Page 92 of The Lies Between Lovers

Jesus Christ.

“Well,” Vaslav said, nodding at the problem—two, really—left in the corner. “Better get on with that—yeah?”

*

“See,” Igor noted while the man he loomed over began to groan. “Yosef didn’t overdo it.”

Vaslav, who had been perfectly content to remain in his recliner while Igor did the work of making sure Mira was distracted with something outside the house before coming back to the problem in the den, only rolled his eyes at the comment.

Then, Igor slapped the semi-conscious man again hard on his back when he started to choke on a rattling cough. “There you are, comrade, take a breath. Take a nice, good breath.”

Vaslav thought he heard a muttered fuck, but he couldn’t be sure. It took longer than he liked for one of the two men on the floor to gain his bearings. It was entirely possible that Demyan Avdonin’s spy—Alexi Volkov—had taken a higher dose of the chloroform because Yosef nabbed him first before his other problem, the American Russian’s private jet, landed in Moscow late last night. Then again, he could have been doused with the chemical more than once before being dropped off at Vaslav’s property.

Who would know?

Yosef never said.

Whatever the cause, Vera’s father started to come around first. He coughed and cursed his way into consciousness as Igor cut the makeshift cuffs made of zip ties from the man’s wrists and ankles. All the while, Alexi—who had been tasked with watching Vera and paid to do so by the head of an outside criminal organization without ever bringing it to the attention of the man who offered him protection in this country—never stirred.

He still breathed.

Or it looked like it.

“Hey, you’re alright, you’re fine,” he heard Igor assure.

Vaslav had turned his attention back to the television for the moment while a commercial for an automobile company played.

“What is—what happened?”

The grogginess in Demyan’s voice couldn’t be helped. That would take a good day or more for the lingering croak to finally leave.

The shuffle of clothes and shoes scuffing against the floor brought Vaslav’s focus back to the matter at hand, but he never moved from his recliner. Part of that was because he simply didn’t have to. The other part was the Vicodin he’d swallowed five seconds after Igor left the room the last time. His third for the morning.

He was getting tired of hearing the man bitch about it. The pills weren’t the damn problem. His head was.

“What the fuck is going on?” Demyan asked, his stance unsteady with his feet spread shoulder width apart as his hands stayed outstretched ahead of him to keep Igor back. His gaze darted wildly between the man in the chair, the one in front of him, and the guy still unconscious on the floor. His tone pitched higher when he demanded, “Somebody better tell me what is happening here!”

“Or what?” Vaslav returned.

He delivered the challenge with a flat affect, but it did the job to quiet the confused, stumbling man at the other side of the room. Demyan looked like hell from his black hair that stuck up in every direction to his rumpled clothes. But the wrinkled suit, dirty button-down white shirt, and scuffed leather loafers were the least of the man’s problems when recognition widened his blue eyes.

“Vaslav Pashkov,” Demyan declared.

“She gets that hair and those eyes from you, then,” Vaslav said. “Your daughter, I mean.”

The only important thing in this entire conversation. If one could call it that.

“Y-you know who I am,” Demyan said, and despite the stutter on the first word, he appeared calm. The stutter could have been the lingering effects of the chloroform.

“Before you even started looking for me, Demyan Avdonin.”

Vera’s father seemed slightly more amicable when Igor slid away a step or two and gave the man some room, but he still didn’t have very firm footing on the ground nor was his over six-foot frame steady when he tried standing to his full height. Not that the calm lasted long. Demyan took one more look at the man on the ground beside him, let out a hard hiss of breath, and muttered, “Fuck.”

“Yes, I’ll be doing away with that problem shortly,” Vaslav said, referring to Alexi who had yet to move from the heap his body created on the floor. “I’d ask if you mind, considering you have regular communication with the man and pay him a monthly fee, but I really don’t care. Here, I decide who lives and dies.”

Before Demyan could speak, Vaslav continued with, “See, you’ve arrived at a very inopportune time for me, but if you want me to be honest ... anytime that I don’t personally invite you into my territory is a bad time.”

“I didn’t come all the way here to see you.” Demyan swayed a bit at the force of his statement, and nearly stumbled when he attempted one step forward. He squinted in pain, and then, grabbed at the side of his head with one trembling hand. “Christ—what in the hell did you give to me?”