Page 33 of The Lies Between Lovers

That changed nothing for her.

At what point was she allowed to be her own woman?

When could she grow up?

Vera made that choice for both of them.

Even with this.

“Got any gum?” Kiril asked.

She passed her companion a glance. “Maybe.”

He arched a brow. “Give me some, and I won’t talk the whole time.”

Well, she might not mind him talking.

Vera still went digging for the gum.

10.

“I noticed Marrow was sleeping on the front steps this morning.”

Vaslav didn’t bother to glance up over the sights on the long barrel, semi-automatic rifle for Igor to see the dark circles under his eyes that would explain exactly why the dog had spent the evening near his master. What would it matter? The hard squint of his right eye was not just because he was trying to line up the sights on the gun to his target at the very edge of the back property.

“That wind is going to do me in, comrade,” Vaslav muttered, more to himself than his new companion.

Igor replied all the same. “It’s coming in gusts from the east. I think you could time it, no?”

Vaslav grunted back non-committedly, but Igor wasn’t wrong. He’d already noticed the seven or so seconds between each billow of wind crawling from one fence line to the other and causing the wall of tall trees at the back to sway gently from the mid-point of the trunks upward.

Once Igor’s steps had come to a complete stop somewhere behind Vaslav’s prone form on the damp grass, he stilled and waited for the next gust of wind to come rolling along the rear hill. He needed the silence, even if the high-pitch, constant screech in his right ear had been plaguing him since his migraine waned in the wee hours of the morning.

The wind might not be helping with that issue, but goddammit, he needed something to do. Anything else but sitting alone in his fucking house, obsessively overthinking everything and anyone that he could because there was simply nothing else good to do. Feeding his paranoia never led Vaslav down good paths.

Oh, bloody ones.

Certainly.

“There it goes,” Igor murmured when the wind started to wane.

“Mmhmm.”

Vaslav offered no other commentary as he was already flattened on the ground, gaze on his sights, and had wrapped his finger around the rifle’s metal trigger. While he had the rifle on a V-shaped kickstand, he’d also rested the butt against his shoulder for good measure because he liked the kick.

Gun metal came with pain. No matter what end of the gun a man was facing.

Practically a hair trigger, he barely needed to even put pressure on the trigger before the first shot exploded from the gun. The distinct smell of the bullet racing through the metal, leaving gunpowder dotting the air and his face, reached his senses as he heard Igor’s feet shift on the grass.

“Nice shot, boss.”

Vaslav took another shot, using the black mark in the middle of the gently flapping paper bullseye target as a reference. His next shot ripped the black hole even wider.

Igor whistled low when Vaslav finally lifted his head higher than the gun. Nodding to himself, satisfied he’d set the gun right, he told Igor, “Now for the others.”

“Really, all that stuff?”

“Why not? What good is it to me?”