Page 21 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

“Right now, it’d just be good if the sky would stop swirling.” Vaslav glanced down, muttering, “And the ground, too.”

Igor spat a Russian curse and whipped the bottle to the ground. The thick glass didn’t even crack, and even bounced a little before coming to a stop at Vaslav’s feet.

“No alcohol, no Vicodin, you know this!”

“But I didn’t agree,” Vaslav replied through a grinding jaw.

He half agreed, to be frank. Hence the molar pain from his sore jaw because he’d been twenty-four hours since his last dose of an opioid narcotic, and of any pill, actually. He couldn’t say as much for the liquor, but that wasn’t because he’d been craving vodka.

Vaslav simply wanted to sleep.

It wasn’t asking much, but if he couldn’t take his regular cocktail of medication to get through a day and night, then living was a second-by-second battle for survival at times. Like now.

Who would have known that mixing nearly a liter of vodka a day with a handful of pills meant to either help his head, his gut, or his sleep wasn’t exactly great for his health? Once Igor learned Vaslav had been in contact with the doctor responsible for the newest file on his desk, the one full of reports on brain scans and imagery, he didn’t waste time getting on the phone.

To the doctor in question, that was.

Vaslav wasn’t interested in being the guinea pig for anyone’s game of Ring Around the Medications, but a conversation with the doctor over the phone, while Igor listened in, at least convinced him of one thing.

The seizures were likely his own doing.

Accidentally, of course, as Doctor Bogdan Nikitin had opted to carefully explain to Vaslav. He couldn’t just mix pills to his liking even if he did have ready access and it seemed to make things better for a short time. Add liquor into his cocktail, and blood toxicity was a real possibility. The man offered to do bloodwork to confirm, which Igor said Vaslav should do, but he refused.

He’d go clean first.

No pills.

No mixing.

Less stress could help too, the doctor had said just before Vaslav ended the conversation without a proper goodbye.

He’d barely wanted to make the phone call, let alone get an entire list of orders he was required to follow that would do nothing to make his days bearable.

Bullshit.

Every bit of it.

Unless it worked, he mused.

Vaslav chuckled at his inner thoughts, and the action wasn’t missed by Igor who shot him a curious, but not amused, glance.

“Did you really have to guzzle it while I was down the hill?” he asked Vaslav.

He shrugged. “You would have tried to take it from me.”

“You sound like a child.”

Vaslav chuffed. “You’re entitled to your wrong opinion.”

“Vas.”

Ugh.

“I need to sleep tonight,” he said. “Give it twenty minutes, and the vodka will finish me right off.”

“Try a hot shower. I’ll even help you back to the house.”

“While a knife stabs through your eyeball?” Vaslav shot back. “That’s going to be a hard task for you.”