Page 7 of The Lies Between Lovers

“Nothing missing,” he returned in an annoyed sigh. “Nothing moved, nothing gone ... nothing, Igor.”

The sudden knot between Igor’s brows said what he didn’t.

“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t here doing ... something,” Vaslav said, more irritated than before.

Igor tossed up both hands in surrender. “I didn’t say anything otherwise.”

“Your face does it for you.”

“Well, I’m working on that.”

Vaslav scowled, muttering, “Work harder.”

He didn’t actually need Igor to tell him that he was being overly concerned with little reason to do so. That didn’t mean he could help it, either. That wasn’t how his fucking brain worked.

“She wouldn’t come here for nothing,” Vaslav said more to himself than his companion while he worked on shoving his arms into the sleeves of the previously discarded suit jacket. “Especially if she called first to see if I would be here, and then she came over. It screams ... something.”

Vaslav didn’t have to know what exactly that something was to make it real, but he had enough of an understanding about just how far his mother would go to fuck him over to believe he couldn’t trust her with an inch. The bitch always took a mile in return.

“Something,” Igor echoed.

He heard the skepticism.

He didn’t like it.

“You think I’m wrong?” he demanded.

Igor shifted from foot to foot, eyeing the hole left in the floor from where the door had been left open for the steps leading down to the safe. “I didn’t say that, boss. I didn’t say anything.”

But he didn’t have to.

That was the point.

Vaslav’s gaze narrowed back on the safe down below while he again became lost in his racing thoughts—his focus was funny like that.

“We do have other things to worry about at the moment, however,” Igor pointed out. “Like say the hundred or so vory who will be attending a funeral right about now.”

“Ah,” Vaslav returned in a grunt and waving one hand as if to dismiss that notion. “It’s only the church part. You know I don’t care for all that God garbage they try to shove down your throat. He’s dead. Nobody but maybe his wife and mother cares about where Nico’s soul is.”

“I’m not sure that’s the point, actually.”

Well, it was for Vas.

And wasn’t he the only one who really mattered here?

“All right,” he said, fixing only the middle button on the jacket before he nodded at Igor. “Let’s go, then.”

“Go where?”

“To the funeral.”

Where else?

Igor arched one eyebrow high. “We’ll likely only make it for the burial now.”

“Good. That’s the only part I like.”

There was a certain satisfaction in the finality of the act. More so when a man was buried because he had decided they were worthy enough of a grave to do so.