Page 35 of The Lies Between Lovers

“Don’t call her that.”

His right-hand man glanced his way, brows furrowed tightly together. “I can’t call her your fiancée, can I? She’s not said yes, Vas.”

“And don’t remind me of that, either. I am working on it.”

“Right, by letting her take off to Italy.”

“Well, I didn’t have much of a choice in that, no?”

Igor didn’t reply.

He also didn’t need to.

Feliks, being the coward that he was, had decided to lie to Vera about the construction happening at The Swan House. Apparently, a waterline break had been the reason for her recent stretch of time off, according to Igor who had his ears and eyes to the ground at all times. Which was also why the hacker hired to keep track of Vera’s online footprint had received an alert early in the week about a round-trip flight she’d purchased to Italy. Vaslav didn’t fault Igor for doing what had to be done with what means he had to do it with—which just happened to be sending the only man with a passable forged passport to keep an eye on Vera from afar.

One that wouldn’t ask too many questions, who would do his job as expected, and a man that Vaslav wouldn’t kill when he returned to the country.

Well ...

They couldn’t really call Kiril a man, could they? He was barely beyond puberty.

“Her little friend—”

“Hannah, you said,” Vas muttered.

“Right, this ... Hannah. Are you aware of her connection to Viktor Antonovich? As in, the fact that they were married and recently divorced?”

“Vaguely.”

That was a lie. Vaslav rarely cared to concern himself with the personal affairs of his men, and weddings were the one thing he refused to attend regardless of who stood on the altar. The opinion of vory was split damn near down the middle on the topic of wives and children. Half of the men involved in the brotherhood came from a different time where their values and expectations did not include recognizing children or marrying women that could pose concerns to the nature of their lifestyles.

He’d never cared either way.

It wasn’t a rule he enforced, either.

“What importance does her friend’s connection to a brigadier in my organization have anything to do with her sudden trip to Italy?” Vaslav asked.

“Nothing. Just making you aware.”

“You think she’s running there for information?”

Igor scoffed at that. “What would her friend know, Vas? I can’t see Viktor spilling his guts in bed every night to the woman—from what I was told, all he cared to do was slap her around anyway.”

That made Vas blink. “Huh.”

Beside him, Igor sighed. “Nonetheless, Kiril said she’s settled in.”

“At her friend’s home?”

“An apartment in Milan, yes.”

And she did buy a round-trip ticket.

“By his account—Kiril, I mean—he said her friend appeared happy to see her, and they haven’t done much the past couple of days. He’s close enough to keep an eye on them at this point. That’s all I can ask considering she didn’t give me any time to work out a better method of watching her.”

Well, to do that ... Vera would need to know Vaslav was watching her. At the moment, he wasn’t sure she’d like that very much even if he was doing it for her safety.

Mostly.