Chapter Two
Lev Moroz sat across from me, his phone face down beside his drink.
I sat in the back booth with the wall behind me and the room in front of me.
My black wool coat lay folded at my side, gloves tucked into the pocket.
The charcoal suit fit because my tailor knew how to cut cloth around shoulders most men tried not to look at twice, and the gold watch at my wrist caught the lamp each time I moved.
The Samovar Room was full enough that no one crossed it quickly.
Men leaned close over low tables. Women in silk and diamonds sat under brass lamps, their laughter mixing with piano notes from the corner.
A waiter carried a tray of cognac snifters past our booth.
At the bar, a man in a navy suit argued over a bottle of Japanese whisky while the bartender kept smiling.
Late-autumn cold slipped in every time the door opened. It brought the smell of wet pavement and car exhaust before the heat closed around it.
“Anything else, Mr. Sorin?” the waitress asked.
She was blond, pretty, and careful. She’d brought Armagnac because I’d ordered it once three weeks ago and The Samovar Room remembered men like me.
“No, thank you,” I said.
Her smile lingered. “I’ll be close.”
“I’m sure you will.”
She left before Lev could look amused.
Gennady Kask stood near the bar with two men from his family’s Brighton crew.
Lev saw him too.
His glass stayed on the table.
The Kasks were useful when they remembered the shape of the arrangement, and they were dangerous when they forgot it.
Gennady forgot often.
He turned his glass by the rim and watched Nadia move between the mirrored bar and a table near the piano.
Black satin skimmed her shoulders and tucked into slim black trousers. Low heels carried her over the tight floor without wasted steps. Small gold hoops flashed against her dark hair, which was pulled high from her face, leaving the long line of her neck bare.
Gennady stepped away from the bar and put himself in her path.
Nadia stopped with half a stride between them. She didn’t back up. She didn’t smile. The tray stayed level in her hand while he leaned close enough to speak under the music.
I couldn’t catch his words from the booth.
I caught her answer in the small shake of her head.
Gennady’s mouth flattened. His gaze moved from her throat to the black satin at her breasts, then lower to the curve of her hips. He took his time with it, as if looking were another way to put his hands on her.
Lev’s hand stilled beside his glass.
Nadia moved around Gennady before he decided whether he’d let her pass. She set two glasses in front of an older couple, took their signed check, and crossed back toward the service station with her shoulders straight.
I’d watched men test her patience before.
They reached with their eyes, their money, their voices, and the casual expectation that a woman in a lounge uniform owed them softness. Nadia gave them the drink they ordered, the check when they asked, and nothing they could mistake for permission.
Plenty of women leaned toward me because of what I was: the Sorin heir, an enforcer, a man my father’s enemies lowered their voices around. I didn’t resent it. Power had uses. Beauty had uses. Desire had uses.
Nadia had never angled herself toward any of it.
That was what caught me first.
She was gorgeous. Any man with working eyes could see the proud line of her nose, the curve of her mouth, the long neck bared by the high pull of her hair.
The black satin and tailored trousers didn’t hide the softness of her breasts or the gentle curves she carried with that careful, upright discipline.
She was sensual without offering it to the room.
That mattered.
In my world, women often learned to make a weapon of wanting. They lowered lashes, chose dresses like invitations, and waited for men like me to notice. Nadia didn’t do that. She moved as if her body belonged to her even when men tried to price the space around it.
Lev shifted his gaze from Nadia to me.
I lifted the Armagnac and let the glass warm between my fingers. “Say it.”
“I prefer my face as it is.”
“Then make the wiser choice.”
His mouth twitched. “You’re focused on Kask tonight.”
“I’m focused on the room.”
“Yes,” Lev said. “That’s what I meant.”
I took one sip. The Armagnac burned warm and clean. “Gennady is loud when he thinks no one can touch him.”
“He’s always loud.”
“He’s getting worse.”
Lev glanced at the bar, then back to me. “His uncle has been pressing your father for more room in Brooklyn.”
“My father likes men who press. It gives him an excuse to decide how much pain their pride can afford.”
A server brushed past with a tray of martinis, and the booth beside us burst into laughter over a toast. The noise covered Lev’s answer.
“Your father hasn’t been taking meetings this week,” he said.
“No, he hasn’t.”
“The Kasks notice things like that.”
“They notice what they’re allowed to notice.”
