Taylor
Five days later, it’s one of those rare days when everyone leaves the office at the same time, at the appropriate time.
Mikhail is usually at least late, but it’s Friday, and I guess even he has plans.
I try not to let the jealousy crawl up my throat imagining what he could be doing that he’s in a hurry to get out of the office at five thirty sharp.
Maybe he has a date. I’m the one who told him I didn’t want a relationship. I’m the one who made it clear I’m here only to work. I have no right to be jealous.
And besides, I haven’t forgotten about Orlov.
Or Lyubertsy. Or the page Mikhail took from me.
Or the photographs of his mother spread across his desk while Arkady talked about men following her.
But I’ve decided to keep the peace. And my job.
They are one and the same. Petyr was right about at least one thing. I only have to become inconvenient.
I’m about to get in the car with Viktoriya and Dima when I notice Mikhail do something he’s never done before in all the days I’ve watched him leave work. Or rather, it’s something Pavel does.
He turns right instead of left.
My heart starts to pound in my chest as I get a reckless idea. I whirl around and blurt, “Actually, I just remembered, I have to go to the shops. I’ll catch a taxi.”
“Are you sure?” Viktoriya calls after me, but I’m already moving down the sidewalk, trying not to look like I’m running after the governor of Moscow Oblast.
“I’m sure, thank you! Have a good weekend!” I yell, already lifting a hand at the first taxi I see.
The driver pulls over, and I climb into the back seat so quickly that I nearly shut my coat in the door. “Follow that black car.”
He looks at me in the mirror.
I hear how that sounded.
“Not like in a movie,” I add. “Just…stay behind it.”
His eyebrows rise.
“It’s my boss.”
That doesn’t appear to help.
I give him the address of my apartment as though that somehow proves I am not insane and point through the windshield. “Please?”
He shrugs and pulls into traffic.
I sink lower in the seat until only the top of my head is above the window and watch Mikhail’s sedan several cars ahead of us.
This is stupid. Invasive. Reckless. I’ve spent the last five days trying to convince myself that the things I know about him are explainable.
That whatever exists between Mikhail and Orlov is political or financial or some particular variety of powerful-man ugliness that I don’t understand because I am twenty and American and have been in Russia for barely long enough to learn which grocery stores stay open late.
I also kissed him five days ago. Softly. And he kissed me back like he was afraid I might disappear if he moved too quickly.
That memory has been doing completely unreasonable things to me ever since.
Now I’m paying a taxi driver money I absolutely should not be spending to secretly follow him because Pavel turned right instead of left.
I am an idiot.
Mikhail’s car moves away from the government district and toward the river. Grand stone buildings give way to warehouses, service roads, and blocks of industrial property waiting to become luxury apartments. More traffic peels away until the sedan is easier to follow and harder to hide behind.
I tell myself there could be a reasonable explanation. Politicians visit development sites. Politicians meet donors late at night. Politicians travel with armed drivers and have private conversations about transport companies whose owners have relatives who disappear under suspicious circumstances.
My own thoughts sound sarcastic now.
Mikhail’s sedan turns off the main road onto a narrower industrial street.
“Stop here,” I tell the driver.
He looks at the road ahead. “Here?” There is nothing here except a shuttered auto shop and a chain-link fence.
“Yes.”
He tells me the fare, and I wince. Of course following a suspected criminal politician across Moscow is also financially irresponsible.
Ironically, if said suspected criminal politician knew about it, he would yell at me and insist on paying the fare himself.
I pay him and step out before I can reconsider.
The taxi drives away, leaving me alone in the cold.
Mikhail’s sedan disappears around the next bend. I pull my coat tighter and follow.
The cold closes around me as I walk through the dark, afraid that I may have lost him in the last few minutes.
I consider calling another taxi and going home, but I would have to stand here and wait for it, and the thought of returning to my apartment with no idea where Mikhail went suddenly feels worse than the thought of continuing.
Then I see his sedan parked farther down the road.
The building beside it appears abandoned.
Three stories, narrow windows, faded lettering above a loading entrance.
Light shows through one window near the back.
There are two other cars parked outside.
Neither looks like the vehicles donors arrive in.
One is an old black SUV with mud crusted around the tires.
The other has no rear license plate. I move closer. Every step feels louder than the last.
The loading entrance is closed, but yellow light spills through a narrow gap beneath it. Voices carry from inside, low and indistinct. I circle toward the side of the building, keeping close to the wall.
There’s a window at shoulder height, filmed with grime except for one clear section near the corner. I should leave. Instead, I look through it.
