Chapter Six #3
She glanced at me. “That one was.”
I stepped out first and turned back for her.
She took my hand because she wanted to, not because she needed help from the car. The wind caught her dark hair and lifted it off her shoulder. Her coat moved around her legs. She looked too alive for the gray street and too clean for the men waiting inside.
Gennady Kask had mistaken money for claim.
I would leave him with neither.
Inside, the club smelled of leather, old wood, tobacco sealed into walls no ventilation could fully clean, and black tea steeping somewhere behind a closed service door.
The main floor was quiet at this hour. The bar stood dark, glasses turned upside down on a towel, and no man pretended business became civilized because it happened under chandeliers.
Lev met us at the foot of the private staircase. “Petya is in the east room with two guards. He’s angry, ashamed, and asking for his sister.”
Nadia’s hand tensed in mine. “I want to see him.”
“You will,” I said.
Lev looked at me. “Mikhail Sorin has arrived.”
I kept my face still. “Is the doctor with him?”
“In the building, not in the room. Galina Sorin came as well.”
Of course she had.
Nadia’s eyes moved to mine. “Your mother is here?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know about me?”
“She knows enough to come.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“My mother wasn’t designed for comfort.”
A woman’s voice carried from the top of the stairs. “I heard that, Vadim.”
Nadia’s fingers dug into mine.
Galina Sorin stood on the landing in a dark green dress and a black wool coat pinned at the throat with a gold brooch.
Her dark hair, threaded with silver, was arranged at the nape of her neck.
She looked down at me first, then at Nadia, and her expression gave away nothing she hadn’t chosen to spend.
“Mother,” I said.
“Son.”
I led Nadia up the stairs, stopping one step below Galina so Nadia wasn’t forced to look up from the floor.
Galina’s gaze moved over Nadia’s face, her coat, the steady way she held my hand. “Nadia Yelchin.”
Nadia swallowed. “Mrs. Sorin.”
“My son has made half the city nervous before dinner. That usually means someone underestimated him or someone touched what he considers his.”
Nadia’s grip loosened as surprise crossed her face.
Galina looked at me. “In this case, I assume both.”
“Yes.”
A faint line appeared between my mother’s brows. “Your father is tired. Don’t make him repeat himself.”
“He insisted on coming.”
“He is still Mikhail Sorin. He insists on many foolish things.”
“That sounds familiar.”
Galina ignored that. Her attention returned to Nadia. “Are you here because my son ordered it?”
Nadia’s spine straightened. “No. I’m here because Gennady keeps using my name and my brother’s life to speak for me. I’m done letting him.”
Galina watched her for one long breath.
Then she stepped aside. “Good.”
Nadia exhaled only after Galina turned toward the hall.
The private room at the rear of the club belonged to my father in every way that mattered.
Dark walls. Heavy desk. Long table. Lamps with amber shades.
No windows at street level. A samovar stood on a sideboard with porcelain cups arranged beside it, a domestic touch that had always made violence in that place feel more Russian and more inevitable.
Mikhail Sorin sat at the head of the long table.
He wore a black suit, white shirt, and no tie. His skin looked gray under the lamp, and one hand rested on a cane he would rather shoot a man than admit he needed. Illness had narrowed him. It hadn’t emptied the air around him.
His eyes moved to Nadia.
I felt her hold still beside me.
Mikhail looked at our joined hands. “So this is the girl.”
Nadia’s hand shifted in mine.
I spoke before my father could turn the moment into a test that served no one but him. “This is Nadia Yelchin. She is under my protection by my order and beside me by her choice.”
Mikhail’s eyes came to mine.
He’d called her girl because he wanted to see what I would correct.
Now he knew.
Nadia surprised both of us.
“I’m twenty-three,” she said. “I’m not a girl, and I’m not offended unless you make it a habit.”
Galina made a small sound near the door.
Mikhail looked back at Nadia.
For three heartbeats, no one spoke.
Then my father’s mouth moved as if he were trying not to smile. “You have teeth.”
“I’ve needed them.”
“Yes,” Mikhail said. “I imagine you have.”
Nadia didn’t thank him for understanding. She didn’t soften herself for the old man in the chair or for the power around his name.
I wanted to put my mouth against her throat in front of every man who had ever mistaken female composure for permission.
Instead, I pulled out the chair to my right.
She sat because she chose to sit.
Lev entered with a folder and two phones sealed in clear evidence bags. “The auctioneer is downstairs. He confirmed payment from Kask’s side and the altered lot order before he left the car.”
“Bring him in,” I said.
The auctioneer entered between two of my men without the tuxedo.
