Chapter 40 #2
Is the man honestly going to make me wait in dreaded anticipation while we get a meal? Doesn’t that just prolong the time he so adamantly says he doesn’t have?
“I’m sure we can have the discussion here.
” My eyes find his, and I hold his stare unflinchingly.
He searches my face, the lines of his forehead creasing slightly as he takes in my tight features and clenched teeth.
Can he hear my heart pounding beneath my rib cage as the fear of the looming ax above my head is drug ever closer?
Sweat collects along the back of my neck the longer the silence wears on. He studies me, the giant man whose aged face still resembles a Greek god.
Tomas is timeless in his three-piece black suit and Armani shoes. His graying brown hair is swept up and back at the top, flanked by slick, shorter sides. His hazel eyes are piercing beneath thick lashes and bushy brows.
Long stubble is spread across his lower face, drawing my attention to his full lips and the sharp cut of his jawline. The resemblance between him and Vas is uncanny. They appear closer to brothers than father and son.
“No.” Tomas’s amused smile doesn’t waver. “This is better discussed somewhere less out in the open, don’t you think?” My brows knit in confusion, head tilting to the side slightly as I try to decipher the meaning.
“I don’t—”
“Come.” He doesn’t give me the chance to decline his offer or to figure out what the hell is going on. “There’s this nice little piroshki shop near to here.”
The fucker turns to leave without giving me a second glance. He knows I am going to follow him. I don’t have a choice and that is the worst part.
“And I thought Matthias was a cryptic asshole,” I mutter as I begrudgingly follow Vas’s father to his car. Vas chuckles.
“Where do you think he learned it from?” he teases. “They may not look alike but personality wise Matthias is a carbon copy of my father.”
Was.
I resist the urge to reprimand him. Matthias was—not is. It isn’t the first time Vas slips into present tense when referring to his best friend and former Pakhan. I don’t have the heart to reprimand him. It feels wrong to chastise the man who has lost just as much, if not more, than me.
Matthias was my husband, but we had only been married a short while. Vas had been his best friend and second in command for years. They were like brothers.
“How’d you turn out so normal?” I joke to ease the broiling tension beneath my skin.
Vas lowers the umbrella, shaking out the excess water before he wraps it up and hands it to his father’s driver. “I take after my mother. The only one with a real personality in my family.”
“That woman knew how to get herself in a spot of trouble.” Tomas cuts in with a wink. “She once glued down everything on my desk because I was late for dinner one night.”
“It was your anniversary.” Vas rolls his eyes.
“And I sent flowers.”
“Which she was allergic to.”
“And chocolate.”
“Which she hated.”
“Yes, I became vastly aware of that when they ended up smeared all over my Armani and Versace suits the next day.”
“How long had you been married?”
Vas snorts. He takes my hand to help me in the back of the large SUV before taking his seat up front. His father ignores him and settles himself next to me.
“Three years.”
I stare at the man dumbfounded. The driver pulls away from the curb and into the flow of traffic.
“You were married three years, and you never knew she was allergic to flowers and didn’t like chocolate?”
Hell, I am pretty sure Matthias knew my blood type, the kind of toothpaste I preferred, and what deodorant I used before he even got his hands on me.
“It was a…” Tomas hesitates. “…strained marriage in the beginning. We were both young and stubborn and neither of us wanted an arranged marriage. Up until that point she had never voiced a complaint or stood up for how I initially treated her, but with time, I learned to watch and listen. And she learned to obey.”
And there it is. The mafia code for women of made-men. Everything always seems to come back to the one word that demands so much. Obey.
“From what I understand from Matthias, you weren’t much for obedience yourself,” the man teases, his murky eyes lighting up.
I meet his gaze once again expecting to find anything other than the blatant amusement shining through them.
“I liked to keep him on his toes,” I admit with a shrug letting the tension in the vehicle roll away for the short ride.
It isn’t long before the driver noses us into a parking spot conveniently located in front of the piroshki shop.
“But if you ask me, he’s the one who kept me on my toes.
That man ran so hot and cold I needed a thermometer everywhere I went just to detect the change in temperature. ”
My mind rolls back to all those times. Seemingly caring one moment and inexplicably standoffish the next.
Tomas doesn’t need to know that though. I let the reference hang in the air between us, refusing to elaborate any further.
Not that the Boston Bratva leader cares.
He gives me a short nod and a knowing smile before he slides gracefully out of the door his driver opens for him.
Taking a moment, I breathe in, letting the air fill my lungs, the fragrant scent of cloves surrounding me before I slowly release it. Vas waits patiently his brow etched with concern, gaze softened as I exit the vehicle.
Does he know what is coming and decided not to warn me? Would he do that? Would he let his father kick me out of their lives without so much as a sliver of protest? He doesn’t owe me any loyalty, but I hope we gained something akin to friendship since I married Matthias.
Only time will tell, I guess.