The room inside is larger than I expected. A former warehouse floor, mostly empty except for several wooden tables and a line of metal shelving against one wall.
Mikhail stands near the center. Arkady is beside him with six other men. My stomach tightens. Six. I don’t know why that number feels familiar at first. Then I remember the page. SIX — PENDING.
The men are not standing together like friends or associates.
Two are sitting in metal chairs. One has his hands restrained behind him.
Another is standing near the wall with two men positioned on either side of him.
The others are separated across the room as though someone has deliberately decided they should not be able to speak to one another.
None of them are dressed like political donors. Heavy coats. Work boots. One has a tattoo climbing above his collar. Another has dried blood along one side of his mouth.
A man I do not recognize places a black plastic case on the table.
Mikhail opens it. Inside are phones. Several of them. Burner phones, I think, though I have only ever seen those in movies. Cheap black rectangles piled beside documents and folded papers.
Arkady places something else on the table. A metal case. The tattooed man opens it.
Inside are clear plastic packets filled with white powder, packed tightly between boxes marked with medical labels.
For a moment, my mind refuses to identify what I’m seeing.
Flour? Chemicals? Anything else. Arkady pulls one of the medical boxes aside, revealing more packets underneath.
My body goes even colder beneath my coat.
Drugs. Real drugs. Not a transport company with strange paperwork. Not a wealthy businessman with a dead cousin. Not security measures I could explain away because Mikhail is governor. Cocaine.
Mikhail stands ten feet away from enough of it to put everyone in this building in prison. My fingers press against the brick wall. I think of his house. His cars. The guards. The way men twice his age wait for permission to sit down. The way he gives orders.
Inside, one of the restrained men says something. Mikhail turns toward him.
Even through the glass, the energy of the room changes. Everyone looks at Mikhail. The man in the chair shakes his head. Mikhail says something again. I can’t hear all of it.
Then one word carries clearly enough through the glass. “…Orlov…”
My stomach drops like I’m on the highest point of a roller coaster. The man shakes his head harder. Mikhail steps closer, and I strain to hear.
“…Lyubertsy…”
Another sentence disappears beneath the hum of something mechanical inside the building. Then: “…phone…”
The page flashes through my mind.
LYUBERTSY — CLEARED.
O.T. — TRANSFERRED.
SIX — PENDING.
I grip the edge of the window. Whatever I found in that folder, whatever Mikhail tried to scare me away from, this is it.
The man in the chair says something quickly, and Mikhail listens, but his expression doesn’t change. He asks another question, and the man shakes his head. Mikhail presses an index finger to his lips, shushing him. The gesture is almost gentle. That makes it worse.
He asks again. The man refuses. Mikhail hits him. The punch lands clean against his face, and I flinch as the man’s head snaps sideways. Blood appears immediately at the corner of his mouth. The chair scrapes backward against the concrete. No one inside reacts.
Mikhail doesn’t look angry. He steps in front of the man again and says something I can’t hear.
The man spits blood onto the floor. Mikhail waits.
Another question. Another refusal. The second punch hits the other side of his face, and my hand flies to my mouth.
The man groans through clenched teeth and folds forward as far as the restraints allow.
Mikhail reaches down and takes his jaw in one hand, forcing his face back up. He speaks quietly. I can’t hear the words. I don’t need to. The man begins talking. Fast. Mikhail releases him. Arkady says something, and one of the other men picks up a phone from the table.
Mikhail watches impassively. He doesn’t look angry or pleased.
He doesn’t look away. Mikhail watches with the calm attention he gives reports in meetings.
Five days ago, he sat beside me on the floor and ate Fritos while pretending he hated them.
He kissed me gently enough that I could still feel it when I went to bed.
I need to go, but I’m frozen to the spot.
Fear has rooted me to this place like I’m part of the scenery itself.
I could grow old here and die here if I don’t move right now, and yet my mind is screaming and my body won’t listen.
Inside, Mikhail turns toward another one of the six men.
Arkady places a phone in front of him. The man’s face goes pale.
Mikhail says something. The man begins talking immediately. Smart man.
My legs feel detached from me. My pulse pounds in my throat.
The road where I left the taxi is less than fifty yards away.
I could get there. I could call another one.
I could go back to my apartment and pretend I never saw this ugliness.
I could listen to Petyr, keep my head down, pretend that all is well, go back to who I was before I ever accepted a drink from Mikhail Korolev.
Before he kissed me. Before I started wondering whether he might actually care about me.
I suck in air, finally feeling sensation return to my body, and just as my eyes slide away from the horrible sight, the weight and heat of a man’s hand is clamped over my mouth.