6. Roman
ROMAN
Iwake up at six and can’t fall back asleep. The guest room bed is too soft, the pillows wrong. I lie there staring at the ceiling and thinking about Vera across the hall. I wonder what she’s doing right now.
By seven I’m showered and dressed. I stand at the window and watch the grounds staff arrive, their trucks kicking up gravel on the long driveway. They’ll spend the day trimming hedges and raking leaves, pretending that everything is continuing as normal.
By Friday, this manor will be empty.
Oksana knocks at seven-thirty with coffee and the news that Vera is still asleep.
“Let her rest,” I say. “We have a long day ahead.”
She gives me one of her looks, the kind that says she knows more than she’s letting on, then disappears back downstairs.
I take my coffee to Dmitri’s office.
The room is exactly as I remember it from the handful of times I was allowed in here as a kid.
It has dark wood paneling and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes.
There’s also a massive desk that our grandfather imported from Italy.
Everything is positioned to remind anyone who enters that they’re in the presence of power.
I sit behind the desk and start opening drawers.
The first one contains pens and paper clips and other useless shit. The second has files on legitimate businesses. The third drawer is locked.
I pull out my wallet and extract a thin piece of metal. Lock picking is something I picked up in Siberia, along with a multitude of other skills. The lock clicks after thirty seconds of work.
Inside are more files. These are thicker, stuffed with documents and handwritten notes in Dmitri’s distinctive scrawl. I pull out the first file and flip it open.
The first thing I see is shipping manifests. On the surface, everything looks legitimate. Except I know how to read between the lines. The weights don’t match the declared goods.
Dmitri was moving product. The question is what kind.
I’m three files deep when I hear footsteps in the hallway. Vera appears in the doorway wearing jeans and a sweater, her hair still damp from the shower.
“Oksana said you wanted to see me,” she says.
“Come in. Close the door.”
She does, then stands there looking uncertain. Her eyes move around the office, taking in the bookshelves and the paintings and the leather chairs. I wonder what she’s thinking. Did Dmitri ever let her in here?
Probably not. Dmitri didn’t share his business with anyone, especially not his wife.
“Sit,” I say, gesturing to one of the chairs across from the desk.
She sits on the edge of the seat, her hands folded in her lap. There are shadows under her eyes that makeup isn’t hiding. She didn’t sleep well either.
“What is all this?” she asks, nodding toward the spread of files on the desk.
“Dmitri’s records. Business transactions and shipping manifests, that kind of thing.” I pull another file from the drawer and add it to the pile. “I’m looking for a ledger.”
“Which ledger?” Her spine straightens and I can hear the irritation creeping into her voice. “I think I have a right to know what my dead husband did that got him killed.”
“Your dead husband did a lot of things. Which particular sin are you curious about?”
“Whatever one matters enough for you to tear apart his office looking for proof.”
I close the file and lean back in the chair. Vera is watching me with those dark eyes, waiting. She’s not going to let this go.
“Dmitri moved product through the port,” I say carefully. “When things went wrong, he blamed me.”
“So he was smuggling.”
“Among other things.”
“What other things?”
I set down the file I’m holding and look at her properly. She’s leaning forward now, her hands gripped tight on the armrests. There’s color in her cheeks and her eyes are bright with anger.
She wants the truth. Fine. She can have some of it.
“The Bratva has rules,” I say. “Old rules that go back generations. One of them is that we don’t deal in certain things. Drugs, yes. Weapons, yes. Protection, gambling, prostitution, all of that is fair game.” I pause. “But there are lines we don’t cross.”
“What lines?”
“Human trafficking, for one. Anything that violates the old code of honor.”
Her face goes pale. “You think Dmitri was trafficking people?”
“I know he was. I just need proof that will stand up in front of the council.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Her hands uncurl from the armrests and she sits back in the chair, processing this information.
I find what I’m looking for in the bottom drawer. It’s a small leather portfolio, the kind that holds photographs. I open it and flip through until I find the one I need, then slide it across the desk to Vera.
She picks it up and studies it. The photograph is old, the colors faded. It shows two men standing outside a restaurant, both smiling at the camera. One is of a younger me, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. The other is older, with gray hair and kind eyes.
“Who is this?” Vera asks.
“Mikhail Sokolov. My mentor.” The words taste bitter. “He taught me everything about the business.”
Understatement of the century. Mikhail was like a brother to me. He was perhaps the only person other than Vera I’ve ever truly cared about.
