The Lies Between Lovers (The Beast of Moscow Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  “No, she was inside my house,” he snapped.

  That quieted the man overhead.

  “Here,” Vaslav repeated. “When I was gone. Who knows what she was doing when Mira didn’t watch her like a hawk? Where were you?”

  “Vas—”

  “Forget it.”

  He didn’t need to hear Igor explain that he only visited the property when his boss was out of the country. There wasn’t a need for Igor to spend twenty-four hours a day watching the house when Vaslav wasn’t around. Mira knew how to use the phone, if required.

  Vaslav spent a few more minutes rearranging the items in his safe, not that he had honestly believed his mother had gotten inside the damn thing. Even if she had enough time to move everything to access the door in the floor, it was highly unlikely that the woman had the code to spin into the many dials, never mind the strength to open the three-hundred-pound door.

  Shit, he barely had the strength now.

  Yet, even knowing those things like he did had no effect on the fact he had to triple check the shelves for every gold bar, medication, stack of cash, and envelope of private information that he kept hidden there. Much like the way he’d needed to check the desk in his den, the one in his private office, his bedroom, and the cabinets in the cellar.

  He only felt better—like things might be right—once he’d touched everything, and put it all back just the way it had been before he searched through the items.

  Not that it did feel right.

  Which meant something had to be wrong.

  “You’re thinking about something,” Igor said as Vaslav climbed the stairs leading away from his safe. He let his silence be the response while he picked up the suit jacket and vest he’d tossed over the back of one of the den’s chairs. Getting the clothing off was less restrictive when it came to moving furniture and yanking on heavy doors. Igor clearly wasn’t satisfied with his boss’s quiet contemplation, asking, “What is it?”

  Taking his time to slip on the maroon and black striped vest, Vaslav considered what he wanted to do next. “Nothing.”

  “Pardon?”

  In his own funeral-appropriate three-piece suit, Igor looked more tense than usual. The man didn’t mind a pair of slacks and a good sports jacket, but a vest and tie was a step too far for his rougher tastes unless required.

  “There’s nothing,” Vaslav repeated.

  “Nothing wrong?”

  “Nothing missing,” he returned in an annoyed sigh. “Nothing moved, nothing gone ... nothing, Igor.”

  The sudden knot between Igor’s brows said what he didn’t.

  “That doesn’t mean she wasn’t here doing ... something,” Vaslav said, more irritated than before.

  Igor tossed up both hands in surrender. “I didn’t say anything otherwise.”

  “Your face does it for you.”

  “Well, I’m working on that.”

  Vaslav scowled, muttering, “Work harder.”

  He didn’t actually need Igor to tell him that he was being overly concerned with little reason to do so. That didn’t mean he could help it, either. That wasn’t how his fucking brain worked.

  “She wouldn’t come here for nothing,” Vaslav said more to himself than his companion while he worked on shoving his arms into the sleeves of the previously discarded suit jacket. “Especially if she called first to see if I would be here, and then she came over. It screams ... something.”

  Vaslav didn’t have to know what exactly that something was to make it real, but he had enough of an understanding about just how far his mother would go to fuck him over to believe he couldn’t trust her with an inch. The bitch always took a mile in return.

  “Something,” Igor echoed.

  He heard the skepticism.

  He didn’t like it.

  “You think I’m wrong?” he demanded.

  Igor shifted from foot to foot, eyeing the hole left in the floor from where the door had been left open for the steps leading down to the safe. “I didn’t say that, boss. I didn’t say anything.”

  But he didn’t have to.

  That was the point.

  Vaslav’s gaze narrowed back on the safe down below while he again became lost in his racing thoughts—his focus was funny like that.

  “We do have other things to worry about at the moment, however,” Igor pointed out. “Like say the hundred or so vory who will be attending a funeral right about now.”

  “Ah,” Vaslav returned in a grunt and waving one hand as if to dismiss that notion. “It’s only the church part. You know I don’t care for all that God garbage they try to shove down your throat. He’s dead. Nobody but maybe his wife and mother cares about where Nico’s soul is.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the point, actually.”

  Well, it was for Vas.

  And wasn’t he the only one who really mattered here?

  “All right,” he said, fixing only the middle button on the jacket before he nodded at Igor. “Let’s go, then.”

  “Go where?”

  “To the funeral.”

  Where else?

  Igor arched one eyebrow high. “We’ll likely only make it for the burial now.”

  “Good. That’s the only part I like.”

  There was a certain satisfaction in the finality of the act. More so when a man was buried because he had decided they were worthy enough of a grave to do so.

  Vaslav didn’t bother to wait for his man to take the lead out of the den before he made a beeline for the door. Behind him, he heard Igor ask, “Aren’t you going to close the safe or the latch door? You just spent an hour ripping apart any room you thought your mother might have been inside, and now you’re going to leave it wide open for anyone?”

  “I’ll get back to it.”

  Nobody said he had to make sense.

  What was done was done.

  Natalia didn’t take anything—or rifle through his belongings—on the surface, but that didn’t mean much, so what did it matter if he left the safe open?

