The Beauty Who Loved Him by Bethany-Kris

22.

Dubna’s “Beauty” Chapel welcomed guests, and a steady stream of tourists in the warmer months, with wide grey stone and mortar steps that stretched halfway across the front of the looming, black church. It appeared larger on the outside than it was.

Purposefully.

Vaslav stood on the bottom step, not quite warm enough for his liking as a light snowfall sprinkled from the sky, but this wasn’t a day to complain, and he still had to greet the remaining guests.

Well, almost all of the guests.

Mira had already stepped beyond the front doors of the church to say hello to the three-person staff that kept the place running and maintained throughout the year. He didn’t bother to check if she had already handed over the envelope he’d filled that morning meant to be a second payment; she would do her job, and quietly find a seat.

The extra money was a thank you, of sorts. One he was sure the establishment would appreciate. Not once had they ever refused a donation from him despite being aware of the road that led Vaslav here. And all the blood he paved with it.

Despite being able to see straight through the walls, all made of glass except for the black wooden beam bones of the building and the doors, into the lobby, Vaslav focused on the establishment date that had been stamped into the step below his feet.

The Krasota, Beauty, was only two years old.

The crunch of tires on gravel and snow drew Vaslav’s gaze upward as the first black SUV pulled beyond the gates, open for the day and wedding, at the entrance drive. Once parked, the driver exited and rounded the vehicle to open the door and extend a hand to help out his passenger.

It was only once Demyan Avdonin was satisfied his wife wasn’t going to slip in the snow in her cream-colored suede boots that the two people headed Vaslav’s way. Bundled in jackets with light scarves and mittens, they murmured between themselves while Claire pointed at something high on Beauty’s Chapel.

The cross that stood another twenty feet higher than the sixty-foot peak.

“Wow,” was the first thing Claire said.

Vaslav chuckled, glancing up at the sight himself. “Yes, she would have liked that touch, I think.”

He didn’t offer the two a chance to ask who the she in question was as they came up to the steps. Instead, he smiled and said, “I heard the architect who designed and built the place used the Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas as inspiration for the Krasota.”

“It almost makes you think we're going to freeze in there,” the green-eyed woman said. “You know I looked this up before we came, right? Vera had the nerve to act like it wasn’t a big thing.”

“She’s ... respectfully discreet about a lot of things.”

“Too many, maybe?” Demyan asked.

Vaslav didn’t think so.

“I like it that way. Anyway, the town certainly wasn’t willing to refuse such a ... valuable donation,” Vaslav said, choosing his words carefully in regard to the church and land that had come with it.

Vaslav figured out where Vera got her hair preening habit from when her stepmother tucked the brunette waves of her hair behind the shell of her ear, and smiled wide. Their first meeting had happened over supper the day after the couple arrived mid-week before the wedding. As sweet and kind as she was on the phone, Claire Avdonin didn’t change in the presence of a man she barely knew from Adam.

She even hugged him.

Vaslav had been too shocked to hug her back.

Today would not be the same.

Coming off the remaining step, Vaslav pulled Claire in for a quick hug and a kiss on the apple of her grinning cheek. She took the greeting as gracefully as she had the one he botched on the first go-round.

“You look like you’re feeling better today,” she whispered as he began to pull away.

If Demyan heard the exchange, the man pretended not to notice where he stood only a foot away. His gaze fixed on the looming face of the church and how it looked surrounded by a forest of trees and an endless white sky of falling snowflakes.

“I’m hoping to get through the day,” he told Claire quietly. “Plan for the worst—”

Claire smiled. “Yeah, and hope for the best, I know.”

Vaslav shrugged.

That first supper at the Pashkov home had not gone as well as he meant for it to, either. But when did a night that ended with him bent over a toilet ever go as he wanted?

Claire had been kind about that, too.

“It only looks like an open-air structure,” he explained. “It’s heated, and thankfully, air-conditioned in the summer. Don’t ask me how they clean all the windows, no?”

Demyan barked out a laugh. “A full-time job in itself, hmm?”

Vaslav nodded. “Exactly, comrade.”

He extended his hand then.

Waiting for a shake.

Demyan quickly took it in his own, glancing down to see the fresh ink that was hard to miss on the back of Vaslav’s hand. His old, faded spider had been turned around.

“I see you’ve made the choice about retirement,” Demyan noted.

Vaslav dropped Demyan’s hand and gestured wide. “I hear you’re willing to help Igor make a ... transition, no?”

The other man shrugged.

Some things didn’t need to be said in the presence of a woman, and that was certainly one of them. “I think Vera will like having us here for a bit,” Claire put in with a wink.

“Me, too.”

Demyan pointed at his wife, asking, “I’m helping her find a seat, and then taking your spot here, yes?”

Vaslav nodded at the arriving SUV slowing for the turn at the gates. “Right, I just have to greet the other two. There’s a place for your coats and things in the lobby, Claire. I’ll be in shortly.”

His soon-to-be in-laws, a funny concept to Vaslav considering his only other in-law had been murdered by his hand, headed up the few stone steps to the front door as the SUV came to a rolling stop directly in front of the church.

