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

by Bethany-Kris

  “Maybe I just don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  “More ... about himself,” Vaslav settled on saying. “Say you knew he was hiding something important—say like his health. Would you agree to marry him still?”

  His head fell to the side as he watched the clarity wash over Mira’s face, and she finally grasped the not-so-hypothetical question he’d laid at her feet. He didn’t mind the time she had to take before deciding on whatever answer she concluded.

  Except it still wasn’t one he wanted.

  “Asking her would get you closer to the truth,” Mira said.

  Maybe so, he mused.

  “But I asked you.”

  Mira smiled softly, her gaze drifting to a spot somewhere between him and her on the hardwood floor. “I’d think if a woman said yes even knowing a man was hiding something from her—regardless of what it was—then she’s determined whatever he’s hiding doesn’t really matter. And if it is something serious, then she’d have to care about him more than she did about whatever it is he’s keeping from her.”

  “Love?” he asked. “Would she have to love him?”

  “If not, then something awfully close to it. But I don’t know what that could be.”

  Yeah.

  Him either.

  However, Vaslav intended on figuring it out.

  25.

  The den of Vaslav’s home hadn’t been designed with business in mind, but it was often the place where he found himself holding meetings or whatever else when needed because the idea of letting others deeper into the house wasn’t one he particularly enjoyed. Even when Irina had once held parties monthly, and the downstairs filled with important faces that he shouldn’t have ignored, he would retreat to the upper levels where he could easily hide away from everyone else.

  He figured Igor must have been aware of his discomfort at having others in his spaces because the man rarely opted to sit whenever he spent significant time in the den. That morning was no exception, and the bald, bull of a man barely even glanced at the heaps in the far corner where they waited practically motionless near the crackling fireplace. Gone was the leather jacket Igor had been using for most of the summer, instead replaced by a thicker black blazer that likely kept the man warmer in the lower evening temperatures.

  “Ah, Yosef managed his job, then?” Igor asked his boss.

  Vaslav continued watching the news playing on the large flat screen, but still nodded his confirmation of Igor’s observance. “He did.”

  “Did he stay to talk?”

  “Barely looked me in the eye as he hauled them in,” Vaslav returned. “Not that they gave him any trouble. He really shouldn’t use chloroform. I’m slightly more than a little convinced he overdid it.” Or that could just be my conscience, he thought.

  Both men glanced at the huddled heaps, then.

  Neither acknowledged them.

  “But you like it that way,” Igor muttered. “You want every man in this country terrified of what you might do if they did look at you.”

  Vas didn’t bother to respond to that—what would be the point? It was true.

  Better for people to think he was crazy and behave accordingly, than for Vaslav to have to prove it to them. No one liked when that happened. Nothing good came from it.

  “It went fine,” Vaslav settled on saying.

  And the man assigned to a job Igor said he was perfect for also didn’t wait long enough for a thank you before he left, either. Vaslav wouldn’t complain.

  One wouldn’t know by the dim lighting in the room from every shade being pulled that it wasn’t even ten in the morning. Even the fireplace gave the impression it was later in the day because he rarely put the one in the den to use if it wasn’t nearing sundown. He hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on when he arrived at the ass crack of dawn to ensure Yosef had access to the den through an entrance that wouldn’t notify the neighbors.

  Igor had been a little busy elsewhere.

  “Kiril called,” Igor said, then.

  That interested Vaslav.

  “Oh?” He even glanced away from the news broadcast that had been far more interesting than anything else in his den that morning. Including the unfortunate—still living—lumps in the corner. “And?”

  Igor rolled his eyes, but it didn’t hide the grin that formed. “You know,” he said, wagging a finger Vaslav’s way where he sat on one of two matching leather recliners facing the television mounted on the wall. “I almost wanted to think you were interested because I mentioned Kiril—it might mean you like the kid, but then I remember it’s only because you know exactly where he is.”

  “Who he is with,” Vaslav corrected.

  Igor’s brow jumped higher. “Yeah. They signed her walking papers this morning, and good news, she’s home and sleeping as of a half hour ago.”

  The doctor kept Vera another day—just to be safe. Or that’s what the man told her, and Vaslav had no plans on explaining what hand he might have played in that overall decision after a chat with the good doctor led to a payment Vaslav promised to make in the near future. Something else Igor would have to deal with in the coming days.

  Vaslav was nothing if not a man of his word.

  He almost scowled the longer he considered Igor’s news. “She didn’t mention anything about coming here?”

  “I heard her friend in Italy called. Kiril finally got the phone to her late last night. Someone might know about the ex-husband being dead, and the two were on the phone for a significant time. She was tired according to Kiril. Once she got home—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he interjected with a wave of his fist. Vaslav openly frowned, and a sigh escaped the tension that had taken up space in his chest. “Of course, the friend.”

  Hannah couldn’t exactly be planned for, he supposed. He didn’t know much else about the woman Vera called a friend except for minor details that connected the woman to a man Vaslav murdered. Getting that extra day of Vera in the hospital had been beneficial for Vaslav in two ways because he needed to deal with her father’s untimely arrival before she was aware he had done it. And for second, he felt better about her recovery.