  That clearly wasn’t what she had come for.

  “And find out what my mother is doing,” Vaslav added as he exited the den, and Igor’s footsteps followed behind. “Because she is doing something.”

  She had to be.

  He wanted to know what.

  3.

  “Church isn’t your thing, huh?”

  “That obvious?” Vera asked, not hiding her sarcasm in the least.

  “I thought your family was Jewish? Wouldn’t you be used to all of this God—”

  “Non-practicing,” she replied, still clipped.

  “Ah, my mistake.”

  Well, it wouldn’t have been Feliks’ fault for the mistake, but frankly, he’d never cared to learn very much about Vera’s history or family during their short-lived relationship. She was just another trophy to him at the end of the day.

  At least, she’d figured that out sooner rather than later.

  She did, however, stop fidgeting in the rear pew to watch the progression following the glossy black casket with brass hardware be carried out by six pallbearers. Once the trailing line of family exited the cathedral, the rest of the people began to stand from the pews as well. Vera remained seated next to Feliks because he didn’t move as if he planned to leave right away.

  As it was, she’d felt awkward enough being there. Who was she to show up at the funeral—a large funeral, considering the orthodox church was filled to the brim essentially with mourners—for a man she didn’t even know?

  Yet, despite the number of people, she couldn’t help but notice how the pew Feliks chose for them to sit in, one at the very back, remained empty except for them. They’d arrived early enough that only a handful of people lingered in the church’s parking lot, and none of them even passed Feliks—or her—a glance.

  Never mind a hello.

  That didn’t change, either.

  No matter how many people arrived dressed in the staple black, some with veils over their faces,
and others dabbing at wet eyes with tissues they kept stuffing back in their pockets, no one came within ten feet of Feliks. No one even waved. She couldn’t remember a single soul in that church making eye contact with either of them, to be honest.

  It struck her as odd, and frankly, left her feeling more like a pariah than ever sitting in the pew at the funeral of a stranger.

  Feliks sighed as he eyed a group of five people, all men dressed in similar suits that they adjusted or swept off invisible dust as they made their way down the aisle. If it wasn’t for the fact they slowed a bit as they neared the pew where Vera and Feliks sat, she might not have paid as close attention to the men as Feliks did.

  One glanced their way—his cold stare stayed above their heads, even as he tipped his chin down like maybe he was nodding at Feliks. She believed that was what he intended to do because her companion in the pew subtly nodded back, but quickly turned his attention back to the front of the church that was now empty. She didn’t miss the heavily tattooed hands that the one man shoved into the pockets of his slacks after he gestured for the rest of the group to continue beyond the double oak doors.

  “Doesn’t really seem like you have a lot of friends here,” she noted.

  Feliks expression darkened momentarily, but just as quickly, it was as if a sheet of nothingness fell over his face when his stare cut to her. “Doesn’t it?”

  She only shrugged.

  Over five-hundred people attended the funeral—a safe guesstimate, though it could have easily been more—and not one of them spoke to Feliks. People purposely avoided sitting in their pew. Neither of them headed to the front where the family of the deceased man—whose name she couldn’t even remember—waited for condolences from anyone who wished to pass the comfort along.

  What should that tell her?

  Eventually, once the church had cleared of anyone that wasn’t sweeping up between the pews, Feliks stood without warning, muttering, “I suppose you could say I’m used to it, now.”

  Vera’s brow dipped as she peered up, unwilling to stand like he had. “Used to what?”

  “Not existing in my world. Makes things interesting, yes?”

  What?

  Feliks didn’t notice her confusion, or if he did, he just didn’t care when he gestured toward the aisle and said, “Let’s get going. I’m sure they’re heading to the cemetery.”

  It was the way he then brushed his hand along the sleeve of his jacket, and the tattoos that inked his fingers and the upturned spider barely visible under the wrist cuff of his blazer that finally made it click in Vera’s brain. She wasn’t usually so slow—his tattoos were like the rest of the men’s. The many who attended the funeral without much fanfare or conversation to those around them. The ones that had walked down the aisle after people followed the progression and casket.

  Ones like the tattoos on Vaslav Pashkov’s hands.

  She knew what they meant—a thieves’ mark. The visual, permanent statement of vory to the rest of the world so that everyone knew exactly who and what they were simply by a wave of tattooed hands.

  “Was he important?” Vera asked, standing from the pew.

  Feliks was already heading for the aisle when he responded, “Who?”

  “The man we came here for today.”

  The man on his way to being put in a grave.

  Feliks passed a look over his shoulder while he waited for Vera to join his side in the aisle. Despite acting like this was, and calling it a date, he hadn’t behaved any more or less inappropriately than he usually would. Even his irritating arrogance and unbearable attitude was slightly better than normal.

  “Important enough,” Feliks settled on saying after a moment.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means it doesn’t matter if you’re important or not. You can still end up six feet deep after you’re found wrapped in trash bags in the canal with your face and skull crushed in, Vera.”

