Page 81 of Vasily the Hammer

“I did not!”

“—Andyou were the mastermind behind your sex tapes. You staged them to convince everyone that you weren’t worth buying for an arranged marriage.”

“No way!”

“Yes way. You tried to baby trap Vasily.”

He actually sings that.

Total jerk move.

“I am not a baby trapper!” But man, does that clear up some stuff.

“Not a successful one. Well, you haven’t succeeded yet. Now’s your chance.”

I dwell on that for the rest of the drive. It sits in my mind as we reach the safe house in Sedona, where I’m introduced to Kseniya and Alex, both of whom I guess I was friendly with when I was in Flagstaff. Kseniya’s as fiery as Alex is sweet, both of them are just as worried about me as what’s going on back home, and Kseniya smacks Vasilymanytimes when she finds out I was the woman in his apartment the other day. Vasily cries mercy, but I can see his eyes going damp as they talk. I see how relieved he is that she’s okay and how happy he is that I’ve been reunited with her despite the fact that those memories haven’t come back.

I need to figure out a lot of stuff. It’s not just about me or even Artom or Vasily; I have a business back in Tampa. There’s no way I thought I could pop back up in Vasily’s life with his son— whom I apparently tried to trap him with— and expect him to let me go right back to Tampa when the dust settled, but I know myself well enough to know I wouldn’t give up on something like that. Not when I’d invested so much of myself into it and the community around it.

In fact, I feel some relief when Kseniya asks Vasily, “What’s your plan from here?” I feel like once I know that, I can decide better for myself.

He says, “That’s Ana’s decision,” and everyone turns to me.

“What? No. I don’t have any say in your life.”

He scoffs. “You know that’s not true. We need to figure shit out, just you and me, conversations we’re not having in front of otherpeople—”

Kseniya pipes up with, “Counterpoint: you need a fact checker.”

“You are supposed to be on my side,” Vasily snaps at her.

“We’re all Team Ana,” Alex says confidently, making me wonder how much they know.

“Be that as it may,” Vasily grits out, “I know you and I aren’t in a good spot right now, but I meant everything I said to you, okay? I love you. I love you in English.Ya tebya lyublyu po-Russki. Ti amo in Italiano,if you want that, too. And Artom? I’m not going to threaten you, but you’re not keeping me from him.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

He shrugs unapologetically, and no one takes my side this time when he says, “Sorry, but you lost any chance of keeping us apart when Dima told me you’ve both promised him I’d be in his life one day. I’m not breaking that promise.”

“That was a dumb promise,” I mutter, but it’s another piece that fits too perfectly in the puzzle to deny.

“Your problem, not mine. You may not remember this, but I have not forgotten a single second of the morning we made plans of running away together and living like normal people. You were going to be a barista, and I was going to be a security guard, and we were going to make it work. As of right now, Flagstaff thinks I’m dead. The Bratva probably thinks I’m dead, too. Now’s the time to do that if it’s what you want.”

“I can’t just vanish.”

“We can make you vanish. Or if you want to go back to Florida, that’s a little trickier, but we can manage. It’ll kill me to do it, but I can play with the Consummate boys and we’ll just have to figure out some disguise for me. It’s... yeah, it’s tricky. But we can try.”

“But you’repakhan.What about everything you’ve built? I couldn’t ask you to give it all up.”

He doesn’t get down on one knee, not quite, but he does lower himself onto the bench running along the farmhouse kitchen table and take my hand, looking up at me as he says, “You can ask me anything.”

I feel everyone’s eyes on me. I know Vasily’s whole family has died except his sister and him. There’s a rift between Vasily and Dima, but they’ve been best friends their whole lives. Even Alex, who’s not really a member of the Bratva anymore and hasn’t seen Vasily in years, clearly looks up to him. Vasily might mean what he says, but a lot of people don’t want to lose him.

“You’re not giving up your life for me.”

“What life do I have without you?” he asks with all the angst of a teenage boy getting dumped for the first time.

“Vasya,” Kseniya starts, but I wave her off.

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