Page 99 of The Beast of Moscow

Vaslav’s gaze narrowed on the sliver of his reflection in the blacked-out glass. “Fuck off,” he warned.

The only one he’d give.

Igor shook his head, and the SUV’s engine roared as the speed increased.

“Nico had to go,” Vaslav said after a moment. “He disobeyed me; fed the hand of my enemy. He didn’t give me another choice.”

“If you hadn’t left Feliks alive for as long as you have, then we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first damn place.”

“He deserved to suffer, too.”

And he did.

For years, Feliks had been a pariah in a world that had once adored him. Now he was the disgraced son of a dead man barely able to make a living while he wished he was dead. And all because Vaslav had said so—because he said any Abramov was an untouchable. Like sewage mud, anyone who got too close would stink.

And Vas would know.

Like Nico.

Except Nico was not like the time Vaslav had killed his father-in-law and practically nailed a death notice to Feliks’ infamous Swan House doors.

“I killed him publicly, delivered his head to his son on a weekday, and had a doctor’s office bombed across the city all in the same day,” Vaslav intoned flatly from the back seat. “I practically handed them the evidence.”

“And an insanity plea,” his friend uttered.

Vas ignored that.

“This won’t be the same.”

“The second you walk into that funeral; it will be the same. They’ll know. And if not the officials dragging you into court again, it’ll be the brotherhood. Whoever’s been watching ... waiting,” Igor added quieter at the end. “You start dropping bodies all over Moscow, and it’s gonna happen again, Vas. It’ll be prison or the mad house. One way or the other.”

Igor was so good at saying things without actually saying them. He might as well have screamed now you can’t kill Feliks; there’s already one too many dead.

“Enough, Igor.”

Igor’s exhale rattled.

Even he heard the nerves.

“It won’t be the same,” Vaslav said once he felt the anger that had been steadily building in his chest start to ebb.

“Please tell me how?”

“This time, my wife won’t be dead.”

He swore he heard the crack of Igor’s neck when the man’s head jerked up. He didn’t bother to check to see if Igor was watching him again in the rearview mirror, and instead, just assumed he was.

“What?”

The confusion made him chuckle.

“Vas, Irina is d—”

“I know she’s dead. I said my wife. I didn’t specify which wife, did I?”

He did look to the rearview, then, and sure enough, Igor’s stony gaze waited for him.

“The only thing that would have been different if Irina had been alive was your estate, Vas. Legally, she could have protected that a bit more but, I mean—”