Page 76 of The Breath Before Forever

“Well?” she demanded. “Don’t lie and tell me he’s here.”

Clearly, he wasn’t.

Kiril’s lips puckered with consideration, but he let it all go with a noisy sigh. “Probably killing people.”

Vera blinked. “What?”

His answer seemed ridiculous, but his following silence made her reconsider her initial thought.

Was it?

“Kiril,” Vera started.

He only shrugged again. “I’m just saying—he might have gotten mad and wanted you to come home. All I know is he said that to do that, people had to die. You don’t ask him questions, Vera. Okay? He says shit like that, and you just don’t ask.”

Well.

He wasn’t wrong.

Vera didn’t entirely understand the situation at hand, but the teenager with the apparent answers had moved to other business. Like her luggage.

Kiril pulled the rolling pieces behind him as he climbed the steps. “Oh, and fair warning ... the smell of the roses are only a little overwhelming at first. I promise it gets better.”

She stared at the back of his retreating head, more confused than ever.

“What roses?”

“The house,” he told her, correcting quickly with, “well, the foyer—it’s full of them.”

That comment had Vera sprinting forward beyond Kiril on the steps to reach the door first.

What else did Vaslav do?

She soon found out.

Kiril hadn’t lied.

The house opened to white roses everywhere.

20.

The roses weren’t the only thing waiting to surprise Vera inside the house. Not once in their many phone conversations had her husband mentioned the fact that he had allowed the contractor who she’d met with before and after the wedding to go ahead with their renovation plans on the first and second floors. She noticed the difference downstairs first because the doors across from Vaslav’s den no longer existed and instead, the hallway opened wider into the studio space that now connected to the set of suites upstairs.

She only briefly stopped at the various art easels and stacked, unused canvases, turning a wide circle to take in the tables full of supplies she had mentioned in passing would be nice, and then she headed for the winding metal stars in the very middle of the room.

Every step seemed to chime under her footsteps on the way up. Alone to discover the changes—as Kiril had taken her bags upstairs and Mira yelled her greeting from the kitchen and promised food would be ready soon—Vera tried not to feel guilty about the excitement swelling in her heart as she entered the upstairs suites.

Unlike the open concept studio-like space below, some of the walls that sectioned off the suites upstairs remained standing. Except she hadn’t wanted to keep any doors between the different rooms, and the contractor had assured he could condense the many spaces into two larger ones without compromising the integrity of the rest of the house. The stairwell led up to a small alcove where it opened to both rooms with tall windows where the light spilled in to cover nearly every inch. Morning and afternoon light that wouldn’t be too harsh for the indoor plants but would keep them growing and thriving all year long.

She didn’t expect to find any plants already waiting, some with nursery tags still attached and others in different sized terracotta pots, but it stopped Vera in her tracks. The bigger pots sat on the floor while a couple of small growing vines had been placed on the windowsill with room to hang. A table made of glossy oak sat in the middle of the larger room covered in tools, hangers, pots, and even a high pile of soil that had managed to stay on the table instead of the freshly waxed hardwood floors.

She hadn’t even taken the time to look at the other side, with the smaller room, but already Vera could tell ... it was perfect.

Every bit of it.

Yes, it still needed some work. She had planned for shelves but wanted Vaslav to build them once she picked out the perfect stain to match the floors. They would need to attach hooks into the bare beams stretching overhead for the hanging plants she wanted, but those things gave her something to still look forward to.

It gave them something to do.