Chapter 15
“W
ake up, asshole.” Sasha’s voice echoes from the porch, and the screen door rattles as his heavy footsteps thud past the bedroom and into the living room.
A heavy sigh seeps from my lungs as I pull a t-shirt over my head and look longingly at the warm, sleeping body under the covers next to me. A bronze leg tipped with pink toenails pokes from the nest of blankets.
I circle her toe idly with my thumb, but she doesn’t stir. I press a kiss to her cheek, breathing in the scent of flowers and looking at the way her eyelashes cast shadows on her sharp cheekbones.
I pull on some boxers and stride into the living room, where Sasha sprawls on the sofa, a pile of takeout boxes from our favorite Georgian restaurant stacked on the table next to him. The delicious scent of cheese and toasted bread wafts from one of the boxes.
“Khachapuri?” I ask, pointing to the pizza box.
“Probably cold by now. I had a long drive in from the city.” Sasha glares up at me, his face thunderous.
“Why the cavalry?” Cupping the back of my neck, I rub my eyes blearily. “What time is it?’
“It’s midday, asshole.” He shoves the box toward me with his foot, and I collapse onto the old chair opposite him, a spring coil digging into my leg from under the stack of Uzbek blankets we piled onto the threadbare furniture.
I open a box and shovel a slice of the cooling Georgian pizza into my mouth, watching Sasha quizzically. He doesn’t usually turn up unannounced when I’m here, but then again, we’re usually alone here together, grilling shashlik, playing cards, shooting the shit.
“Where’s the fire?” I ask. “I thought I had the rest of the day. I’ve got to get her to the airport at about five thirty, right?” I want more time. I need more time with her. This can’t be over yet, I think as I scan the dark ridge of his brows over the takeout boxes. Sasha is spoiling for a fight, which is never fun for those around him. “What happened? Do we need to pack up and leave now? Is something going down in Moscow?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing you didn’t already know about. I think Antonov and the Night Governor hashed things out, so the China-Russia trade route should be open by next month.” He reaches down for more khachapuri and jams the slowly congealing cheese bread into his mouth. He continues, talking around a mouthful of food. “The Night Governor hasn’t decided what he wants to do with us foot soldiers yet. I’ll probably be in the ass end of nowhere, but maybe you’ll get New York and Dima will get London.”
“Well, as long as we all get out of here, it’s all good,” I say, leaning back in the chair and watching him. “So what are you doing here?”
“Why? Haven’t you finished playing happy families?”
“Who’s playing happy families? She’s asleep. We fucked. I spent the night with her. What’s the big deal?” I wave my second slice of khachapuri at him, hoping I’ll feel more coherent with some food inside me. Sasha is my best friend and I’d die for him, as I’ve proved on more than one occasion, but sometimes he gets on my last nerve. “Since when are you so interested in my love life?”
He snorts. “Love life? You’ve never had one. You fuck girls like Oksana and it’s nothing for me to concern myself with, but this...?” His eyes stray to the bedroom door, which remains shut. “That guy your little songbird came out with is a grade A asshole. Since you decided to play white knight, he followed me around the whole night, talking about which stars on his roster I can hire. As if I’m interested in American pop stars. I’d half a mind to pistol-whip him to shut him up, but I don’t need the drama.” Sasha stares out of the window, mulling something over. He gestures toward the bedroom door. “You don’t need the drama either.”
“What drama, Sasha? I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours. I’m having some fun.”
I bend down to sift through the takeout boxes. Rolls of eggplant, pomegranates, and walnut paste. He’s brought all the good stuff, and it makes me wish I could just picnic alone with Kesera instead of deal with him.
“Good of you to bring us both lunch, but there’s a lot of food here.”
“I asked Dima to come along too, and maybe his brother. Not sure if Marat can make it, but we need to discuss our next steps.”
“Now?”
“Why not?” He points at the closed bedroom door. “You got something better to do?”
“Well, actually, Sasha...since you mention it...” I let my voice trail off as I stare at him. “And I’ll ask you again. Why are you so interested in who I fuck?”
