“Hello, Ava.” Well, shit. His voice is something akin to liquid gold. It is deep, his accent slightly thicker than Matthias’s, with a rich undertone that makes me wonder if the female population of Boston surrenders their wet panties to him as he walks down the street. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I take his offered hand, giving it a firm shake. Amusement glitters in his eyes as he pulls it away. “Likewise,” I tell him. “Thank you for making the trip.” I might as well keep to the niceties before he throws me to the curb like yesterday’s trash.
“Matthias was like a son to me.” Tomas’s jaw clenches, the muscles of his throat tighten and he shakes with barely contained fury as he gazes over Matthias’s grave. “There is nowhere I would rather be, but I am unfortunately short ontime. I have my own problems to contend with back in Boston and I must be getting back. So, why don’t we go grab a quick lunch, hm?”
This is not what I am expecting.
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 formerPakhan. 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.”