  That didn’t mean he liked it.

  Or rather, liked the fact all of it would keep her away from him. Even if it wasn’t for very long.

  “Good news,” Vaslav said, mocking Igor’s earlier tone, “everything went exactly as it should.”

  “And you sound very annoyed about it,” Igor noted, not even stifling his amusement.

  Well ...

  “I’m as confused about it as you,” he uttered, reaching for the remote. What he refused to say or admit was that he couldn’t help the way Vera made him feel. Not when she was close, never mind when she wasn’t. Nobody said it wasn’t a problem.

  Vaslav just didn’t care.

  Once he had the already-low volume of the broadcast muted entirely, he scrubbed a trembling hand over his tight jaw to loosen the muscles. Not that it worked.

  “It was on the news last night,” Vaslav said. “About the body.”

  “Body parts,” Igor clarified.

  Vaslav grunted non-committedly. “Speculation about rumblings inside the judiciary that it could be mafiya related, but no one will confirm. I don’t like that there’s any suggestion at all. It’s concerning when a body is basically just found and people,” he snapped, gesturing at the muted TV, “are already connecting it correctly to me.”

  “That’s a bit beyond my control. You can pay every Politsiya Rossii in this country to find and see nothing, but your control might as well be non-existent in the media at this point. People are going to ask why bodies keep coming up in the canal, and someone is going to try to answer that question for them. Interesting stories keep bored people watching where they’re wanted. So, call up your—what would you like me to call him? I know it’s a touchy subject.”

  Vaslav’s teeth ached from his clenching jaw. “Does it matter?”

  “Not particularly. Call him. Pu
ll some strings. I heard he’s settled in well as the Prosecutor General.”

  Goddamn Igor.

  Straight to hell.

  “You’re trying hard to ruin my morning,” Vaslav snarled.

  Igor didn’t even bat an eye at the sudden rage, and he only briefly glanced toward the corner of the den at the one shifting lump of wrinkled clothes and hog-tied limbs before coming back to his boss. “Get him to go on record somewhere and say that there are no rumblings. How much higher in the branch can you get than the Prosecutor General of Russia? If he says there’s nothing, there’s nothing.”

  A beat of silence passed.

  Then, another.

  “I really hate it when you’re right, Igor.”

  He hated it even more that he admitted it.

  His companion squinted. “Why—isn’t it a good thing?”

  “Not when it means I’ll have to ask my mother for a goddamn favor.”

  And probably dinner, too.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Well,” Vaslav said, nodding at the problem—two, really—left in the corner. “Better get on with that—yeah?”

  *

  “See,” Igor noted while the man he loomed over began to groan. “Yosef didn’t overdo it.”

  Vaslav, who had been perfectly content to remain in his recliner while Igor did the work of making sure Mira was distracted with something outside the house before coming back to the problem in the den, only rolled his eyes at the comment.

  Then, Igor slapped the semi-conscious man again hard on his back when he started to choke on a rattling cough. “There you are, comrade, take a breath. Take a nice, good breath.”

  Vaslav thought he heard a muttered fuck, but he couldn’t be sure. It took longer than he liked for one of the two men on the floor to gain his bearings. It was entirely possible that Demyan Avdonin’s spy—Alexi Volkov—had taken a higher dose of the chloroform because Yosef nabbed him first before his other problem, the American Russian’s private jet, landed in Moscow late last night. Then again, he could have been doused with the chemical more than once before being dropped off at Vaslav’s property.

  Who would know?

  Yosef never said.

  Whatever the cause, Vera’s father started to come around first. He coughed and cursed his way into consciousness as Igor cut the makeshift cuffs made of zip ties from the man’s wrists and ankles. All the while, Alexi—who had been tasked with watching Vera and paid to do so by the head of an outside criminal organization without ever bringing it to the attention of the man who offered him protection in this country—never stirred.

  He still breathed.

  Or it looked like it.

  “Hey, you’re alright, you’re fine,” he heard Igor assure.

  Vaslav had turned his attention back to the television for the moment while a commercial for an automobile company played.

  “What is—what happened?”

  The grogginess in Demyan’s voice couldn’t be helped. That would take a good day or more for the lingering croak to finally leave.

  The shuffle of clothes and shoes scuffing against the floor brought Vaslav’s focus back to the matter at hand, but he never moved from his recliner. Part of that was because he simply didn’t have to. The other part was the Vicodin he’d swallowed five seconds after Igor left the room the last time. His third for the morning.

  He was getting tired of hearing the man bitch about it. The pills weren’t the damn problem. His head was.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Demyan asked, his stance unsteady with his feet spread shoulder width apart as his hands stayed outstretched ahead of him to keep Igor back. His gaze darted wildly between the man in the chair, the one in front of him, and the guy still unconscious on the floor. His tone pitched higher when he demanded, “Somebody better tell me what is happening here!”

