Chapter 8
When you don’t speak the language, you’ve got nothing but body language to go on, and a month of concerts in Russia, Israel, and Dubai—plus trailing around after slimy Jimmy and the men he likes to hang around with—has sharpened my senses.
Vadim’s friend doesn’t like me.
His eyes keep cutting to me, and he jabs his finger at Vadim like he’s trying to make a point when he looks at me. He threw the keys Vadim’s way so he had to step away from me, and he flashed a malevolent grin when we were separated.
I must be too tired to think clearly. I was so focused on parsing the body language between the man I’ve chosen to go home with and his handsome friend that I missed the bigger threat. I didn’t even notice Jimmy approaching. Now he’s looming over me, pressing his fingers hard enough into my arm to leave a bruise.
I suck a breath through my teeth, but Vadim moves fast for such a big man, gripping Jimmy’s arm and twisting it behind his back until he makes a squealing noise.
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Vadim snarls, and I smile. I shouldn’t like the threat of violence, but it makes me wonder what he’d be like in bed. Would he be gentle or unleash some of that power on my body? What would that feel like?
I tamp down the thoughts and try to focus on the conversation, but I’m so tired that the volume of their words fades to a low buzz in my ears.
“Sasha here is in charge of booking flights. According to the roster, you aren’t out of here until Sunday night, so if you want to take a straight flight back to Nashville, I would advise waiting for the use of the private jet. You are, of course, welcome to try Sheremetyevo airport, but you never know who you might meet.” Vadim drops Jimmy’s arm and slips his hand to his holster, fingering his gun.
“Well, look here, young man, I need you to understand that Kesera and I have meetings in Moscow tomorrow. I need to take her to see some promoters. We’ve got important business to do,” Jimmy puffs out.
Sasha pulls a gun from his waistband and starts flicking the safety catch on and off. “No, little man, I believe that Vadim wants to take your singer out on the town. Am I right?” He cocks his head at Vadim, looking to see how his friend will react. I’m glad there’s a new focus for the dark-haired man’s dislike and all his venom is now directed at someone who deserves it.
Jimmy blanches at being called little man, but he’s half a head shorter and at least two guns down on the two Russian men, so he doesn’t argue.
Sasha glares at the man who has made my last nine months a living hell with his demands and threats. “I’m the one who deals with the promoters. If you need to talk about any of your artists, I know who’s looking for headline entertainment in Italy and Cyprus. Vadim will have your little girl back at the airport in time for the flight on Sunday.”
“But I?—”
Sasha holds up a hand, halting Jimmy with a single gesture. Jimmy looks between the two men as Vadim pulls me against his side and wraps his arm around my shoulder. It’s obvious Jimmy is out of his depth.
“Might I suggest that it would be in your best interest to do what I say?” Vadim says. “We are very generous hosts when our guests don’t cause us trouble, but we aren’t the kinds of men you want to cross, Mr. Ullrich. We aren’t those kinds of men at all...” He looks pointedly down at his gun, his message clear.
Jimmy glares at me, but I seize the chance to get out of here. I stand on my tiptoes to whisper into Vadim’s ear. “Let’s go.”
Vadim shivers as my lips touch his skin, then leads me out of the club. And I follow him, telling myself it’s the right thing to do. So far, he’s been kind to me. It’s been months since anyone touched me, and his hands felt good.
We get in the back seat of a low black sedan, and the lights of Moscow shine against the car windows. Buildings slide past the glass, their fa?ades lit up like wedding cakes, with snow banked against their doorways. The city is draped in white finery.
I press my face against the glass, watching the lights pick up the faded pastels of buildings that look ghostly in the darkness as I try to focus on something other than the presence of the man in the back seat with me. I lean my forehead against the window, closing my eyes and feeling the coolness of the condensation as I breathe in.
Now that I’m alone in the car with him, the exhaustion hits me and I’m questioning my judgement again. I let my attraction to this stranger overpower my common sense. He’s so much bigger than me and can do what he wants with my body, and the thought is equal parts thrilling and terrifying.
“You’re shivering.” Vadim’s Russian accent seems more pronounced without the thumping music in the background. His fingers paint a trail of fire down my arm, and the hair on my forearm rises to meet the heat of his touch. He cages my palm between his two enormous hands and rubs my fingers. “You’re absolutely frozen. Come here.”
