian utterance far more than I did his attempt to keep his phone conversation from me. I get that it’s not fair for me to expect him to let me eavesdrop on his conversations; it’s not fair that I have amnesia either. He can suck it up. But if that tattoo is in honor of someone who died, I’ll respect that and not push for more information there.

I keep my gaze on his as I reach halfway down his thigh. When my fingertip brushes along the longer word there, I catch something else bobbing in my peripheral.

His cock.

---