Chapter 19
BOGDAN
I've given Luka the chair nearest the door.
He won't get far into my office. When I finish listening, his escort will have a short walk to take him out.
Beyond the office glass, staff move between the tables beneath an enormous paper moon. The charity ball opens in less than an hour. Black ravens perch among the chandelier's branches, their lacquered wings catching the light whenever someone tests the lamps below.
Tessa stands beside my desk, turning her mask between her fingers. Black lace follows the shape of her cheekbones when she lifts it to her face. The diamonds at her throat glitter against the velvet of her gown.
I want to take her downstairs and give her the evening she dressed for.
Instead, a man who asked where she sleeps is on his way to my office.
“The sitting room is free,” I tell her. “You can wait there with Matvei.”
“I'd rather stay with you.”
Her answer comes without bravado. She looks at the empty chair, then puts the mask in her small evening bag. I bring her chair closer to mine, far enough from the opposite side of the desk that Luka won't be within reach.
She sits and arranges the skirt around her shoes. One red sole shows beneath the hem as she crosses her ankles. The sight takes me back to her pleasure in trying them on. I bought those shoes to make her smile. Tonight I want that smile to survive the first half hour.
Kirill brings Devon and the two other brokers into the office. They take the sofa against the wall, away from the desk. The three men who forced Luka to pay us back will hear what he has to say about it.
Klim follows them.
“He's been searched. His men are staying outside. Two of ours will bring him up and take him straight out.”
I sit beside Tessa. Her hand rests on the chair arm beside mine, and I cover it briefly before the door opens again.
Luka comes in wearing an ordinary dark suit. His eyes move from the brokers to Kirill, then settle on Tessa's black rose crown. He smiles before he looks at me.
“You've started the party early.”
“Sit down.”
He does, smoothing his trousers at the knees. Klim closes the door and stays beside it. The men who escorted Luka wait on the landing.
Luka studies the chandelier branches visible beyond the office glass as if he's been invited to inspect the place.
I let him look. He knows what the room beneath us earns on a Saturday night. He also knows his payment last week covered a truckload of equipment, a gate and a man's recovery. It bought him nothing in this building.
“You've had your money,” he says.
“I've had back what you cost me.”
He leans against the chair. “You can keep replacing things. Or we can make an arrangement that lets both of us earn.”
Devon shifts on the sofa, but Luka doesn't turn toward him. The offer is meant to sound reasonable in front of men whose business he's already lost.
I remember Aleksei's keys sticking to my palm with blood. Kirill collected the payment. The guard is still away from work.
“Tell them what you want,” I say.
Luka opens one hand toward the room below. “A share of the clubs. Access to the freight routes. We stop competing over every account, and your people get fewer unpleasant surprises.”
The offer sits between us without a number attached. He wants me to ask for one. That question would be enough for him to carry downstairs and turn into a story about Volkov finally considering terms.
“No.”
His hand closes.
Tessa hasn't moved beside me. I can see her fingers resting against the black velvet, one thumbnail tucked beneath the edge of a seam. She knows what an unpleasant surprise from his people looks like. She's had to kneel on her own workshop floor while men fired into the room.
Luka follows my glance.
“I should've asked for a meeting without the seasonal accessories.” He looks at her crown. “You seem distracted.”
Tessa tilts her head. The black roses shift against her hair.
“I'm expensive all year. Terrible news for you.”
Devon makes a sound he tries to hide behind his hand.
I put my palm flat on the desk. Luka looks back at me, and I hold his gaze until his smile goes.
“Her name is Tessa. You'll use it.”
She turns slightly toward me. I don't look away from Luka.
“The answer is no. You get no share, no routes and no place here. Stop asking my people where she sleeps.”
He lifts his chin. “I can't answer for every conversation in Boston.”
“Then carry the answer to whoever needs it.”
Kirill steps away from the wall. Luka notices, and for the first time he looks toward the door behind him.
I turn to the sofa.
“You've heard him. You've heard me. There's no agreement behind your backs.”
Devon lowers his hand. “And the work we've moved?”
“Stays where you put it.”
He nods. The other brokers remain seated, watching Luka rather than me. That's what he came here hoping to change. He wanted the men who left him to see me bargaining over their return.
I stand.