He pulls me toward him, opening his coat and folding me, my beads, sequins, and thin jacket against the pine-scented warmth of his skin. I burrow into his side, nestling against his strength. I rub my forehead against the triangle of skin at his throat, and he goes still. I wait for a kiss, for something sexual, but the only thing moving is his heart, which thuds against his ribs and beats against my ear.
Reluctantly, I pull away and look out of the window. “It’s beautiful.”
“Better by night, when you can’t see the grime or the scars.”
I glance at him, and he lets his otherworldly blue eyes drift to my lips before they slide toward the window.
The car swings around the ring road, and the Kremlin’s turrets loom into view, spires blazing bright against the darkness. I feel transported in time.
“It’s like a fairy tale. Look at the castles, the towers, the houses of noblemen. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What kind of fairy tale, zolotaya? A Disney story where the woodland creatures bring you breakfast and everyone lives happily ever after?” Vadim asks.
“What other kind of fairy tale is there?”
He settles back against the seat, fingers tracing mine as he tightens his grasp on my hands, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. Instead, he looks out of the window, at the high red walls and dark green towers of the Kremlin. “The real kind. We killed all the noblemen in Russia. If you’re looking for a fairy tale, we have only those where blood is spilled and there’s a steep price to be paid for everything you gain. In our stories, Cinderella’s sisters are tortured to death and witches’ houses run through the woods on chicken’s feet.”
I snort with laughter and bat his chest with my hand, but he doesn’t flirt back. He just keeps watching me with hooded eyes. “You’re just trying to scare me. You’ve no more seen a house balanced on bird’s feet than I’ve met a woodland animal that wants to have a chat while helping me out.”
“You Americans,” he sighs, gripping my hand again. “I’m just trying to point out that in the real fairy tales, it’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The price for the happiness has to be paid.”
“That’s a grim view of the world.”
“A realistic one, perhaps.”
I stare down at our clasped hands and stroke circles on his palm. I want to curl up against him, but he doesn’t look like he’d welcome the touch.
“You don’t have dreams? Nothing you’ve set your heart on?” I ask.
“I’ve willed things to happen. I mark my territory, watch my back, and defend what’s mine, but I don’t dream. Dreams are for fools.” He pulls my hands to his lips and presses a kiss to my fingers, sending a molten thread of heat between my legs. Every nerve ending in my body is attuned to the place where his lips touch my skin.
“What’s the difference? I dreamed of being up on that stage, and now I am.” My eyes fall to his mouth and I imagine kissing him, but he looks away, lowering our hands to my lap.
Vadim’s thumbs draw circles on my wrists, tracing my pulse. “But there was a price to be paid, wasn’t there? What was that I saw tonight? The price for fame?”
I sit up straight, pulling my hands out of his and shifting toward my side of the seat. As I look out the window, my back straightens. “I didn’t sleep my way to the top, if that’s what you’re implying.”
There’s a soft laugh in my ear as Vadim moves closer and pulls me into his arms. He catches my hair in his hand and draws it away from my ear, pressing a kiss right beneath it, and I can’t help the moan that escapes me.
“God, you smell like fucking springtime,” he murmurs against my neck.
Part of me wants to lie back against him and bare my neck to him like an offering, but the other part of me feels prickly and offended. I pull away and turn in his arms, looking up at him. His breath comes faster now, and the blue around his pupils has narrowed to a faint ring.
“Didn’t you want to help me tonight? Does everything have to be a transaction?” I stare up at him, waiting for his reply as the car pulls to a stop and idles at the side of an embankment.
Instead of responding, he leans forward to tap on the glass divider as he says something in Russian to the driver.
He opens the door, letting in an icy blast of air. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
Stepping out of the car, he reaches back to pull me into the snowy night. Soft flakes fall around us, their dance lit by the glint from the gold domes above us.
“Where are we?”
Vadim smiles. “Have you seen anything of Moscow?”
“I walked around Red Square this morning, but I didn’t go into St. Basil’s, and they were repairing Lenin. Is that right? Can you repair a dead body?” I walk beside him up the steps of a huge church by the silent waters of the Moscow River.
“I think you have to replace the formaldehyde and touch up the wax. You didn’t miss much. St. Basil’s is dark and poky inside.” Vadim’s lips curve up at the corners, and he holds out his arm so that he can help me up the slippery steps. “Lenin’s dead. If you make it back to Moscow for another concert, he’ll still be dead.”
