Chapter 5
When I heard a palm crack heavily against skin, I couldn’t stop myself from opening the door. The sound brought back memories of my childhood. Now, standing in the open doorway, I blink my eyes shut, then open them again to glare at the man who’s hastily doing up his zipper.
God, what a pathetic specimen. What kind of worm needs to backhand a woman to get her to sleep with him?
My golden-haired angel from the stage has a red mark on her face, and she’s scrabbling away from him on the black leather couch, eyes wide and shoulders shaking. The man draws himself up to his full height, but I still dwarf him.
“Get out,” he says. He has an American accent, but it’s not pleasant to listen to like the singer’s. It’s too nasal. “This is a private dressing room. You don’t belong here.”
“Just checking that everyone is enjoying our Russian hospitality and having a good time,” I say.
The man glares at my little songbird, and as he stops to adjust his pants, I meet the girl’s green eyes. Her gaze is like her voice. It’s true and doesn’t waver. She sits up, edging her way toward the corner of the sofa as she arranges the gold beads over her lap in an attempt to conceal her crotch. I’m curious to see more of her body, but she hunches over and continues covering as much of her legs as she can with gold beads. They clatter against each other as she struggles for modesty. It’s such a contrast to Oksana next door.
The man takes a step toward me, and I cock my gun. “Did I say you could move?” I ask, putting a hint of granite in my tone.
He dusts his hands over his denim-clad thighs and tries for a practiced smile as he walks toward me, but his eyes shift nervously from side to side. “This is a private room, and I think you’re in the wrong place, friend.”
“I’m not your friend, friend.” I move the barrel of the gun between them before settling the sights on the man. I look back at the golden songbird, who stares directly at me now. “As I said, I’m just checking that everyone is having a splendid time in our beautiful city. Are we?”
This time, the songbird shakes her head, slowly and deliberately, her gold-streaked curls catching the lights surrounding the dressing-table mirror. She looks directly at me and mouths, No.
“I think that the little songbird here might like to come with me,” I say, raising my eyebrows at her.
She nods and steps toward me as I hold out my hand. The beads rattle as she walks, flashes of thigh appearing with each step. The less I can see, the more enticing it is. She places her hand in mine, and I twine my fingers around hers as I imagine those delicate fingers wrapped around other parts of me.
“I think there’s some mistake,” the man says, taking a step toward me.
I point the gun at him and he stops. He’s big enough to bully someone smaller, but not man enough to even try to defend his territory. I know this kind of pathetic worm. He might be a big man in the US, but in Moscow, he wouldn’t last a week.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“We’ve got a flight to catch. We’ve got concerts to get to. Kesera is very important. I?—”
I wave the muzzle of the gun in his face, and he stops. The girl’s warmth sinks into me as she steps closer, wraps an arm around my waist, and leans her head against my side.
It’s a strange feeling, playing someone’s savior. It’s been years since the last time I tried, and it didn’t end well. My little songbird here doesn’t know who I am. If she did, would she still stand so close?
I look down at her with a question on my face, and she nods again. Whatever she faces here, it must be pretty bad for her to take her chances with a gun-wielding stranger.
I lead her into the corridor and open the door next to her dressing room. Beyond it is a darkened room, but she steps inside without hesitation, still holding my hand. I follow her. Something about this room reminds me of the cupboard Sasha and I would hide in at the orphanage, which spooks me for a second.
I’m still gripping my gun, so I lightly touch her shoulder with my other hand. The darkness calls for lowered voices, the way it did when Sasha and I hid as kids. Back when I still believed I had the power to save people.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
Her hair tickles the skin beyond my shirt’s opening, and I suck in a breath as she nods. “Yeah, I will be. Thanks to you.”
“Too early to be thanking me, zolotaya.”
She squeezes the hand that isn’t grasping the gun. “Why? Are you an axe murderer or something?”
I laugh as I lean my back against the door to prevent anyone from barging in, and then I pull her against me and let her drop her head into my chest. “Or something, zolotaya.”
I can’t see her, but I feel the tremble in her muscles as I stroke my hands up and down her back. Her whole body continues trembling, and her skin is ice against mine. All the signs of shock. I pull her closer, making a soft shushing noise. It’s not much of a come-on, but I’m sure she wants to feel safe, and this is the best I can do.
“You keep saying that word. Zolotaya. What does it mean?” There’s a southern twang to her husky voice, so different from the Americans I met when I was in New York.
“It means golden, honey. Because you’re golden. Precious. Not the sort of woman a man should be knocking about.”
She huffs. “No woman deserves that.”
I expect her to step away from me then. When she doesn’t, I let myself sink into the closeness as I stroke my hand from her lower back to the top of her spine and stop at the nape of her neck, circling her narrow throat. The reedy thrum of her pulse thumps beneath my fingertips. She is too delicate and fragile for a man like me.
I’m not sure how to reassure her. If she met anyone who knew me, theywould do nothing to set her mind at rest, so I just hold her in the darkness and silence, feeling the gentle tremor of her small body. And she is small. She’s not statuesque like the dancers, and she has tiny breasts.
Her head is level with my armpit as she burrows into me. I pull her into the circle of my arms, leaning down to bury my face in her hair.
Jasmine and roses.
I continue my rhythmic stroking of her body as I breathe her in.She smells of springtime and hope. It’s winter in Moscow right now. The kind of winter that will stretch on for six months until the snow turns to piles of dirty, icy slush that will yield the bitter fruit of dead bodies when the spring comes.
Her nose presses against my shirt as she moves even closer, and then her voice cuts through the illusion that this is the kind of woman I can pretend to deserve. “What are we doing?”
“Hiding from life. From work,” I say, flicking on the light switch and bathing us both in a blue florescent glow. “We should get going.”
She glances at my gun and then shudders and wraps her arms around herself. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”
I open the door and look into the empty corridor. “We’ll figure something out,” I say without really knowing what I mean.