Page 8 of Vasily the Hammer

I spread my fingers and swipe my thumb and my first finger along my collarbones at the thought. Grasping like it’s a nervous habit of mine, but it brings me no more joy than anything else.

Finally, at that motion, Vasily frowns. Slight irritation, some confusion, and then he reaches out for me, like it’s natural for him to touch me.

I let him draw his own finger along the path mine traced. It’s hardly anything, a light brush over the divot there, but my breath catches. I find peace in it, but it also shoots a tremor through me, and I flinch as water springs in those prickling eyes.

Vasily recoils, and I want to ask him to come back, to put his hand on me again, to make me feel like a real human for just another second, but I can’t.

Not when he nods like he understands. He doesn’t, but I don’t either. How can I explain how his touch fills me with profound sorrow, like I’ve already lost him, while also making me crave more? What sense does that make?

“You lost your necklace,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t apologize. Fuck.” His facade cracks further, and he scrubs the back of his neck as he takes another step back, this time to pace.

He’s stressed and struggling to hold himself together. His beloved wife was just kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring. She was rescued, but she doesn’t recognize him, she recoils at his touch, and she lost what was possibly a priceless heirloom. If I forget that that’s me— which is oh, so easy to do— my heart will overflow with sympathy for the guy.

“We need that necklace,” he says, his voice suddenly taking command, seamlessly usurping Sasha. “You find that fucking necklace.”

“What’s it look like? I’ll have the boys go through inventory and put some feelers out. We’ll find it.”

“It’s a cross. Four centimeters by two centimeters. Diamond encrusted. It’s...” He shakes his head as numbers spin in my thoughts. I don’t know centimeters well, but I feel like this thing is big. And diamond encrusted? Could be worth a fortune. “We had an appraisal done of it some years back. I’ll see if we can get specifics.”

The way he looks to the other man tells me that’s the guy who will get those specifics.

But then Vasily focuses on me, and there’s a softness to him when he says, “We’ll get it back. I promise.”

“Thank you. I... I don’t remember it, but I think I’d like... I think I...” I turn away to collect myself, praying— truly praying, because if that necklace is a cross and it means that much to me that he’s going to fuss over it, I think I must speak to God— that I’ll be the woman he married and this will all be a horrible flicker in our lives.

The door is suddenly pushed, forcing me to step back, giving me no choice but to let this man, this giant, my husband into my space.

It doesn’t matter if I want him to hold me or not. It doesn’t matter if my entire body shatters or not. His arms are around me, and he’s holding me close, and his heart is beating against my throat and it matches me. This, if nothing else in the entire world, feels right in a way that will surely kill me, but I fear not death.

“I’m sorry,” Vasily says with a soft shushing sound. “I’m sorry I let you cry.”

I sniffle and laugh weakly. “It’s okay. This is probably weird for you, too, isn’t it?”

Instead of an answer, he kisses the top of my head and says, “Let’s go home, Ana.”

I don’t know what home is, but I’d like that.

There’s a comfort to the plane that I haven’t experienced since waking up into this new me. Vasily is next to me, his hand on me, the touch casual and possessive in the most soothing way. He owns me, and that’s safety. That’s security. That’s the assurance that I’ll be cared of through this.

Kostya, the man who stood behind him, is here, too. I still don’t like him, but that could just be what the relationship is between a man’s assistant and his wife. I’m sure we butt heads a lot, and he can’t do anything about it, because he doesn’t want to be fired from his job, so he makes a nuisance of himself to me.

I may be horrible. Vasily may have softened a bit, but he’s still cool and professional. This could be him doing his best, and thiscould be amethat won’t last. I could get my memories back and be a nightmare.

I don’t think that’s true, but none of my other guesses about myself have turned out to be correct. When I was vomiting all over diamond plate and Gio’s shoe, I certainly didn’t think my husband owned a private jet.

The flight attendants and pilots are all dressed in simple uniforms, boat neck shirts and light jackets, and they all have a version of my tattoo on their jackets. We are all kindred in a way, even if not by blood, and that makes me feel safe.

But only I have a B in the marking.

Everything is silent in the cabin and I’ve got Vasily’s hand in mine because that’s what feels the most right to me. I tap the ring on his thumb, with the insignia that matches all the ones on the staff. “What does this mean?”

He frowns at it in a way that I would take to mean he actually dislikes the symbol that’s emblazoned everywhere around us. But then he says, “Baranov. It means Baranov.”

“It’s a V.”

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