Page 93 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

“You’re looking at the wrong man for pity.”

“How about empathy?”

Vaslav scoffed. “Really, what’s that?”

“Vas,” Vera said, “don’t be purposefully mean.”

He didn’t even glance sideways at her.

“Igor,” Vaslav said, “it might only take a call, and more money paid than he’s worth to me, but there isn’t a soul in Russia today that would do the same for me. They didn’t when it was me. Don’t talk to me about empathy. He made the choice; the expectation is always clear. Unless you’re willing for it to be your neck and respect on the line for the kid, do not come and ask the same from me. At most, they’ll get him on the break and enter with minor theft, if they came up on him with anything. God, it’ll barely be a handful of months.”

“You don’t know that,” Igor replied swiftly.

“Why was Kiril at Feliks’ office at——”

“Vera, go to fucking bed,” Vaslav snapped at her.

Her gaze narrowed right back. “No.”

“Why he was there barely even matters,” Igor muttered, defeat and sadness coating his every action as he waved and turned around like he was meaning to leave. “What does is that Feliks will never be going back to his office, or that fucking place, and the musor already practically know it. If you had just told him when he was here to be careful, that investigators had already been at the bridge in Dubna and identified Feliks’ car—”

“The one that burned?” Vera asked.

“Go to bed!”

The roar shook the room and rattled her bones.

At that point, Vera didn’t really have a choice but to swallow the reply that soured on the back of her tongue with her own bitter anger. Igor exited the den from the main doors, and Vaslav instantly fell back into his seat.

Vaslav didn’t tell her to leave again, but too many questions remained for Vera to move. One screamed louder than the rest.

“What if,” Vera started to say.

Vaslav lifted his head a fraction of an inch. “What if, what?”

“What if Kiril was me?” she asked quietly.

“In custody?”

“Whatever,” she replied. “What if it was me?”

“It’s not even the same.” Vaslav sighed, and scrubbed a hand over his mouth and jaw, mumbling, “It’s not the same because I love you. Cement and bars; heaven or hell—nothing will change that, kisska.”

What did that change?

Nothing.

“You don’t have to love Kiril to care, Vas.”

“Who said I didn’t care? Vera, it rarely ever comes down to that.”

“So, what does?” she asked, not tempering the sarcasm she was sure he’d take as disrespect. “What does it come down to for you to justify a kid getting locked up and taking fault for you, according to Igor, and doing nothing about it?”

Vaslav stood up from the chair, then, his hands flattening to the desk and drawing her gaze in. He’d taken off all his gold rings, leaving his tattooed fingers bare and the upturned spider visible where it took up a good size of space on the back of his hand and wrist. He’d not even bothered to change out of the sweatpants he went to bed in before coming down to see Igor.

“I didn’t make Kiril choose this life,” Vaslav said, “and I don’t determine the price he has to pay for it, either. What that means, no matter the man or his age, is the same; a thief is a thief, and if he talks, he’s dead. I won’t incentivize his silence or release. Not even fear can teach true loyalty. And if I made a call, paid a goddamn bribe, what good would it even do?”

“I would think, to get him out, Vas.”