Page 67 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

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Igor exited the church behind Vaslav, but didn’t say a word as his boss took the grand stairs at the front two at a time. The taillights of a Mercedes limo pulling away from the curb came on to signal the driver inside had hit the brakes before he could pull out onto the street. When the vehicle stayed put, Vaslav trusted that the man waiting inside was willing to give him the grace of an extra couple of minutes.

He appreciated it.

Nobody liked tardiness as a valued trait.

The flapping flags on all four points of the limo reflected the Russian Federation, and while the steps were mostly clear of loiterers, he tried not to be the only person that lingered. The less eyes that watched him exit the church and enter his uncle’s limo, the better. He hated when people talked. It required work to shut them up.

Who really had the time?

“I won’t be far behind, boss,” Igor called from behind.

Vaslav replied with a two-finger wave over his shoulder as he reached the bottom of the stairs, but as he reached the parked limo and came up along the back door, he paused with a glance back at Igor. “Lunch, yeah?”

Behind his own dark sunglasses, Igor’s brow lifted high. “Pardon?”

“The girls, and Kiril. Lunch?”

“Yeah, at the cafe near her villa. The one she likes.”

“Good, I could eat,” Vaslav returned.

“With a migraine?” Igor asked carefully.

“I said could, not would.”

And eating wasn’t really the point.

Vaslav left Igor alone to figure out his intentions without further explanation. Opening the limo and slipping inside without as much as glancing around to see if there was anyone watching, he let the door quickly slam shut behind him. As soon as he was inside the dimly lit rear of the vehicle, he found the closest place to sit.

One of the white leather bench seats. Pulling the aviators from his face to dig his fingers in good to his eye sockets just long enough to relieve some of the pressure, it took a few seconds longer for his vision to clear up once he pulled his hand away.

Only to see a smiling, familiar face.

Vaslav did not smile back.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” his uncle, Dimitry, said. “Igor explained you had intentions on getting married in a few weeks. I hope you don’t plan on sending me an invitation, plemyannik, nephew. I’d hate to refuse.”

Then, the man at the back end of the limo chuckled, still smiling as he said, “No offence, of course.”

None taken.

Vaslav waved it off between them, and the similarities between the two did not go unnoticed to him. The physical ones, that was. From the strong facial bone structure to the same ice-blue gaze. While his uncle had at least thirty or forty pounds of girth to him that Vaslav had managed to stave off in his age, Dimitry was still tall, broad-shouldered, and a significant presence in any room.

If not for knowing he had taken after his grandfather, Dimitry’s biological father, he might have thought the man across from him had done the deed with his mother to produce him. Thankfully, their family secrets didn’t run that deep.

Nonetheless it never had, not even when he was a fifteen-year-old thug in a juvenile colony facing more time in an adult establishment that would treat him much less kindly, and his uncle visited him one last time. It was the sight of Dimitry in a three-piece suit with glittering gold rings on every finger on the other side of cracked cement and bars while Vaslav wore prison scraps and had to be shackled to the floor that day long ago that taught him about the kind of criminal he wanted to be. It wasn’t the kind that sat where he did.

Vaslav learned a lot in the span of his fifteen-year incarceration. Specifically, that he didn’t intend on going back. Ever.

“Good behavior will get you out of this situation a lot faster, nephew,” Dimitry had told him that day.

All the while, Vaslav had been suffering from a terribly bruised and swollen face that made talking difficult. Compliments of the illegal fighting between the incarcerated youth; fights that the guards organized to keep entertained. At least it taught him how to really survive.

“Da,” he remembered agreeing with his uncle, and then he quickly followed it up with a simple, “but good behavior isn’t going to keep me alive in here.”

“I heard you need another mess sorted out,” Dimitry said, bringing Vaslav back to the present issue at hand. The only reason the two had needed this conversation to happen in the first place.