He pulls out his gun and throws it down on the table as he glares at me. “Because you’re not just fucking her, are you? You’ve brought her out here where we come as a family, and you’re doing what? Playing mommies and daddies?”
And this, ladies and gentleman, is why I can’t have something good. Because there’s always a complication and something always goes wrong. I just didn’t imagine in a hundred years that the complication would be Sasha. He’s always had my back.
I run my fingers through my hair, pulling at it as I look at the shut door. “Don’t be a dick. I brought her back with me because I needed a break.” I point at the takeout boxes and try to make light of this situation. “Sometimes you want shashlik, sometimes you want Georgian food. Maybe I just wanted a taste of something different. Why are you so wound up about this? She’s going home tonight.”
I might wish she wasn’t, but if I’d been entertaining any ideas of seeing her again, Sasha’s stormy mood and petulant behavior quickly disabuse me of the notion. I don’t need to drag a nice girl into our drama, and if we’re opening up new trade routes, there’s bound to be drama.
“What is the Night Governor doing? If you’re on edge, then there’s more.” I jam a roll of eggplant into my mouth and chew on it, crunching on a pomegranate seed. The sour juice explodes on my tongue as I grind it between my teeth and watch Sasha.
“He’s a fucker.”
“Guelman? Come on. You don’t rise from being a professor to controlling the Moscow underworld unless you’re a fucker.”
Sasha scowls at me and pulls out his curved knife, spinning it in his hands. It’s a nervous tic. “He’s going to fuck us.”
“What?”
“Leave us all here. Pull the money out and leave us to face the music. We’ve got to get out. All of us. If we’re out of Russia, we’ll have a chance to build a power base that doesn’t rely on him. I don’t trust him, and I need you to focus.”
When Sasha said he wanted me in the States, I had a brief moment imagining a few more nights like this one, but let’s face it. Wherever she lives, it’ll be a long way from Little Odessa and Brighton Beach, which is where I’m going to land. We’ll be worlds apart, even when we’re in the same country.
Kesera had looked at me like I’d placed the stars in the sky above her instead of spending most of last week chasing some Georgian gangsters who’d ripped off the Night Governor around a series of sleazy strip clubs in downtown Moscow. I tracked down the bastards who’d been skimming a five percent cut off the club proceeds.
I shot the manager who skimmed the money, but I’d kept his colleagues alive to send a message. I shot the first one in the ankle, the second one in the knee, and the third one in the thigh. They’d have matching limps to show off around town so that everyone knew what happened when you crossed us.
I don’t enjoy that part of the business, but you have to send a signal. If you mess with any of us, you mess with all of us. And it will cost you. I think they got the message loud and clear.
The girl sleeping in the next room is so damn beautiful inside and out, and I wish I had longer, but she isn’t part of this world. She’s a dream. Sasha is the brother who will fight by my side through the nightmares. I owe him everything.
He pulls a stick of wood from the basket near the fire and begins whittling it with sharp strokes, the blade sending splinters across the floor.
“Come on, brother. You know I’ve got your back.” I lean over and point a finger at him. “You were the one that told me fucking would clear my head. I was just following orders,” I add with a grin.
“You weren’t. You’re not just fucking her.”
“Come on. It’s been a day. What are you talking about?”
“The only woman we’ve ever brought here is Polina.” His words fall like bullets, digging into the floorboards and ricocheting off the walls.
The death of Sasha’s sister sits between us in the silence. I release a long sigh and nod at him as he whittles the stick into the figure of a man before snapping off its head with his fingers.
“Who’s that?” I ask. “Guelman?”
His lips twist into a rueful half smile. “Don’t we both wish.”
I don’t tell him it was a dick move to bring up Polina. I’m sure he knows. We’re bound by cords of death and missed opportunities. There aren’t many certainties in this life. Sasha’s loyalty is one of them.
Another is that anything good ends up like the snow in Moscow by the end of February—a gray slush encrusted with grime that hides things you’d rather not know about. Then it melts, only to freeze again into sheets of black ice that deliver nothing but broken bones and black eyes.
He’s right. It’s intoxicating to be so close to someone, and I let myself get carried away because it felt so damn perfect, but it’s risky. And I’m getting too close.