The Beast of Moscow by Bethany-Kris

Author:Bethany-Kris [Bethany-Kris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: madman, bad boy hero, dark romance, tortured hero, ballerina, romance, mafia romance
Publisher: Bethany-Kris
Published: 2021-06-27T18:30:00+00:00

15.

“Vera.”

“Alexi,” she replied, opening her front door a bit wider when she realized who had been ringing her doorbell. “Hi.”

The familiar man standing on her front stoop smiled wide. “Been a while, yeah?”

“That’s an understatement,” she replied easily.

“What’s a handful of years between friends, huh?”

“I remember you telling me once—I think it was my seventeenth birthday after I went to a party—that you weren’t assigned to me to be my friend, actually.”

“Because your father wouldn’t have hesitated to put a bullet in my head if he thought you believed we were anything but what we were, Vera.”

She considered that.

For mere seconds.

“Fair enough,” Vera replied. Shifting from foot to foot, she peered over his shoulder to see if anything or anyone waited on the street behind him, but she didn’t see anything. “No car?”

“I thought a walk would be nice today.”

The sun was out and high in a cloudless sky, but that didn’t mean she trusted Alexi—a man who had once been tasked as her personal bodyguard hired by her father until she turned eighteen—to be honest about his sudden presence on her doorstep when they hadn’t spoken in, quite literally, years.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Being straightforward almost always got Vera everywhere.

Alexi chuckled, his brown eyes crinkling at the edges a bit as he did so. “Just to have a chat. If you’ve got a minute, I mean. Then, I’m out of here, and you won’t have to worry about me again. Promise.”

Those few crow’s feet around his eyes, and the bit of salt peppering his dark, short curls were the only signs the man had aged or changed since she saw him last. He still preferred his jean jackets, matching ripped denim pants, and combat boots considering his current outfit.

“You turned thirty-six this year, right?”

“Thirty-seven.”

Vera nodded. “Right, well, do you want to come in for a minute?”

Alexi shrugged, and did a side-to-side check of the rows of villas on the street before stepping inside after Vera had moved back and opened the door wider. She intended to ask if he wanted coffee or tea, but when he remained lingering in the entry hallway after she had closed the door, she didn’t bother.

“Not staying long enough to take off your boots?” she asked.

“Better not. And I have a ... an engagement later.”

“So, a chat, then?”

“Right, let’s get to it,” Alexi muttered, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. Only a couple of inches taller than her, she moved to be in his line of vision, so he didn’t have an excuse not to look at her while he talked. But that didn’t stop him from surveying the large piece of rolling luggage Vera had waiting in the hallway. “Going on a trip?”

“To Paris, yes. It’s a ... not a long trip. What’s going on?”

Alexi sighed, turning his stare on her when he said, “You’re aware that I still keep tabs on you and report them back to your father occasionally, right?”

Vera blinked. “Not exactly.”

And she couldn’t say she was pleased about the news, either.

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