“Watch how you talk to me?—”
“And you couldn’t do it. Why? I don’t understand why you keep doing this to me.”
“He’s an asshole,” he says to me in Russian. “And I won’t have my daughter associating with an asshole.”
“That’s it?” I say in English. “That’s your great reason? That he’s an asshole? You can’t even give me a halfway decent response like, ‘He’s not good enough for you’ or something?”
He sneers at me and says, “I would never say anything like that to you. The truth, my dear, is that you’re not good enough for him.”
I wish he’d have hit me. It would have hurt less. The pain in my chest feels like a punch, and for a moment, I don’t breathe. I just stare at him in wounded agony.
“You are trash,” he says in slow, perfect English. “And any man that you convince to bed you is a fool. Don’t you understand that yet,Natashka?”
I clench my jaw to keep the tears back and I walk past him to the sliding doors. “I’m going to bed. Clean the dishes yourself if you want them done.”
And I walk away. I hold back my tears all the way to the pool house and once I’m there, I lock the doors and go to my bedroom.
He hates me. God, I’ve always suspected it, but…
He hates me.
4
ANTON
The Firebird is the same as it always is. It’s my first thought the second I walk through the door. The metal paneling on the walls is still all there. The floors are still sticky in spots. The dancers on stage are still swinging topless around the poles and the patrons at Sniffer’s Row are still leaning with dead eyes, waving their dollars.
It’s a good night. Just about every table is filled and there’s a girl on the lap of at least one man at every other table.
The bartender sees me as I walk in and nods to me. I walk over. “Is Magda around?”
“She’s in VIP,” he says. “Can I get you something?”
“Nah, I’ll find her. Thanks.”
I make my way toward the neon sign over the door at the back of the club. The bouncer standing in front of it sees me and steps aside to let me through. Good to know that everybody still remembers me around here.
The back hallway has rooms with glass doors on either side. As I walk past them, I note every room is occupied with patrons getting lap dances. Too bad Lev was stupid enough to open his beak. This place is making money.
The door on the farthest side of the hallway opens and a stout older woman with a mass of red curls comes walking out, a mop and bucket in hand. She pauses as she looks up at me.
“Tosha,” she says with a big smile. She sets the mop and bucket down and walks up to me, arms wide. I lean down and hug her warmly.
“Magda, how are you?”
“I’m well,” she says brightly. She leans back and looks me over. “You, on the other hand, are looking much too thin.”
That makes me laugh. By almost anyone’s standards, I’m a big man, muscular chest and arms, at least two feet taller than most men. And yet, to Magda, I’m too thin.
She squeezes my arm. “Too much muscle,” she says. “Not enough fat to keep you warm at night.” In Fenya, she says, “You need a big woman’s legs like mine wrapped around you.”
I laugh out loud and answer in kind. “I’ve told you. You’re much too much woman for me.”
“Ack,” she says, waving me away playfully. “Come. Let’s chat in my office.”
She leads me through the door she just came out of and we’re standing on a landing with two staircases, one leading up to the offices and the other leading down to the real club. I can almost pick up the faint scent of sex wafting around on the walls.
“It’s still there,” she says with a smile, “if you’d like to explore after our meeting.”
