Page 77 of The Beast of Moscow

She stood firm in the open doorway of the master bathroom, unmoved by his returning attitude or that his tone suggested he was quickly getting angry as well. “Vas, the longer you sit there and argue with me about where the damn bag is and who is going to get it, well ... that’s all we’re going to sit here and do. Just tell me.”

He didn’t want her in his things; nothing personal, he was just anal about that sort of issue. Call it his nature after years of having cell searches and no real possessions but what he could keep taped to cement walls.

“Vera—”

“Vas, it’s almost two in the morning. Where is the bag?”

“There’s a hidden pocket at the bottom of the luggage. It’s inside the larger pocket.”

Fuck it, he thought.

“The bag is long and thin; it sits between the bars for the wheels.”

“Anything else?” she asked, sighing a little.

He wished he could stand to lift his head and stare at Vera for longer than two or three seconds at a time, but the dimly lit hallway was still more than enough light to make him want to stab his eyeballs out. He probably wouldn’t even feel the knife going in considering the pain behind his eye sockets could only be described as stabbing.

“You’re gonna have to cut some wrapping off,” he muttered.

There might be a mix of pepper and other nasally irritating spices wrapped within the cellophane that were known to confuse and deter sniffer dogs in airports, but he wasn’t going to offer that information to Vera. She would figure it out herself and fill in the whys without him admitting any guilt, when she found his pills—and other medications—where he’d hidden the bag to smuggle it into France.

A stack of passports, Vas had.

Matching prescriptions for narcotics, and other medications he was supposed to take but sometimes didn’t depending on his mood, for the names on said passports was another matter.

Vera hesitated in the doorway, turning only a bit as she asked, “What happens if they find it during customs check or something?”

“If they find what?” he returned, arching one tense eyebrow.

“Never mind.”

He dropped his gaze as her footsteps padded away from the bathroom and deeper into the bedroom. Although she had done her best to be quiet while he’d been in the shower, this was the most silence he’d had since getting back to the apartment. He could almost stand to leave his eyelids half open for more than a handful of seconds at a time. Puke didn’t churn in his stomach while the pain refused to cease.

All in all, the migraine had leveled out to mostly the pressure and stabbing behind his eye sockets, and an otherwise unshakeable tiredness in the rest of his limbs. Actually, he partly blamed that on the earlier seizure. It would be mostly gone by morning—the migraine, that was; the other bit ...

Well, maybe it was time to make a call.

As he listened to Vera rifle through the items in his one piece of luggage to find the pocket inside the pocket at the bottom, Vaslav readjusted his seat on the tiled steps leading up to the deep jacuzzi tub. At least, he’d found a larger towel to wrap around his waist because it offered a bit of warmth in the cold air of the bathroom, but nudity was really the least of his concerns.

What was dignity?

He’d lost that a long time ago.

When footsteps carried outside the bedroom, Vaslav figured Vera must have found his hidden bag. She’d need scissors to get the significant layer of cellophane off, so he undoubtedly had a few more minutes alone.

Part of him liked that.

Another part wanted her to come back.

Vaslav did his best to ignore the part of his brain that was all man—entirely human. He preferred when he just existed, when he just was. It was easier to be the person he had to be who did what he had to do when he didn’t attach too much of himself to anything or anyone. Being reminded that he was nothing more than a man at the end of the day, who enjoyed a certain woman’s company, and the way she helped to get him through the worst of a bad night, was not high on his list of priorities.

Too bad his fucking brain didn’t want to listen and follow along with what should be the plan.

Or his cock, for that matter.

Irony truly was a bitch.

It should be cruel how his cock could stay semi-hard if Vera was within reaching distance of his hands—and certainly if he could see her—when he couldn’t even get his dick to twitch if there was a prospect of pain on the horizon. Unless it came to her, apparently.