Chapter 2
VIVIKA
The steam from the food cart curls up into my face, carrying the smells of charred meat and grease.
My feet ache and my shoes are ruined, the leather ballet flats still damp from this morning's coffee disaster.
The vendor doesn't look up when I approach.
He's busy turning sausages on the grill with a pair of tongs that scrape against the metal and grate on my last nerve.
Smoke wafts between us, and I breathe through my mouth to avoid its thickness settling in my throat. "Which ones are fresh?" I ask.
He grunts, still not meeting my eyes, and gestures vaguely at the row of browned casings glistening under the heat lamps. I lean closer, studying the lineup, trying to find one that doesn't look dried out or overly blackened.
The day has already beaten me down enough without settling for subpar street food, and I'm not about to add another disappointment to the collection.
I hate dealing with picky clients like the one I just ended a sour four-year contract with over my choice of font.
It's like I personally offended him by picking Arial instead of Times New Roman.
Then the airline representative informed me that my flight won't leave until Thursday now instead of this evening, which throws off my entire schedule. With no plan to be at home tonight, I also had no plan to eat at home, and that means no food in my fridge. Thus the street meat.
I press my fingertips against my temple where a dull throb has been building since noon.
I hate when my life doesn’t go according to my plans.
I've planned every waking second of every day of my life for as long as I can remember, right down to what time of day I will take bathroom breaks. Even the tiniest shifts feel jarring.
"That one," I say, pointing to a sausage near the back of the grill, darker than the others but not burnt.
The vendor finally looks up at me as his eyebrows pull together like I've asked for the impossible. "That one's not ready," he grumbles in a thick Serbian accent.
"It looks ready to me," I say, shifting my bag higher on my shoulder. The strap digs into the muscle there, and the pressure sends an ache down my arm. I just want to get this food and put it in my stomach so it stops growling and aching.
The street noise swells around us—a bus hissing to a stop two blocks down, someone shouting in Russian about parking, the distant wail of a siren cutting through the air.
But the man ignores my statement and keeps turning the meat on his grill while mopping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
"Then which one is ready?" I ask again, getting annoyed.
He points with the tongs at a sausage near the front. It's too dark and shriveled, clearly sitting there longer than it should have been.
"I don't want that one," I scoff, scowling at him. With so little time to get my food and get back to work, I can't just walk around hoping to find a different vendor out here.
He shrugs. "Then wait." He sounds rude and dismissive, and I feel my jaw tighten in response.
The cold air bites at my cheeks, and I pull my coat tighter around my body, but it does nothing to stop the chill that's already seeped through the fabric and settled against my ribs.
My stomach growls, and I almost feel like walking away.
"How long?" I ask.
"Five minutes." His curt reply comes with another scowl of warning, and I step back from the cart, but I don't leave.
The vendor mutters under his breath, low enough that I can't make out the words, but the tone is clear. He's as annoyed with me as I am with him. He turns his back to me, adjusting the heat on the grill, and the scrape of metal on metal sets my teeth on edge.
But I'm hungry, and the nearest grocery store is another ten blocks, and the idea of dragging myself there after the day I've had feels insurmountable.
So I stay, shifting my bag again, feeling the weight of my laptop press against my hip.
The vendor finally pulls the sausage I pointed to off the grill, drops it into a paper wrapper, and holds it out without a word.
I reach for it, but he doesn't let go immediately, his fingers gripping the wrapper tight enough that I have to tug.
"How much?" I ask.
"Three hundred rubles."
I stare at him as my hand lingers on the slab of meat. "That's ridiculous," I mutter, but I know if I don't fork over the cash, I don’t eat, and I desperately need to put something in my stomach.
He doesn't even blink. "That's the price," he grumbles in a thin voice, and his eyes narrow on me while he holds the meat tighter as if he's expecting me to take off with his sausage and swindle him over a few hundred rubles.
The heat from the food seeps through the thin paper, warming my palm, and I think about dropping it back onto his cart and walking away. But my stomach twists again, and the thought of going home to an empty fridge makes the decision for me.
I pull out my wallet, fumbling with the zipper, and count out the bills with stiff fingers that don't want to cooperate in the cold. It's not like I'm made of money or anything, but he really is overpriced. I could eat twelve sausages at home for this price.
I slap the money into his palm and glare at him, wrapping my hand back around the plain sausage. The vendor takes the money without thanking me, shoves it into his apron pocket, and turns back to the grill as if I've already disappeared while I scan his cart to see if he has tomato sauce for it.
"Your prices are highway robbery," I mutter, more to myself than to him. "I shouldn’t have to haggle with dirty old men about overpriced street meat!" I'm angry now, and I don’t care who hears me or what they think of me.
"Then don't come back," he retorts without looking up. The nerve of some people. It's not like I'm insulting his cooking. This could be a very delicious sausage. It's just too expensive, and the only reason he can keep charging this much is because poor fools like me pay it.
I open my mouth to respond, but before I can, I hear the screech of tires behind me.
The sound is sudden and close, and I spin around, instinct pulling my body away from the noise in fear.
A black car has stopped at an angle in the street, its front end jutting into the crosswalk, and the door on the passenger side flies open before the vehicle has fully stopped moving.
A man steps out, racing directly toward me, and my brain struggles to process what I'm seeing.
He's tall, broad across the shoulders, and his coat flares out behind him as he moves.
I take a step back, and my heel catches on the uneven pavement, making me stumble.
But I find myself boxed in between the vendor and the building behind us.
The sausage slips from my hand, and the vendor shouts, but the words don't register because the man is already in front of me, and his hand is closing around my waist.
I try to scream, but the sound catches in my throat, strangled by shock and the sudden pressure of his arm locking around my ribs. My feet leave the ground, and I find myself flailing sideways as he lifts me.
"No! What are you doing!" I kick out, connecting with his shin, but it doesn't slow him down one bit. The pavement rushes past beneath me, and then I'm airborne for a fraction of a second before I'm dropped into the back seat of the car.
My heart is racing and I feel dizzy and frantic.
The impact in the car sends a jolt of pain through my arm into my shoulder, and I scramble to push myself up, my hands sliding on the smooth material, but before I can get my bearings, the man climbs in after me, blocking the open door.
The door slams shut, and the car lurches forward, throwing me back against the seat.
I hear the engine roar, feel the vibration of it through the floor, and my stomach drops as the car accelerates hard, making the tires squeal again.
What the hell just happened and who the fuck are these men?