Page 92 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

“Is that really what you want to call it?” Igor asked, his tone pitched high.

Vaslav dragged in a lungful of air, and turned to Vera once more. “Please, go up to bed. I’ll be there shortly to join you.”

Not yet.

Things were just getting interesting.

Or ... informative.

“What happened to Kiril? Didn’t he have to run something to the city for you?” she asked Vaslav.

His shoulders tensed at the question.

Igor barked a laugh. “Oh, he sure did. Nobody needs a fucking locksmith with that kid on hand, he can pick any lock put in front of his face, right, Vas?”

“Go to bed,” Vaslav repeated to Vera, ignoring Igor.

She still didn’t move. “Can’t you just—”

“Vera. That is enough.”

Unlike her, Igor wasn’t quieted by Vaslav’s sharp words.

“He broke into an office in the city to replace some papers that Vaslav had previously taken for reasons he is not willing to divulge, except because someone was too impatient to wait, and didn’t give him a proper heads up about an important incident from the night before, he wasn’t careful,” Igor hissed while his pointed stare locked on Vaslav explained exactly who he meant by someone.

“I don’t understand,” Vera admitted.

What did missing papers and someone breaking into an office have anything to do with her?

“Tell her,” Igor said, tipping his chin up subtly to appear like he was looking down on Vaslav, “or I will.”

“It won’t change anything, Igor.”

The bald man clenched his teeth, but it wasn’t enough to hide the emotion causing his jaw and chin to vibrate with tremors.

“It won’t change a thing,” Vaslav repeated, shrugging his broad shoulders under the simple grey t-shirt he had pulled on for bed. “Telling her isn’t going to make me pick up the phone, and make a call for him because I can’t. Kiril knows how this works; if he gets caught, he does the time. Like anybody else in this life.”

Vera rubbed away what sleepiness remained in her tired face with the pads of her fingers, all the while, desperately trying to piece together yet another one of Vaslav’s many puzzles. Even if he wasn’t talking directly to her, he gave away tidbits of information that she couldn’t ignore because clearly, every little bit was important.

“You’re blatantly disregarding—”

“What?” Vaslav interjected heatedly, standing from his desk with two fists slamming down to the top. “What am I disregarding, Igor? That you’ve toted the fucking kid around like a puppy for the last several months? Or how about that he’s had a very intimate and lengthy look at my personal and private life because of it? The very second he was arrested inside that fucking building—”

Squaring his shoulder and jaws, Vaslav calmed his delivery only slightly for what he told Igor next. “He could talk to the musor—pigs about anything and everything, and you wouldn’t even know it because it was too late the instant he was arrested. He had a choice to make, and you don’t know which one it was,” Vaslav said, gesturing his arms wide as if he was trying to make Igor understand it was out of his hands. “He’s been seen with you just enough to make him a target to anyone that has a problem with you, or me. There is nothing I can do. If he talks, he’s dead, and that’s the only thing you can offer him now. It has practically nothing to do with me. Otherwise, no vory, unless he wants it to be known he had dealings with police, is going to touch Kiril until he’s out of lock-up.”

“Kiril was arrested?”

Neither man acknowledged Vera’s question. Separated by only a desk, Vaslav and Igor were too busy staring one another down with heaving chests and clenched fists to pay any attention to her.

Or so she thought.

“Please,” Vaslav said, although he didn’t turn to her with the request, “go to bed, kisska.”

“They caught him leaving the private office of Feliks Abramov at The Swan House,” Igor said, his gaze cutting to Vera in the dimly lit den. “While I can guess what he was there to return, Vaslav wouldn’t admit it, because that would mean accepting some responsibility for the fact that the cops might very well connect Kiril to an incident he had nothing to do with, and all it would take is a phone call and a bribe to get him out of it.”

Vera’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Guilty by association is enough to convict Kiril,” Igor muttered, although that didn’t help with Vera’s understanding. “They know who he works for—it’s not really a choice, like Vaslav says. If he doesn’t talk, they put on the pressure. If he does, he’ll have to die.” Igor glanced at Vaslav again, the anger gone from his pleading expression. “He’s seventeen, Vas. He’s barely fucking seventeen, and you’re expecting a lot out of a boy who isn’t even yet a man.”