“So where are we?” I look at the lights moving in the water. The snow gives the air a hushed quality, despite the low drone of traffic in the background.
“I’m taking you to all my favorite places: a church, a bar, and a dacha.”
I want to ask what a dacha is, but I’m stuck on the fact that the first place he’s taken me to is a church. I start to hum “Going to the Chapel of Love” by The Dixie Cups as I smile at him questioningly.
Vadim shakes his head, a smile ghosting his lips as he pulls me against his body, folding me into his winter coat and guarding me against the cold and darkness. Before us is another wedding cake of a building, its bright gold domes spearing the night sky. It’s a strange place to bring me, but I suppose I haven’t been on many dates anywhere, and never somewhere as exotic as Moscow with a man as fierce as this. Perhaps this is normal here.
“This is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Stalin pulled it down. It was going to become a palace for the Soviets, but the Great Patriotic War got in the way.”
“Which war?”
“I think you call it the second big war.”
“Oh, World War Two.”
Vadim leans down and tightens his arms around my waist. “Are you listening to my story, my zolotaya, or are you trying to teach me English?”
I lean back and snuggle into his body as his voice drifts through the dark air.
“The Soviets ran out of money to construct this church, but when the USSR fell, the people of Moscow donated the money to rebuild it as beautiful as it ever was.”
We hold hands and walk up the steps to the bridge, the lights of the cathedral bright against the water. He gives me his coat, which is warm from the heat of his body.
“It moves me whenever I come here. I like to stop the car on this side of the river and walk over to the bar on the other side and think about the million small sacrifices that went into every brick, every gold leaf on the domes.” He looks up at the church and from this angle, his eyelashes cast shadows against his cheekbones.
“It was the late nineties when they rebuilt it. Things were tough for most people, and yet a million Moscow citizens put their hands in their pockets to resurrect it. You can knock us down, bulldoze our foundations, but we have faith that we will rise again.” He squeezes my hand.
“And that’s not a fairy tale?” I ask, gripping his fingers tighter.
“No, zolotaya, it’s a million small sacrifices. At a time when people couldn’t afford the basics, they paid to build this.” He smiles at me, leaning down to brush his lips against mine. It’s so cold and his touch is so soft that I’m surprised I can feel it all the way to my toes.
Against the bridge, the river curves away into the darkness, and my feet slide on the icy ground. Vadim steadies me, and I laugh as a group of beautiful women walks past us over the bridge. They look like a flock of birds, with short, bright dresses and long legs flashing above their towering stilettos.
“How do they do it? How do they balance on those shoes on this ice? Do they have magic powers? I can barely stay upright in my boots.” I’m wide eyed as they sashay past us.
Vadim’s deep laugh reverberates behind me. “The price to be paid for beauty. We understand these things in Russia, and we practice for them.”
A couple of them look back at Vadim, leaning into each other and giggling. It makes me want to stick my claws into him—or them. I’m not sure who I want to lash out at first, but I have to remind myself that I’m only here for another couple of days. As he says, this is not a fairy tale.
He wraps his arm around me and pulls me into the shelter of his coat as we walk across the bridge and down wooden steps into a bar.
There’s a wait as a pretty, platinum-haired woman in a white suit shakes her head at Vadim. He leans over and says something in a low voice, and her eyes widen as an older man who must be her manager appears behind her. He nods at Vadim and says something in Russian. I catch the words face control.
As we move through the door and into a curtained waiting area, warm air envelops me and I relax a little.
“What’s face control?” I ask.
Vadim laughs. “You’re pretty enough to come in, zolotaya, and I know the manager.”
The people in here wouldn’t look out of place in Nashville or Austin if we swapped out the cowboy boots for their shoes. There are no more G-strings, just the kind of beautiful people you find in any city on a Saturday night.
The muscles in my shoulders drop slowly away from my ears. I hadn’t realized how much being surrounded by glamorous half-naked Amazons was messing with my head.
Vadim leads me to a table overlooking the river. Patrons turn nervous looks our way before whispering in hushed tones amongst themselves. The ma?tre d” nearly breaks his thin legs as he scrambles to ready our table, and I have the uneasy sense that this may be a fairy tale after all. But instead of the woodcutter, I’ve chosen to go home with the wolf.