Page 40 of The Lies Between Lovers

Vera stayed still on the lounge chair while her mind raced a million miles a minute. “What do you think the chances are that his information is about Vaslav?”

Hannah still hadn’t looked away from her phone. “Probably pretty good. What other reason would he have to ask about you?”

“Why would he even care?”

“Who would know?”

Vera didn’t miss the way Hannah’s voice had gone faint like it always did whenever she was faced with the sound of her abuser’s voice.

“How far am I gonna have to go to get away from him?” Hannah asked, then.

Vera didn’t have an answer, so she said nothing.

No doubt, that didn’t really help.

“I can leave,” Vera said, already able to sense the fear that saturated her best friend beside her. “If you think that’ll help or keep him from calling again or—”

Hannah shook her head. “Nothing helps when it comes to that goddamn man, really. What more can I do that I haven’t already done? Ma’s purchased the whole floor across from ours for the personal security she hired outside of what the building provides; she’s lived like that her whole life so she’s used to it. As long as I stay here, there’s nowhere safer I could be.”

Maybe, Vera thought.

But what if what was happening here wasn’t actually the problem?

“You know what’s really fucked up?” Hannah asked.

“Nothing comes to mind.”

Her friend rolled her eyes back. “He got married again like three or four weeks ago.”

Vera’s head fell a bit to the side.

Hannah bobbed hers in silent agreement with the confused expression staring back from her friend. “Exactly,” she said, pointing at Vera. “Even when he’s married to someone else he’s still trying to screw with me. Does it ever end?”

It does, Vera wanted to tell Hannah but couldn’t bear to do that to her friend. It does end—when someone dies.

12.

Vaslav intended to start his weekend off on the right foot which meant crossing one more thing off his list of tasks he despised. There was a time when he once enjoyed the reprieve that a good haircut and shave could offer, and as a boy had gone for years to the same man once every four weeks for the same straight edge trim. The circumstance of his teenage and young adult years meant he had become accustomed to handling that business himself. As a free man, he got back into the business of making the trips a habit, back when he didn’t care to let the beard grow to soften the grisliness of his scarring.

He used that same old barber, too, until Mr. Petr passed on, and his son took over a couple of years back. At that point, though, Vaslav was much more than just a man getting a cut and shave, and since his barber became a protected man, the space was also sacred. No harm should be done there.

It was also a double-edged sword.

Every time he showed up for a shave and a cut he found a row full of men filling the barber’s waiting chairs. Each with a different complaint or request. Some who had traveled damn near from one side of the countryside to the other for the chance to speak to him—a man who went as far as to refuse his own men even hand to hand payment for their dues as a vor under the protection of his name and brotherhood.

And so that sacred place went straight to shit.

Because Vaslav respected the history he shared with Petr’s son, and the old barbershop on the far end of Dubna, he opted not to blow up the place. Although, it would have done the job of keeping people from bothering him when there were a million other better ways to handle a situation than whining to him about it.

He didn’t have the time, patience, or one single fuck to give.

Vaslav was not the man who cared to dabble in the politics between vory. People in their positions did not get there by being unable to handle their business with others who were less than friendly. He did not want to be friends, or to make them, when he could never trust them in the first place. Who needed friends when there are so many enemies to watch?

That was what mattered.

He took care of his cuts and shaves most of the time now, and allowed himself the pleasure of having it done only a couple of times a year. The infrequency of it almost guaranteed that he wouldn’t have to deal with an entire barbershop full of men ready to have their voice heard.

“I remembered last night,” Vaslav said from the back seat of the SUV as it rocked into a rough pothole. Two kilometers away from their final destination.