Page 84 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

Feliks, stuffing his hands into his slacks pockets, eyed the darkness beyond the mouth of the bridge. “Rumor is, part of what’s keeping her hands full is you. Someone might even be getting married soon. She’s kind-hearted, and entirely too good for you.”

A laugh split from Vaslav’s lips. “You’re not wrong. Let me guess how word traveled, my mother?”

“She’s making calls to anyone who will take them. I just happened to put two and two together about who the wife-to-be in question actually was,” Feliks returned.

Fucking bitch.

“Her circle isn’t that large,” Igor assured.

It didn’t even matter.

Not at this point.

“They’re not so heavy if you give ‘em a good throw,” Vaslav said to Feliks as he passed the man by, referring to the duffels he left behind. Igor was quick to follow Vaslav. “Maybe pull the Porsche back a few more inches.”

Feliks didn’t move as Vaslav and Igor headed for their own vehicle, parked and running, twenty or so feet away. Pulling himself into the passenger seat, he watched the man near the bridge reach for the first blue duffel bag at the same time Igor climbed into the driver’s side of the SUV.

“He was going to run with it,” Vaslav told Igor when the man slammed the door shut. “The money, I mean.”

Igor glanced his way, but his stare skipped past to the window and the scene beyond. “How in the hell do you know that? I’ve been watching Feliks, I keep tabs on him like anybody else that might be a problem.”

“He lied about what he was going to do with the money. Didn’t you tell me last week that there hasn’t even been a contractor visit The Swan House to survey and estimate the damage from the last water leak? That was months ago, Igor.”

“That doesn’t explain how you know—”

“I still have both deeds to his Swan House,” Vaslav interjected. “More importantly, I have the original, which should matter to him the most, no?”

Igor fell further into the seat with a grunt. “Right, because he doesn’t know about the fake.”

“I found it behind a lock in a cabinet that was very easy to break. He had to have noticed it was gone by now, but he didn’t say a thing. He’s willing to pretend like it doesn’t even matter as long as he gets the thing that he wants.”

The money.

Just like all those years ago with Irina. Some shit never changed. Feliks had been all too willing to ignore the signs of danger facing his own sister as long as the money on the table was a substantial enough number to make him turn his cheek.

All it would have taken him was a single phone call; a second out of his day to tell Irina not to leave the house that day. She never even saw it coming.

So, neither did Feliks.

Vaslav left the useless excuse of life alive long enough for the man to think he was safe, estranged from his old world, sure, and a pariah to everyone else, but safe from Vaslav’s remaining wrath nonetheless.

No one was safe.

“Too bad for him,” Vaslav said, turning to watch as Feliks tossed the first heavy bag of bills into the trunk of his car. “He won’t even get the money out of me.”

That had been decided the moment Vaslav made the offer to Feliks, money for his disconnection from Vera Avdonin, and the bastard hadn’t even known it. The first bag being tossed into the back of the Porsche was all it took to start a chain reaction.

One of the most interesting things Vaslav learned in the juvenile colony was how mixing specific compounds could produce various results. One sealed glass beaker inside another filled with reactive, dangerous chemicals could easily create a plume of fire when thrown hard enough to break.

The first fireball that came rushing out of the trunk sent Feliks flying back, arms flailing, into the waiting bags right behind him. Small fire-like explosions started one after another as each mini-bomb inside the bags were broken, and the chemicals mixed.

“Well, get going,” Vaslav said when the fire caught onto the bridge, and the back of Feliks’ running Porsche. It was a fire that only needed the chemical to splatter, spreading the caustic liquid and licking flames further to continue burning.

The bridge.

The Porsche.

The ground.