Page 63 of The Lies Between Lovers

Never looking back at the teenager who Vaslav found mildly amusing and partially useful, he told Igor to settle the matter, “If he’s in, you put him all the way in. I don’t care if he shits his way through it—you make sure he gets it done.”

“Vas, he’s sixteen.”

“If he can run drugs, play with the street girls, and work for you, then he can dispose of my problems, too.” After all, in a roundabout way, Pashkov money paid the kid. Even if it did go through Igor’s hand first. Vaslav raised a brow, grunting, “Hmm?”

He didn’t expect Igor to deny any of the things he said about Kiril. Mira filled Vaslav in well enough because she was constantly feeding the boy whenever he tagged along with Igor. Of course, it had been a good stretch since he was around considering he’d been stranded in Italy for days now.

Igor let out a hard breath. “I don’t mind doing it.”

“Nobody’s asking me?” Kiril spoke up, still sounding a bit too curious.

“You know what,” Vaslav said, tipping a hand Igor’s way, “I think he’ll be fine.”

Igor stepped close to his boss, then—closer than another man might have been comfortable with considering the way his gaze narrowed. “Vas,” he said, too low for the teenager to make out the hushed words, “he idolizes you. You’re a legend to kids like him that grow up in the gangs; he thinks he can do it, that he’s ready, but—”

“So let him learn the same way we had to, that you’re never ready for it,” Vaslav replied, still sure in his choice.

That kind of shit was learned.

Kiril was already knee-deep into their life. A little thief without his stars and spider. Oh, he’d work and bleed for them if he survived, but someday he’d have them. People thought when they caught a tyrant young, they could show them another way. That wasn’t how it worked, and Igor made the final choice for the kid by taking him under his wing. He was criminal—of vory. There was no going back now.

“It’s too late,” Vaslav added when Igor didn’t step back enough for his liking. “Hell, he’s already here.”

Nobody came this close to Vaslav Pashkov without paying a price—friend or foe, he didn’t play favorites. Everybody got treated the same.

“If he’s in, he’s all the way in,” Vaslav repeated.

Kiril had already folded up the chair, and had just sat it along the wall when Vaslav finished speaking.

Igor released a defeated gust of breath. “Zachet—noted.”

“Ugggh. Fgggghhh.”

The garbling in the corner could no longer be ignored. Vaslav wasn’t sure if the sound was choking or snoring.

“Get it awake,” Vas uttered as he moved to the side of the room to get a better look at the unconscious man’s face. “And make sure he’s lucid for this.”

Viktor Antonovich should at least know why he was about to die—right?

18.

“What are you doing awake?”

Vera’s head turned at the sound of Vaslav’s voice, finding him where he stood in the open double-doorway that led into the master suite’s sitting area. Two chesterfields faced one another with a black coffee table in the middle, and a single recliner at the head where one could watch the fireplace crackle.

“I woke up,” she told him, “and you weren’t here. I couldn’t get back to bed.”

Like it was just that simple.

Vas wondered if it actually was as he stepped further into the space. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights, but the flare of the bright flames licking the logs he’d added to the fireplace earlier was more than enough to do the job of illuminating the room. Even the shadows sent cascading over the walls and ceiling was a better show than anything he could find on the television.

If only because Vera seemed so enraptured by it.

Vaslav crossed the room and came to stand at the back of the chesterfield that faced hers. Placing his sore hands along the curved edge, he matched her small smile. She was too busy staring at him to notice his raw knuckles that still bled a bit every time he clenched his hands too tightly. The pain was easy to ignore, though, because the resulting injury was worth it when everything was said and done.

It was also the last thing on his mind when her smile didn’t quite ring as true, and eventually faded away altogether when she looked away from him to stare at the dancing flames in the fireplace.

Vaslav frowned. “What’s wrong, kisska?”