Hannah popped out of the passenger side of the vehicle, barely paying the slushy snow under her pale-yellow leather pumps any attention while Demyan and Claire stepped inside the church.

He heard Claire read out loud the plaque, written in both English and Russian, embedded under each brass door knocker before the door swung shut.

“The Beauty’s Chapel - Any and All Welcome.”

Even the devil needed a place to pray.

“The extra she paid for the matching cloak was not worth it,” Hannah muttered to Vaslav and passed him by on the steps, shivering as she raced to catch up with Vera’s parents. The billowing, fur-trimmed silk cloak, yellow like the floor-length soft yellow gown she held high from the wet ground, fluttered behind her, and did little to protect against the chill.

Vaslav laughed under his breath as Hannah quickly slipped beyond the doors. Turning around, he came face to face, so to speak, with the man sitting behind the driver’s wheel of the SUV. Igor had rolled down the passenger side window so the two could see one another, and apparently speak.

Which would be the first time the man had talked to Vaslav in days. Well, not minding business, of course. Anything else, though, Igor shut down.

His oldest friend, even if he wouldn’t be able to say that forever, nodded upward at the church, leaning over the steering wheel a bit in his fitted, three-piece tux. “You know, I’ve never actually been inside it.”

Vaslav, either.

“It’s a good spot for today.”

Because if Irina was in heaven, and Vaslav had to get through God to talk to her, then so be it. Had funding the cost of building the church that was practically a World Wonder in itself and donating the land and deed not been a good enough price for whatever, or whoever, God was?

For love, there wasn’t a price Vaslav wouldn’t pay.

The quiet murmur from inside the back of the SUV drew Igor’s gaze over his shoulder. He rolled his eyes back to Vaslav, saying, “Someone just reminded me we have a wedding to get to.”

He smirked at Vera’s polite prodding.

Frankly, he’d been trying to keep his mind off the fact that she was so close, and yet, he couldn't see her. Let alone touch her. From the very second Igor pulled up, Vaslav was supposed to help Hannah inside, but his old friend distracted him.

“She could roll down the window.”

“Nope.”

That time, Vera spoke loud enough for Vaslav to hear.

He chuckled darkly, shaking his head.

“You good?” Igor asked. “It’s freezing.”

“Are you?” he asked back.

That was the important question.

Because Vaslav’s stance on many things, including Kiril and his recent legal issues that had not yet been resolved, hadn’t changed. The thing about people? Everybody had a line.

Igor shrugged, but his agreement came off weak all the same. “Yeah, I guess, Vas.”

For today, it was his wedding day, after all, Vaslav let Igor have a pass.

“Time to get married,” Demyan said as he exited the church behind Vaslav.

Right.

The only reason they were all gathered here today.

Wasn’t that what mattered?

*

Demyan pulled the fur-trimmed cloak from Vera’s shoulders with a quick sweep of silk along her back and shoulders. Fast enough to keep any stray snowflakes from passing from the silk to her. The usher, one of three people employed by the non-profit church, stepped forward to take the item from Vera’s father but other than a shift of the skirt of her dress or a peek at her hand running under her veil, the doors leading from the parish to the lobby hid her from view.

“I still think those center doors should be glass, too, no?” the minister asked behind Vaslav at the altar.

Damn near everything else was glass, side to side, back, front, and above. Spotless glass between wooden beams that crisscrossed overhead and fit together like walls that looked out into a snow-covered forest and the white canvas of the sky. Standing in the middle and staring up, it was like breathing in and then out to the world.

If God wasn’t here, peace sure was.

“I didn’t build the damn thing, David,” Vaslav said.

Just paid for it.

“Of course, you’re right.”

Thankfully, the man quieted when the latches on the door handles at the far end of the black-stained hardwood aisle rattled. Only thirty feet in length, with double rows of bench pews cushioned with crushed black velvet every three feet on either side, Vera didn’t have far to walk to him once she was beyond the doors.

In his mind, it took ages.

He hoped that meant he wouldn’t soon forget the sight of Vera when she did finally step through the doors with her father at her side. The knee-length lace veil kept even her face from his view, except for the swath of red that painted her lips a bright hue behind the haze of white. Far longer in the back, the veil fell like a train down to the floor.

She kept both hands tucked together at her father’s elbow and leaned her head Demyan’s way when he smiled. His lips moved with words Vaslav and the handful of people at the front of the church couldn’t hear.

Everything about the day had been easy because Vera made it that way. She didn’t fuss, barely asked for anything to be happy to smile, and hadn’t even bothered with a bouquet of flowers. What she wanted, she had told Vaslav in bed late the night before after days of snide silence and stubborn hearts between them, was him.

Just him.

Waiting at the end.

So, he was.

For love, it seemed like an easy trade.

*

Dearest readers,

It’s been a trip—a whole journey, really—to get Vas and Vera to this point. I hope you’re ready for the final book in their saga ...

The Breath Before Forever, coming very, very soon.

Xo,

BK