Except he couldn’t even get his dick to react in that moment. Not even a pathetic twitch to say the monster was alive to notice.
Jesus.
Fuck his moods.
The pain.
All of it.
She stayed still until he was next to her in the doorway. Tipping her chin up so that there was no mistaking the way she looked him in the eye, Vera asked, “What difference does it make—a trip made to Dubna once a week for Igor, or Kiril? Which looks like you’re sticking your hand in the pot that isn’t yours anymore, Vas?”
There she went again.
Making sense.
He’d deal with that, and what he wanted to do about it, tomorrow. That was the best he could do considering his current circumstances.
“I need to lay down,” Vaslav mumbled.
Noticing the unsteadiness he suddenly found standing on two feet, Vera was quick to tangle her arms inside his. Before long, his back found the safe comfort of their bed, and by the time he rolled over onto his side, already lost in the pressure building inside his head, fireworks of pain lighting up behind his clenched eyelids, Vera was on her side of the bed.
Cloaked in darkness, because he couldn’t bear to open his eyes again, Vaslav settled into the gentle strokes of Vera’s tired hands. Her lips pressed to his forehead with a kiss, and a soft breath that somehow felt cooler in temperature than the rest of his body.
“I’m here,” she assured him.
Even if he hadn’t asked or said a thing. That was the most beautiful part about her. He wouldn’t keep doing this—living like this—if he didn’t have her.
11.
“Pup,” Vaslav greeted from the top of the stairs.
At the very bottom where Kiril waited, rocking on two feet standing ahead of the passenger side of his sleek, black coupe—compliments of Vaslav’s bank account the previous year—the boy grinned back. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the deep scowl set into Vaslav’s face at the very sight of him, nor was he concerned with the way he continued to scan behind Kiril, further down the hill and driveway.
For what?
Anything.
Rocking back on his heels, and stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his parka with the fur-trimmed hood, Kiril replied, “Hey, boss.”
Goddammit, kid.
“I’m not the boss,” Vaslav told him.
And if he had to correct Kiril too many times on that topic, one of them wouldn’t be happy. The other one would only hurt.
Kiril shrugged like it didn’t make a difference to him either way, and that stupid, silly grin on his face didn’t leave, either. “So, you had a chat with Igor this morning, then?”
Obviously.
The kid wouldn’t be there otherwise. The final words of his conversation with Vera the night before had certainly left an impact on his mind when morning came, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Igor hadn’t appreciated the early morning call to chat.
It was what it was.
“How’s the legal shit?” Vaslav asked instead of discussing his conversation with Igor. “A proper fuckin’ mess, the last I heard, yeah?”
“Better,” Kiril deadpanned.
“How so?”
“I don’t sleep in the same bed twice, and the cops don’t pick me up on the streets everyday for a game of Twenty Questions because they can’t keep track of me, and I just think the fuckers like messing with me ‘cause they’ve been on a first name basis with me since I was eleven. But who’s to say, you know? Otherwise, it’s fine,” Kiril explained with a delivery that said he couldn’t care less about the topic, and that was something Vaslav could not relate to in the slightest. “At least, Igor’s not all in my business when I’m sleeping with somebody new every night. Half the time, he doesn’t know where I am, either. It’s working.”
That quip lifted Vaslav’s brows high.
“Oh, to be that young and stupid again,” Vaslav murmured.
Kiril seemed okay with it, though.
“You’ll make the weekly trips from here on out,” Vaslav explained. “Todays the only day you’re not waiting at the gate for someone to come down and meet you—do you hear me?”
A crinkle turned Kiril’s nose upward. “Is the weed good, at least?”
Out of all the things the teenager could ask or say, that was the point he wanted to get clarified. Vaslav sighed heavily, his wary gaze never leaving Kiril as he ran through the many ways he wanted to teach the kid how to mind and behave.
But honestly?
None of it would do Kiril any good. Full of youth, still wild, and currently free. Undoubtedly, he made good money running for Igor and handling his tasks. Which probably fed into his late-night lifestyle and whatever else he did to keep himself distracted from being bored. See, that’s when kids like Kiril, not entirely grown but parentless nonetheless, thought too much. About their past and pains. Everything.
At the moment, Vaslav bet Kiril was living the dream. The whole world sat in his hands, and he could do anything with it ... if he wanted. What he did, however, was another matter.
“You tell me,” Vaslav settled on saying in regards to the quality of the cannabis. “You’re the one with the connection, pup.”
Kiril smirked, and pulled both hands from his parka’s pockets to produce what had been hiding in the left side. “Yeah, the weed’s good.”
The tightly rolled bag of weed looked just the same as every previous package Igor had dropped off after making the trip to Dubna. Right down to the red sticker strip that wrapped the middle of the roll to keep the cannabis nice and fresh.
Kiril started up the steps with the package in his hand already outstretched to Vaslav who didn’t plan to move from where he stood under the safety of the alcove. Not while the wind was blustery and colder than a polar bear’s asshole, anyway. He snatched the baggie from a laughing Kiril once the kid was close enough to do so, and then Vaslav pointed back down at the running car with exhaust fumes clinging to the air.
“You better have good winter tires on that damn thing,” he told Kiril.
Over his shoulder, the boy waved a hand, indifferent. “Yeah, yeah. All studded.”
Vaslav sighed harder than ever.
He shouldn’t care.
His biggest irritation with Kiril was that he did—so much so that he wondered how much the kid would make of his life and future if Vaslav just sat him down and spilled what he knew about being a young man like Kiril with the world at his fingertips, and danger luring him in. For some reason, his urge to spill those secrets, some that had shaped him more than others, with a kid that Vaslav knew still had a lot of learning and growing yet to do before it would make a real difference, irked him. He wasn’t used to people who were easy to like.
“Hannah will be out shortly,” Vaslav said, heading for the warmth waiting for him behind the front door. “She was just packing up as I let her know you were coming up the drive.”
“You were watching for me?”
Vaslav’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t turn around to face Kiril when he muttered, “I watch for everybody.”
The kid wasn’t special in that regard.
Vaslav yanked open the door, willing to let those be his parting words for Kiril. The frustratingly cocky fool had plans of his own to say goodbye, apparently, quipping, “See ya next week, boss.”