Page 87 of Toxic Salvation
“Y-you told me to call if Ihor showed up again.” His voice is so low I have to strain to hear him. I can picture him huddled insome corner of his office, trying to avoid detection. “He came in this morning.”
“And? What did he want?”
“H-he… was asking about Vesper.”
Not good. Not good at all. I’ve been expecting this since her little showdown with Yana last week, but it doesn’t help to get confirmation.
“What did he want to know?”
“He wanted access to her files.”
My free hand balls into a fist. “If you showed that fucker her file, Jeremy, so help me God, I will?—”
“I didn’t show him!” Jeremy’s voice rises several octaves. “I swear, I didn’t. I pretended like I couldn’t find it and told him I would get it to him the moment I did.”
My panic subsides slightly. “Okay, that’s good.”
“But I can’t hold him off for long!” Jeremy sounds like he’s about to cry. “He keeps sending me texts, telling me he wants it within the hour. If I don’t give him something soon?—”
“Breathe,mudak. I’ll make sure you have something to hand over to Ihor.”
I hang up without giving him any further reassurances. The bastard can afford to sit and stew for a while.
“Ihor’s moving in for the kill, then?” Osip asks.
“So it seems.” I’m already thinking through the logistics. “I want you to put a fake file on the hospital’s server under Vesper’sname. The most important thing right now is to hide the fact that Vesper is pregnant. If Ihor gets hold of that information?—”
“We’re fucked.”
“In a word.” I lean back in my seat as Osip starts the engine. “Now, drive me home. I need to see my woman.”
31
VESPER
“If you don’t let me go right now, I will bite you!”
Waylen flings me into Mom’s room and shuts the door behind us. “Go ahead, I can take it. Won’t be the first time you’ve bitten me.”
“That was, like, two decades ago!”
“And clearly, the instinct still lingers.” He grins at me. “Piranha.”
I glance nervously at Mom. She’s sitting up in bed, looking better than she did two days ago when I last visited. We’d spent thirty minutes looking in different directions, making polite small talk about the weather and hospital food until I finally made an excuse and left.
I felt bad about it.
Just not bad enough to come back voluntarily.
“This has gone on long enough,” Waylen declares, crossing his arms. “Time we sat down and worked this out. All three of us.”
“Waylen, honey,” Mom murmurs, adjusting her blankets. “I’m a little tired.”
“You weren’t tired this morning when Kovan came to visit, were you?” He raises an eyebrow. “I heard you in here, giggling like a schoolgirl.”
“Waylen!” Mom gasps.
I burst into laughter, but that just turns his attention on me. “And you—you’re a grown adult who’s going to be a mother soon. I’d think you could find a little forgiveness for your own mother.”
