Chapter Vadim
Vadim
This was why I didn’t socialise with women.
Men were simple and prompt. A shower, a change of clothes, a comb through the hair.
Women had an entirely different relationship with time—the hair alone could account for twenty minutes, then the face, then the accessories, then the question of which shoes matched the bag or the outfit, then the jewellery, each piece apparently requiring individual consideration.
I pushed my sleeve back and checked my watch again.
If I had a reservation it would be gone by now.
Bogdan cleared his throat.
“Shall I fetch her?”
“What are you going to do if she refuses?” I asked, without looking up. “Pistol whip her again?”
The colour left his face. He shook his head.
My eyes wandered to the top of the staircase again. Business dinners, high-stakes poker games and murderous activities were all well within my comfort zone. But this was new territory entirely. Taking my wife out for dinner.
I touched my tie to ensure it sat centred at my collar.
“Why so tense, brat?”
I closed my eyes. If I didn’t need the extra security at home I would have tossed him off the property weeks ago.
“Here. Have a drink.”
I turned with a sigh. The vodka looked good. I took it and threw it back before handing the glass back.
“Is this what they call it?” he said, warming up to whatever was coming. “Ah-ha. Date night.”
Four days after the basement, Sergei had died and his body been planted where it would be found. I was a little sad to have the basement empty. Perhaps my brother could fill the vacancy as my punching bag.
“Oh, wow,” Konstantin said, looking past me.
I turned.
Iskra stood at the top of the stairs, wringing her hands. I flicked my hand to bring her down.
I couldn’t understand the dress. She usually wore thick cardigans over modest cuts. This had two thin straps and those breasts could poke someone’s eyes out. Her hair did very little to contain the situation.
“I don’t think we should leave Runa,” she said, hesitantly slipping an arm through her coat.
I had missed the coat hanging from her arm entirely.
Perhaps the dress was old and her breasts were larger now. Both were plausible.
“Nonsense,” Konstantin said. “You two go and have fun—we’re all here.”
Olya was staying overnight. Breast milk in the fridge. An arsenal of weapons inside the house and beside the gates. Runa was in safer hands than most heads of state.
Her heels clicked on the floor as she went to find Olya in the kitchen.
“She cleans up well,” Konstantin murmured.
I caught him looking at her calves. Everything else was covered but that was beside the point. I slapped him on the back of the head.
“What was that for?” he growled, rubbing the spot.
“She is your sister,” I said, removing a piece of lint from my jacket.
He snorted. Then laughed.
I strode past him and down the hall to extract Iskra from Olya.
“Wait. What if—” she began.
“We’re leaving. Runa has everything she needs. Nothing will happen,” I said, and walked her out.
My men moved immediately—two flanking our back, one running ahead to the car.
“Have fun,” Konstantin said, and shut the door firmly behind us.
“I’ve never left her before,” Iskra said, trying to look back as we reached the car. “Well. Not willingly.”
“Why are my breasts on display?” I demanded, crossing my arms and tapping my foot on the gravel.
Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. She raised her purse.
I stuffed her into the car before she could deploy it, smiling at the words she used on the way in.
??
??
??
It was pleasant having Iskra out of the house.
Though I hadn’t fully accounted for how attractive she was outside of it.
Her curves filled her dress in ways they hadn’t before—her body changed by Runa in ways I hadn’t been paying attention to because I hadn’t thought to buy her anything new.
A reasonable oversight. Sending Iskra unsupervised onto the internet to shop presented its own category of risk, given her previous relationship with online purchasing and unstable chemicals.
The symmetry of her face was pleasing. Perfect bow-tipped lips—Runa’s lips, I realised, or rather Runa had hers—and the kind of face that functioned equally well expressing contempt or saying nothing at all. Both of which she deployed regularly.
I was still thinking about those lips when she placed her water on the table.
Yes. Iskra had been right about missing Runa.
I hadn’t anticipated how uncomfortable I would feel taking my daughter’s mother away for the evening.
Work was different. Work was a necessity.
I was still reconciling exactly when a six-and-a-half-month-old baby had begun dictating the shape of my day when Iskra set her glass down.
“I need to visit the ladies’ bathroom,” she said.
I glanced at Tikhon, who stood a few feet away.
“Oh, please.” Her expression was flat. “I don’t need a byki escort to pee.”
I reached for a cigarette from my breast pocket, allowing myself a smug grin. I didn’t need to remind her of the basement—her rosy cheeks spoke volumes.
She stood.
I considered giving her access to a credit card. She couldn’t wear dresses that clung to her like that. I couldn’t take my eyes off her ass. Such a sweet little ass that was all mine.
Then I scanned the room and noted three men discreetly looking at my wife. Three. I lit the cigarette and looked at each of them in turn before waving Bogdan over.
It was entirely possible to live a long and productive life with only one eye.
The three tables were quickly cleared, fresh tablecloths added and glassware so clean it caught the spotlights and threw them back. This was the advantage of being the landlord to most of the city—a phone call, a name, a table that materialised as though it had always been waiting.
I lifted my glass and savoured the drink slowly before glancing out of the window.
At this height Chernograd’s night lights spread out below like scattered stars—the port district, the cathedral, the dark line of the river cutting through it all.
My city. Every light in it paying rent to me in one form or another.
Iskra had declined alcohol, even though a small amount was permissible during breastfeeding. Of course she had.
Tenacity. A forensic scientist’s brain. Beauty I didn’t like to share and hadn’t been able to replace with any of the women I’d tried.
I felt deceived all over again—not by a lie exactly, but by the gap between the reluctant, biddable bride I had expected and the woman who had blown up my east wing, mapped a route through three continents, built a life in Istanbul and come back to Chernograd on her knees for her daughter without once losing the thing behind her eyes that made her dangerous.
Reluctant admiration forced itself upon me. I accepted it grudgingly, the way I accepted most things I hadn’t chosen.
She was a worthy opponent.
A flurry of blue from the corner of my eye and she was back—walking with the purposeful stride of a woman who had remembered how to move through a room. She glanced at the empty tables as she passed, clocking the cleared space the way she clocked everything, filing it without breaking stride.
Her skin was paler since Istanbul.
But the glow was back. And her head was high.
And for once I didn’t want to crush her like a bug beneath my shoe.
I took the last draw from my cigarette and crushed it on the plate.
Interesting.