  “Or what?” Vaslav returned.

  He delivered the challenge with a flat affect, but it did the job to quiet the confused, stumbling man at the other side of the room. Demyan looked like hell from his black hair that stuck up in every direction to his rumpled clothes. But the wrinkled suit, dirty button-down white shirt, and scuffed leather loafers were the least of the man’s problems when recognition widened his blue eyes.

  “Vaslav Pashkov,” Demyan declared.

  “She gets that hair and those eyes from you, then,” Vaslav said. “Your daughter, I mean.”

  The only important thing in this entire conversation. If one could call it that.

  “Y-you know who I am,” Demyan said, and despite the stutter on the first word, he appeared calm. The stutter could have been the lingering effects of the chloroform.

  “Before you even started looking for me, Demyan Avdonin.”

  Vera’s father seemed slightly more amicable when Igor slid away a step or two and gave the man some room, but he still didn’t have very firm footing on the ground nor was his over six-foot frame steady when he tried standing to his full height. Not that the calm lasted long. Demyan took one more look at the man on the ground beside him, let out a hard hiss of breath, and muttered, “Fuck.”

  “Yes, I’ll be doing away with that problem shortly,” Vaslav said, referring to Alexi who had yet to move from the heap his body created on the floor. “I’d ask if you mind, considering you have regular communication with the man and pay him a monthly fee, but I really don’t care. Here, I decide who lives and dies.”

  Before Demyan could speak, Vaslav continued with, “See, you’ve arrived at a very inopportune time for me, but if you want me to be honest ... anytime that I don’t personally invite you into my territory is a bad time.”

  “I didn’t come all the way here to see you.” Demyan swayed a bit at the force of his statement, and nearly stumbled when he attempted one step forward. He squinted in pain, and then, grabbed at the side of his head with one trembling hand. “Christ—what in the hell did you give to me?”

  “Fair enough,” Vaslav agreed in a nod to Igor, “except now to get to her, you have to go through me. And you were hit with a dose of chloroform. Better than a knock to the head.” He pointed to his own, saying, “Trust me, I’d know.”

  “Go to hell.”

  He liked to think that if not for the chemical fog Vera’s father was battling through that the man might have a better grasp on the situation he faced. Or even, a more interesting conversation to offer Vaslav in the process.

  He was slightly more amused by the American when Demyan snapped, “She is my daughter!”

  “Who has recently agreed to be my wife,” Vaslav said.

  He didn’t need to see the confusion in Demyan’s expression to know the man wasn’t aware of his daughter’s very recent engagement. Perhaps it was cruel of him to deliver the news instead of Vera herself, but there was a method to Vaslav’s madness.

  A point to all of this.

  He hadn’t kept a bead of Demyan Avdonin for nothing. A man wasn’t waiting for the American to land in Russia just because.

  All at once, the control Demyan had been maintaining seemed to bleed away when his back fell into the wall, and he slid to the floor. He cursed while his palms worked against the sides of his head.

  “I can’t even remember—”

  “Probably not much about the last forty-eight hours,” Vaslav interjected for the frazzled man. “It’ll come back faster if you don’t try to force it. Maybe.”

  “Yosef might have overdone it,” Igor mused.

  Probably.

  Still better than a knock to the head, though.

  “Get rid of the other one,” Vaslav said, jerking a hand toward Igor to get the man moving. “I’m getting tired of seeing him there doing nothing.”

  “Wait,” Demyan mumbled into his hands, “wait a minute—yes? Alexi ... he’s never reported back to me about you, or your private business dealings here. He’s o-only—”

  “A good lesson for anyone else who might consider keeping information from me or doing business with others that I’m
not aware of,” Vaslav interrupted coldly. “I have a place ready for you to use where you will stay during your visit, Mr. Avdonin, although for the sake of convenience, please don’t let it last too long. I expect you’ll find the accommodations will serve its purpose for you.” And me, he added silently. “Dobro pozhalovat' v Rossiyu—welcome to Russia. While you are here, you will play by my rules.”

  *

  Loving Vaslav and Vera’s story? Part Three, The Beauty Who Loved Him, coming September 2021 ...

  Xo,

  BK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  The author of too many novels to count, Bethany-Kris is a Canadian, lover of much, and mother to four sons, a glaring of cats, and a pack of dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, a snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a spouse calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something ... when she can find the time.

  Find where to follow BK and keep up to date with all her book news at her:

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  OTHER BOOKS

  The Beast of Moscow Saga

  The Beast of Moscow

  The Lies Between Lovers

  The Darkest Lies Trilogy

  The Agreement

  The Promise

  The Marriage

  After Another Trilogy

  One Step After Another

  One Breath After Another

  One Second After Another

  Boykov Bratva

  Fractured Ties

  Essence of Fear

  The Guzzi Legacy

  Corrado

  Alessio

  Chris

  Beni

  Bene

  Marcus

  The Firsts: A Guzzi Legacy Companion Novel