  He continued walking down the aisle, making his way one step at a time toward the oak doors while Vera remained motionless a few paces behind. She couldn’t escape the chill that had suddenly worked up her spine and cemented her feet to the church’s floor.

  “That’s why the casket was closed?” she heard herself ask.

  Was that why they didn’t talk much about his death during the sermon; why the man’s wife—a young blonde with a face hidden under a birdcage veil—never stopped crying from the moment she’d stepped inside the church?

  “Really,” she heard Feliks mutter, “he’s lucky he got a fucking casket at all.”

  Jesus.

  She rushed to catch up with Feliks after he exited the double oak doors because she suddenly couldn’t bear the idea of lingering any longer inside the church. A very frightening picture was beginning to take shape in her mind, and she wasn’t sure that she was ready to deal with what it might reveal.

  *

  Vera regretted the black, closed-toe kitten heels she’d opted to wear with her dress. Mostly because had she realized what the day would require, like walking from the church to the burial plot six acres deep within the rolling hills of the cemetery, she might have opted for something less painful on her ankle.

  Actually, had she known what Feliks wanted her to attend, she wouldn’t have agreed at all.

  While the family and hearse were able to drive almost to the burial site, the old, cracked roads weaving in and around centuries-old headstones with family names she could no longer read didn’t allow for more than a vehicle or two at a time. There wasn’t exactly any place for a progression of vehicles to park, and she could see how the layout of the cemetery might create a traffic jam of sorts in a precarious location.

  Not that all the walking served her damn ankle.

  Every step was another throb, followed by an ache, and ending with her wince. Eventually, Feliks noticed.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “No,” Vera said in a hiss.

  Not at him.

  Her breath always became short when pain was involved.

  Feliks cleared his throat and shifted a bit on his feet to glance further up the hill where the large crowd had gathered to watch the pallbearers pull the casket from the hearse. The hundred or so feet wasn’t that far to walk, really, but Vera needed a second.

  So, she took it.

  Sitting on the marble bench carved into the statue of a looming angle that had long turned green, she crossed her legs, and massaged the spot where her pain had flared up. She wasn’t even bothered by the way Feliks kept his gaze averted from her hands that worked on rubbing out the ache in her weak ankle.

  He’d always been like that.

  Ever since it happened.

  “I’m quitting, officially,” she said, offering him nothing else but that statement.

  Feliks let out a heavy sigh; tucking his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he turned back to face her, but still kept his gaze anywhere but on her bare ankle that she’d crossed over her knee. “No, you’re not.”

  “I am, actually.”

  “And what are you going to do, then, hmm?”

  Vera’s chin tipped up, and while the sun was high in the sky and bright in her eyes, she squinted through it to stare Feliks right in the face. “Excuse me?”

  “After you’re done with The Swan House. What do you plan to do? I can’t see you getting any notable teaching position with any other company in the country. None are worthy. Are you going to head back to the states? For what? A family you barely speak to? I know what you paid for the villa in Noble Row, but the housing market is trash, so you’re probably not even going to get half of that back. Vera, you don’t do anything, sweetheart.”

  She blinked at that.

  Feliks chuckled then, adding lower, “I’m not wrong. Other than the kids and the classes at The Swan House, you have no other purpose. You’re just comfortable enough that you don’t have to worry about money, but you’re also boring enough that you won’t spend what you
do have. So instead, you lock yourself away except for a few times a week when you venture outside to teach kids how to dance or buy groceries.”

  Now, she openly glared at him.

  “I do more than just teach the kids and—”

  “Like what?”

  His cold question was answered by silence.

  She hated him for that.

  For being right ...

  Even if he wasn’t entirely right at the same time.

  “I’m so glad,” she told him, contempt dripping from her every word, “that you have my whole life figured out, Feliks, and you didn’t even need to have a conversation with me to do so.”

  He shrugged. “Vera, it’s you.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  Feliks smirked. “Well, what you see is kind of what you get.”

  He was so quick to insult her; something else about the man that hadn’t changed in all the years she’d known him. Really, it wasn’t just her, and she knew that, too. Feliks treated almost everyone exactly the same. Unless someone had purpose to him, or he had a motive to keep them around, he didn’t mind letting a person know just how useless they truly were in his existence.

  Even if he was cruel about it.

  “You know what,” Vera said as she stood from the bench, ignoring the sharp stab of pain when she dared to put weight on her ankle again, “that’s enough, Feliks.”

  “You’re right. We can get back to this conversation later, as pointless as it is,” he muttered under his breath while he turned toward the crowd a hundred or so paces up the hill before adding louder, “so let’s head to the plot with the others, hmm?”

  “No.”

  The fast swerve of his upper body swinging back around to face her said he hadn’t been expecting that strong of a rebuttal.

  “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  “I said no, and that’s enough,” Vera repeated. “And I meant it, Feliks. I am quitting, and frankly, it doesn’t matter if I spend the next three years holed up in my home alone in the dark like a hermit as long as I don’t have to spend another goddamn minute anywhere near you.”

  He started to laugh lightly. “Vera, come on now, don’t be like—”