Chapter Four #6
She ate four bites. Then bread. Then drank more tea than she seemed to realize while I sat at the edge of the bed and didn’t touch her unless she leaned into me first.
Eventually, she set the cup down.
“What happens tomorrow?” she asked.
“Gennady will make demands.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“He will not get them.”
“What kind of demands?”
“Money. Apology. Return of what he thinks he bought. Alliance compensation if his family decides to pretend his humiliation is a political matter instead of the result of his stupidity.”
“Return,” she repeated.
My hand tightened on my knee. “No.”
She looked at me. “You say that like the world listens.”
“It does when I say it correctly.”
“That sounds like violence.”
“It often is.”
She was quiet for a moment. “And Petya?”
“Protected. Angry. Not yet informed enough to do something foolish for the right reason.”
“That sounds like him.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know he walked into The Samovar Room with five hundred dollars and pride where sense should have been.”
Her mouth tightened, but not in anger at me. “He was trying.”
“I know.”
“He’ll hate you.”
“For taking you?”
“For existing near this.”
“That is fair.”
Her fingers moved over the edge of the sheet. “I don’t know what I feel.”
“You don’t have to know tonight.”
“You keep giving me permission for things I didn’t ask permission for.”
“I’m trying to give back pieces of a night that took too many.”
Her eyes lifted.
The words sat there, plain and too close to soft.
My phone vibrated on the nightstand.
Nadia flinched.
So did the fragile quiet between us.
I picked it up because leaving it would not make the world kinder.
Lev’s name lit the screen.
I answered. “Speak.”
“Kask’s uncle has called your father’s house twice,” Lev said. “The second call reached Mrs. Sorin.”
I stood.
Nadia watched me from the bed, sheet clutched in one hand, my shirt open at her throat.
“What did Galina say?” I asked.
“That you’re unavailable until you decide otherwise.”
My mouth nearly curved. “Good.”
“There’s more. Gennady is telling his people you stole paid property from a sanctioned room.”
Nadia went very still.
I looked at her as Lev spoke again.
“And one Kask car just turned onto Nadia’s block.”
Her face changed before I said a word. She knew. Some part of her understood from the set of my shoulders, from the silence after Lev’s last sentence.
“Petya?” she asked.
I held her gaze and spoke into the phone.
“Put Petya in the car now,” I said. “If he argues, tell him his sister is safe and he can yell at me in person when I allow it. If any Kask man leaves his vehicle, break the hand that opens the door.”
Nadia threw the sheet back and moved to get up.
I crossed the room and caught her before her feet hit the floor too hard. Not holding her down. Holding her steady.
She gripped my forearm. “They’re at my building.”
“Yes.”
“Because of me.”
“Because of Gennady.”
“Petya doesn’t know. He’ll open the door if they say my name.”
“Lev is already moving.”
“You promise?”
My phone stayed at my ear. Lev heard her. So did I. So did every vow I had ever refused to make.
“I promise,” I said.
Nadia’s fingers dug into my skin.
On the phone, Lev said, “We have him.”
My eyes stayed on Nadia.
“He’s in our car,” Lev said. “He is swearing in two languages and trying to get out.”
A broken breath left her.
I put the phone on speaker and held it between us.
“Tell her,” I said.
Lev’s voice came through, calm and close. “Petya is alive. He is in my vehicle. No Kask men reached him. They’re still on the street, and my men are between them and the building.”
Nadia pressed her hand over her mouth.
“Can he hear me?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Lev said. “He is busy threatening me.”
A sound broke out of her. Half sob. Half laugh.
I closed my free hand around the back of her neck, gentle, thumb resting below her ear.
She leaned into me without seeming to notice.
That was the moment my phone buzzed with a second call.
My mother.
Galina’s name lit the screen, and the phone vibrated against my palm while Lev waited on speaker.
I looked from my mother’s name to Nadia standing barefoot in my shirt, shaking with relief and fear in equal measure.
Then I handed her the phone still connected to Lev.
“Talk to your brother,” I said. “Use my room. Lock the door if you want.”
Her eyes searched mine. “Where are you going?”
“To explain to my family and the Kasks that you’re not leaving this house unless you choose to walk beside me.”
Nadia’s hand closed around the phone.
I waited until she had it.
Then I picked up my discarded shirt, pulled it on, and walked toward the bedroom door while Galina’s call kept vibrating in my hand.
Behind me, Nadia said my name.
I stopped.
She stood by the bed with my phone against her chest, hair loose, mouth swollen from mine, fear still on her face and fire still under it.
“Don’t kill anyone because of me,” she said.
I looked at her bare legs below my shirt, at the woman Gennady had tried to turn into a receipt, at the bride I would earn only if I kept my hands steady now.
“I’ll do what keeps you and Petya alive,” I said.
Then I stepped into the hall and answered my mother’s call.