Haggling with the cashier sounds like something Adam would do.
“I’m sure it’s good,” I reassure him, trying to ignore the way my entire body is responding to the whole conversation with Adam with anxiety and trepidation along with a strange sense of pride that makes no sense with the rest.
Ilya’s brow furrows. “Is everything all right? Did somebody bother you?”
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
Shit.
I need to get better about lying. I’ve never done it much; it wouldn’t be worth it if Adam figured it out.
But with Ilya, I don’t have a choice.
I wish that didn’t make me so sad.
I eat the fried fish sandwich he’d gotten me, but it’s tasteless.
Ilya talks animatedly to me about one of the exhibits, but I’m barely able to pay attention to that, either.
I wish this hadn’t gotten so much more difficult.
I wish I didn’t like Ilya as much as I do.
I wish Adam hadn’t sounded like he cared.
But I can’t escape the truth, no matter how hard I try.
FIFTEEN
ILYA
I’m supposed to be going over the books, but I’m staring at the aquarium instead. Somebody in Russia will want all the numbers for this month, and I need to transfer their take through all the different bank accounts and shell companies. The restaurant’s accounting needs to be double-checked too, all the numbers fudged and inventories handled.
One of the discus fish darts across the aquarium and pokes a sea snail on the tank’s glass. Normally that alone would calm me and let me get back to work, but my thoughts are nowhere near the business.
Micah is next door, playing his cello for the restaurant diners. I could sneak back and listen to him again. I want to hear the beauty of the notes; I want to see his brows furrow in concentration.
And I want to tie him down again, and take the flogger to his ass.
Somebody knocks on the door, and I startle out of my daydream.
“Come in!” I say in Russian.
Boris enters, carrying the lockbox with the current take. We generally empty the cashbox a few times a night, so there’s less money lying around to tempt the workers and potential thieves.
“How’s business out there?” I ask. “Everybody behaving themselves?”
“Yep.” Boris sets the lockbox down on the coffee table and unlocks it, getting to work counting. “Little Kolya’s doing a good job buttering up the suckers. He’s even convincing them to buy the watered down liquor.” Boris laughs. “He tells them it’s the good stuff from Russia and gives them a story about how his Papa drank it on his death bed.”
I chuckle along. I know Kolya’s father, and the man is healthy enough to last another thirty years. The only booze we keep here is the cheapest stuff we can find, poured into high-end labels.
They can’t taste the difference, and even if they could… What are they going to do? Complain about getting ripped off, while they’re knee deep in gambling debts?
Boris finishes his count and hands the wad of cash to me. I check it over before locking it into the safe behind the painting of a generic beach landscape.
The safe holds all the cash we’ve collected for the week so far, as well as choice items we’re holding as collateral from the gamblers who are more reticent to pay.
It’s a lot of money, but I have so much saved up that I could quit the business and still have no financial woes. The most difficult part would be ensuring my money stays with me, and that no overzealous investigator attempts to freeze my accounts.