“We're finished.”
Luka takes a second too long to rise. Klim opens the door before he can make that hesitation into anything else. The two guards move into view on the landing, leaving him a clear path between them.
He goes without offering his hand.
Tessa stays beside my chair until the door closes. Only then does she uncurl her fingers from her skirt. I pick up her hand and feel the dampness in her palm.
She lets out a breath, then looks at me.
“I was going to charge extra for the insult.”
I kiss her knuckles. Her joke has cost her something, and she made it anyway. I keep hold of her hand until she turns it in mine and gives my fingers a squeeze.
Kirill walks the brokers to the landing. They have the answer they came for. When he returns, his attention goes first to Tessa, then to the chair Luka has left.
“He'll make trouble,” he says.
“He was making it before he came in.”
Kirill accepts that with a small movement of his head. He waits until Klim's voice comes through the open door, confirming Luka and his men have left the property. Then he moves the visitor's chair back against the wall.
The simple scrape of its legs pleases me more than it should.
I turn to Tessa. “Come downstairs with me.”
She reaches for her bag.
By the time we descend, the public doors have opened. Music fills the main room, low enough for conversation, with a cello sounding beneath the brighter notes. Guests gather at the coat check in velvet capes and feathered masks. The chandelier's black foliage casts moving shadows over the brick.
Tessa puts on her lace mask at the foot of the stairs. I draw my own black half-mask from my pocket, and she catches my wrist before I can lift it.
“Your collar.”
She smooths the burgundy silk inside the standing collar of my coat. Her fingertips brush my neck. I hold still while she straightens the edge, enjoying the seriousness with which she repairs her vampire in the middle of his club.
Then she steps back and lets me put on the mask.
Kirill waits near the bar with two of my captains. They straighten when we approach. I bring Tessa beside me with my hand at her waist, leaving no space for somebody to assume she's passing through.
“Tessa Sutton,” I say. “You've met her at work. Tonight she's with me.”
Kirill inclines his head to her. The others make room, and she takes the place beside me as though she likes where I've put her.
She does. When I lean close enough to hear her, she's smiling.
“You make being a date sound very serious.”
“It is.”
I take two glasses of sparkling water from a passing tray. Hers has a narrow curl of lemon against the rim. She accepts it without anybody needing an explanation, and I touch my glass to hers.
The first sip is cold enough to sting. Lemon oil stays on my thumb where I brushed the peel, its scent rising when I lift the glass again. I can feel her shoulder through the velvet whenever she turns to watch another costume pass.
People come to greet me. Tessa stays in the conversation, asking about a silver spider pinned to a lapel, laughing at a pair of guests whose matching crowns keep catching together. They look at her necklace. Then they look at the way I listen when she speaks.
I'm used to people watching what I do with money. I've given them something else to discuss tonight.
At eight fifty, I leave our empty glasses on the bar and take her onto the dance floor.
The opening notes are slow. Her hand settles into mine, and I feel the small effort she makes to match my first step. The gown follows her beautifully, black velvet gathering and releasing around her ankles. I keep my hand at her back as we turn beneath the paper moon.
“You rehearsed this,” she says.
“Walking?”
“Looking smug while everybody watches you.”
Her laugh reaches me before I can answer.
I draw her closer, and the next turn brings the pear-shaped diamond against my coat.
The velvet brushes my thigh. My erection presses against the front of my trousers, and I leave just enough space between us to keep the dance respectable.
For a few seconds I can forget the office upstairs and enjoy the woman in my arms.
I want this again. Another evening with her choosing a dress, another arrival where she knows she'll stand beside me. The thought stretches beyond parties. I picture a tired Tessa coming home after a fitting and dropping her bag at my feet, expecting me to catch her when she leans down for a kiss.
She already does that. I haven't had time to stop being grateful for it.
At the edge of the floor, a flash goes off. Her attention flicks toward it and returns to me. I feel her hand settle more firmly into mine.
Later, we stand for the charity photographs beside the main staircase. She lifts her mask for one picture, and I take mine off too. I want the photograph to show her beside my face, with no piece of costume between us and the people looking.
Ethan lowers his camera after the last shot and checks the screen. His event badge hangs against his dark shirt. Behind him, guests wait beneath a hanging raven for their turn.