Vera’s eyes move between the photograph and my face. “What happened to him?”
“Dmitri killed him.”
Her breath catches. “Why?”
The office is quiet except for the hum of the air conditioning. Vera is quiet. She’s still hugging herself, and I notice the goosebumps on her arms. The office is cold. I’m sure Dmitri kept it this way on purpose to keep him sharp, but she’s shivering.
I stand and shrug off my suit jacket, then walk around the desk and drape it over her shoulders. The fabric swallows her smaller frame, and she pulls it tighter around herself.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
“You run cold?”
She looks up at me, confused. “What?”
“You always seem to run cold. You should wear a thicker sweater.”
I don’t elaborate. I move back around the desk and sit down, pulling another file from the drawer. I flip it open and start scanning the documents inside. Shipping manifests again, from two years ago.
“Roman.”
I don’t look up. The manifest shows a container shipment to Detroit. The weight is off by nearly two tons.
“What do you want me to do?” she asks. Her voice has changed, gone softer. “Just sit here while you work?”
“If you want. Or you can help me search.”
She shuffles closer. I can hear the whisper of her jeans. When I glance up, she’s standing beside my chair and looking down at the papers spread across the mahogany surface.
“I wouldn’t know what to look for,” she says.
“Anything that seems unusual. Dates that repeat or names that appear multiple times.”
She leans over my shoulder to get a better look at the manifest, and I catch her scent. Something floral and clean, soap or shampoo. Her hair is still damp and it brushes against my cheek when she shifts.
My hand finds her knee. Her jeans are soft under my palm and I can feel the warmth of her skin through the denim.
She goes very still.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Touching you.”
“I can see that.”
“Does it bother you?”
She doesn’t answer right away. I let my thumb move in a small circle against the inside of her knee, testing. Her breath catches and I feel her lean into the touch, just slightly.
“It should bother me,” she says finally.
I set down the file and turn the chair to face her. She’s close enough that my knees bracket her legs, and I know I could pull her into my lap if I wanted to.
“Vera.”
She looks down at me. Her pupils are dilated and there’s color high on her cheeks. She’s breathing faster than she was a moment ago.
“This is a bad idea,” she says.
“Probably.”
I slide my hand higher, over her thigh. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat. Vera moves forward, closing the distance between us. Her hands come up to frame my face and then she’s kissing me hard, her tongue sliding against mine.
I grip her hips and pull her closer, settling her between my thighs. The chair creaks under our combined weight but I don’t care. All I can focus on is the taste of her, the feel of her body pressed against mine.
Her fingers slide into my hair and tug, hard enough to sting. I make a sound that’s half growl, half groan, and she responds by kissing me harder. She’s trying to devour me, to consume every bit of distance between us.
My hands find the hem of her sweater and slide beneath it. Her skin is warm, and when I touch the small of her back she arches into me with a gasp.
Mine.
I’m about to pull her into my lap when she breaks the kiss. Vera stumbles back like I’ve burned her, her chest heaving and her lips swollen.
“I can’t,” she says. “I can’t do this.”
Then she’s turning, heading for the door.
I’m on my feet before she reaches it. I move past her and plant myself in front of the door, my hand flat against the wood.
“Move,” she says.
“No.”
Her eyes finally meet mine, and there’s fury in them. “What do you want me to say, that I’ve been thinking about it?” She hums. “Fine, maybe it’s true. Happy now?”
“Not particularly.”
“Then what do you want?” She yells. A hand comes up to slap my chest, but I barely even feel the sting.
“I want you to be honest. With me and with yourself.” I reach out and tuck a strand of damp hair behind her ear. She flinches but doesn’t pull away. “You’re attracted to me. I’m attracted to you. That doesn’t have to complicate things.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper. “You killed my husband, Roman.”
I understand that. The guilt that comes with wanting something you think you shouldn’t have. I felt it every time I thought about killing Dmitri, though I shoved it down deep.
Then he died and the guilt evaporated like smoke.
She looks at me properly now. Her eyes are bright with unshed tears and her mouth is still swollen from kissing me. She looks young and vulnerable and so goddamn beautiful it makes my chest tight.
“You’re a bastard,” she says.
“I know.”
She shakes her head. “Move, Roman. Please.”
This time I step aside. She reaches for the door handle but pauses before opening it. “This can’t happen again,” she says without looking at me.
“If you say so.”