He looked smaller in daylight clothing. Silver hair combed back, narrow face drawn tight, expensive shoes moving carefully across a floor he had no control over. I remembered him behind the black podium, calling Nadia’s lot too fast while Gennady smiled from the floor.
Nadia’s hand curled on the table.
I placed my palm over hers beneath the edge where no one else could see.
The auctioneer saw her and looked away.
“Look at me,” Nadia said.
His eyes snapped back to her.
Everyone around the table went still.
Nadia’s voice didn’t shake. “You knew he paid you.”
The auctioneer swallowed once.
“Answer Mrs. Sorin,” Mikhail said.
Nadia’s fingers twitched under mine.
The auctioneer’s voice came thin. “Mr. Kask’s representative made it clear that Lot Fourteen should be advanced in the order and settled quickly.”
Nadia’s face tightened at the lot number.
I wanted his teeth on the table.
My hand stayed over hers.
“Why?” I asked.
“He believed there would be competing interest.”
“From me.”
“I wasn’t given your name.”
“You were given enough to move her before I arrived.”
“Yes.”
“And you accepted money.”
His eyes dropped to the folder in Lev’s hand. “Yes.”
“How much?”
“Forty thousand.”
Nadia’s breath stopped for half a second.
It was more than Petya’s debt.
Of course it was. Men like Gennady always spent more to own a woman than they would to solve the problem that cornered her.
Mikhail leaned back in his chair. “You allowed an auction tied to multiple families to be altered by a Kask collector because he wanted one woman.”
The auctioneer’s voice thinned. “I was under pressure.”
“You will learn the difference between pressure and consequence,” Mikhail said.
Lev took him out.
Nadia didn’t move until the door closed.
Then she pulled her hand from beneath mine and set both palms on the table.
“I don’t want to be Lot Fourteen again in this room,” she said.
“You won’t be,” I said.
My father’s eyes moved to me, but he didn’t speak.
The door opened again.
Gennady Kask entered with two Kask men behind him and his mouth still swollen from the punch I’d given him at the auction. He wore a dark suit and a red tie. His rings flashed when he adjusted his cuff, and his smile arrived before he’d measured the room properly.
Then he saw Nadia.
The smile widened.
I rose.
The room shifted with me.
Gennady stopped smiling.
“Look at me,” I said.
His gaze moved from Nadia to my face.
That small obedience pleased me less than I’d expected. Men like Gennady always knew where power lived, but they gambled that women would never be allowed close enough to use it.
“Vadim,” he said. “Your family has made this more dramatic than it needed to be.”
“You sent a photograph of Petya Yelchin from a compromised location and demanded payment for debt plus loss.”
“Petya owes.”
“Petya owed.”
Gennady’s eyes narrowed. “That isn’t how markers work.”
“It’s how this one works.”
One of the Kask men behind him shifted. He was older than Gennady, heavier through the shoulders, and careful enough to look at Mikhail before he looked at the evidence on the table. He understood the danger faster.
Gennady didn’t.
“The girl was sold to me,” Gennady said. “Your son entered after the hammer.”
Mikhail’s cane tapped once against the floor.
Gennady went silent.
My father’s voice was low. “Choose your next words with care.”
Gennady looked at Nadia again.
I stepped forward.
His gaze snapped back to me.
“Her name is Nadia,” I said. “You know it because you used it when you cornered her at work, when you used her brother’s debt to pressure her, when you paid to move her auction lot, and when you sent me a demand for the loss you believe I created by taking her from you.”
Gennady recovered enough to spread his hands. “This is business. Everyone in this room understands business.”
Nadia stood.
Every man in the room looked at her.
My body went still, but I didn’t stop her.
She kept one hand on the back of her chair. Her face had gone pale, but her voice came out clear.
“I entered the auction because my brother owed money and because you made sure I understood what you’d do if I didn’t find a way to pay,” she said.
“You didn’t own my choice. You didn’t own me when you paid that auctioneer.
You didn’t own me when he called my lot number. You didn’t own me when you won.”
Gennady’s lips parted.
Nadia kept going before he could put filth between her words.
“Vadim took me from you, and he didn’t force me sexually. He didn’t use Petya to make me obey him. He didn’t make me sell myself twice. I chose him after I knew exactly what had happened, and I’m standing here because you don’t get to turn that choice into shame.”
The older Kask man looked away first.
Gennady’s face darkened. “You think a few nights in his bed make you family?”
“No,” Nadia said. “I think my yes does.”
I saw Galina’s hand close around her brooch.
I saw my father lower his chin.