Page 60 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

“Oh, right,” Kiril said. “The chick, Hannah, she’s coming! When is your friend getting in from Italy? I liked her.”

Hannah was only one reason why it wouldn’t be a good week for Vaslav to throw a fit. Vera didn’t see the point in explaining all the other reasons why, too.

“You didn’t even meet her,” she said.

Kiril shrugged. “I liked what I saw.”

“That’s enough, Kiril,” Igor muttered heavily. “Date girls your own age.”

“Have you met girls my age?” the younger man returned.

Igor didn’t pay him any mind. “And I don’t know, Vera. Like everything else with Vaslav, it just depends on his mood.”

Right.

And maybe the fucking moon, too. Neither of which she could predict.

13.

“Is he really going everywhere we go?” Hannah asked. “Even inside?”

Not loudly enough for Kiril to hear at the far end of the pew. Not that Vera thought the older teen would give a shit even if he had heard the question. Something else occupied his mind and hands, the bible he was pretending to read while a blue-eyed, blonde haired girl two rows ahead continued to peek over her shoulder at him.

He acted like he didn’t notice.

Vera knew better.

“Everywhere,” Vera confirmed.

“But—”

“With the security your mother has paid to tail you for the last year, you’d think you would be used to it by now,” she interjected before her friend could complain further. “Besides, I wasn’t given a choice about Kiril. He’s here whether I want him to be or not.”

Hannah pursed her lips. “Yeah, but the security my mother hired didn’t look like that.”

“I think that’s the point. He almost seems harmless.”

From a safe distance, maybe.

Until one realized Kiril was terribly quick to anger, wasn’t scared of people twice his size, and was damn fast when he needed to be. On his feet and with his fists. She’d seen him take Igor for a round on the grass one evening when the weather was unusually hot for the season, and the two were bored. All good things, as far as Vera was concerned. He could handle himself.

But someone else might not think so.

Hannah lifted her nose a bit at the sight of Kiril, asking, “Or is he just someone to report back about you at the end of the day?”

“Nice, real smooth, Hannah.”

Her friend shrugged under her funeral appropriate black dress. Not too tight. A knee length skirt, no cleavage, and the only thing daring about it was the fact Hannah wore the capped sleeve number with only a grey wool shawl wrapped around her for the weather. “I’m just saying—”

“Shhhh!”

The hissed shush came from an older woman three pews ahead of theirs in the massive church. The white-haired bird even had the nerve to snap at the two women for their disrespect before she huffed and turned back around in her seat with an armful of furs.

It took seconds before Hannah and Vera broke into a fit of hushed giggles that even drew the attention of Kiril down the way. Thankfully, the rest of the church and service remained uninterrupted by the quiet moment in the very far back.

Vera hadn’t realized that Hannah’s ex-husband had ties to such a parish that his desecrated remains were allowed to be buried within the walls of the basement crypt. Then again, his family’s ties to the Federation were rooted deep going back three generations, so what did Vera know? At least a football field in length, the priest at the front was barely a speck to Vera where he stood at the pulpit.

Kinda creepy.