Lev didn’t argue. He knew better than to ask in a crowded room why the doctor had visited the house twice in three days, or why Mikhail Sorin had started receiving men from a chair instead of from behind his desk.
My father was still Pakhan.
The city could keep believing that as long as his hand could close around a pen and his voice could come through a closed door.
At the bar, Gennady laughed at something one of his men said. The sound carried too far. Nadia didn’t turn.
The front door opened again.
A young man came in without giving his coat to the hostess.
He paused just inside the entrance, shoulders high against the cold he’d brought with him.
He wore a dark hoodie under a cheap black coat, and the hoodie’s edge was frayed near the zipper.
A bruise shadowed one side of his jaw, yellow at the edges and split by a thin red scrape.
He had the lean strength of twenty and the kind of pride that made a man stand taller when he should be measuring exits.
He spotted Gennady first, then Nadia.
The tray in Nadia’s hand dipped less than an inch before she steadied it.
“Petya,” she said.
I heard the name because the space between two songs opened just enough to carry it.
The young man’s shoulders tightened at her voice. Color rose along his neck. He looked away from her first, then back at Gennady, as if anger were easier to show than whatever her face had put in him.
Gennady turned from the bar, smiling now.
“Well,” Gennady said, loud enough for nearby tables to hear. “The little debtor found his courage.”
Petya’s hands closed at his sides. He walked toward Gennady with his chin up and a white envelope gripped in one fist.
Nadia moved before he reached the bar.
She came around a waiter, set her tray down on the service station without looking at it, and stepped between Petya and Gennady’s two men.
“Go home,” she said.
Petya looked at her, then past her. “I’m not leaving.”
“This isn’t the place.”
“It became the place when he came to your work.”
Gennady’s smile widened. He turned a little so the nearest tables could see him enjoying himself.
Nadia lowered her voice. “Petya, look at me.”
“I’m not a child.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“Then don’t talk to me like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Gennady laughed. “That would be difficult, yes? Since you’ve proved many times you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Petya took one step forward.
Nadia’s hand came up against his chest, her palm flat and her fingers spread over his hoodie.
He stopped because she was the one touching him.
Gennady’s men shifted their weight. One had a scar under his left eye. The other wore a brown leather jacket too expensive for the hands hanging out of its sleeves. Neither reached for Petya. They didn’t need to reach. Petya was already close enough to make a mistake.
The lounge kept moving, but the tables nearest the bar went quieter. A woman at a corner booth lowered her drink. The bartender set down his towel. No one looked directly at Gennady for too long.
Petya lifted the envelope. “It’s five hundred.”
Gennady glanced at it and then at Nadia. “Five hundred.”
“It’s what I have tonight,” Petya said.
Nadia’s fingers tightened once against the front of his hoodie. “Don’t do this here.”
Petya kept his eyes on Gennady. “You’ll take it and leave her out of this.”
His voice came out low, rough, and forced through his teeth.
Gennady set his drink on the bar. “Leave her out of what?”
Petya’s jaw flexed.
Nadia said, “We’re leaving.”
Gennady angled his body so the room saw his smile and not the threat underneath it. “No, no. Petya came to speak. Let him speak.”
“I said we’re leaving.” Nadia stepped closer to Petya, putting more of herself between him and the men. “You’re not taking money from him in my place of work.”
“My place of work,” Gennady said softly. “You say that as if it protects you.”
Petya’s face flushed dark.
Nadia caught his wrist before his fist came up. Her grip was small against his bones, but Petya froze like she’d locked iron around him.
“Don’t give him what he wants,” she said.
“He can’t talk to you like that.”
“He can, and he will, if you give him a reason to make this louder.” Her voice stayed low enough that the room didn’t get all of her. Petya got every word. “Walk out with me.”
“I started this.”
“Yes.” Her eyes shone under the brass lights, but her voice stayed steady. “You’ll make it worse if you swing at a man who brought witnesses.”
Gennady’s scarred man smiled.
I set my glass down.
Lev’s eyes moved to my hand.
I stayed seated.
If I crossed that floor, Gennady would learn too much before I’d had a hold on the threat. He’d put more eyes on Nadia, more hands between her and any exit, and more pressure on whatever debt Petya had dragged to her door.
I wouldn’t do Gennady’s work for him.
Petya shoved the envelope toward Gennady. “Take the money.”
Gennady ignored his hand. “Your sister speaks for you now?”
“My sister isn’t part of this.”