“And this one?”
Wants me to destroy you for sport. And I’m starting to think I’d rather destroy him instead.
“Difficult but manageable.”
Sasha tilts her head to the side and eyes me for a long moment. “You’re a terrible liar when you’re tired.”
“I don’t think that’s true. You just happen to be observant.”
“It’s my job.” She stands and rinses her glass in the sink. The motion makes her shirt ride up, exposing a strip of bare skin at her lower back. My mouth goes dry. “I’m going to watch a movie. Something old and Russian and unrelated to bombs or bullets or betrayal. Want to join me?”
I should say no. Should maintain some distance between us before I get more caught up than I already am. I’m supposed to be building a case against her family, not getting comfortable on her couch. Not imagining what she’d look like spread out on it beneath me.
“Sure,” I say instead.
A few minutes later, we’re sitting on opposite ends of the sectional sofa with a 1960s Soviet film playing on the massive television. Sasha is wrapped in a throw blanket. I’ve grabbed a pillow and settled in with a blanket because the woman likes to keep her home at arctic temperatures but still wants to stay warm.
“What’s this one about?” I ask as the opening credits roll.
“It’s called ‘The Cranes Are Flying.’ War film. Romance. Tragedy.” Sasha pulls her knees to her chest. “My mother loved it. She’d watch it every year on Victory Day and cry through the entire thing.”
“Your mother has good taste.”
“Had. She died when I was four.”
The past tense catches me off-guard. “I’m sorry.”
“Car accident. Dmitri was fourteen; Alexei was eleven. They raised me after that, with help from Boris and some of our father’s people.” She keeps her eyes on the screen. “Our father wasn’t exactly the nurturing type.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It was normal. I didn’t know anything was different.” She glances at me. “What about you? You mentioned an uncle who raised you.”
“After my parents died, yeah. He was former army, lived alone in Michigan, didn’t know what to do with a traumatized kid. But he tried. Taught me to fix cars, shoot straight, and keep my mouth shut when it mattered.”
“Sounds like he did okay.”
“He did better than okay. He gave me structure when everything else was falling apart.” I watch the film for a moment. “He died five years ago. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
We fall into silence, watching the film. The cinematography is beautiful in that stark Soviet way. Black and white contrasts, sweeping shots of Moscow, and faces that tell entire stories without dialogue.
About forty minutes in, the main character receives news that her fiancé has been killed in combat. The actress’s face crumbles, and Sasha sniffles beside me.
I glance over. She’s crying. Not sobbing, just quiet tears tracking down her face while she watches this sixty-year-old film.
I’ve seen women break for stupid reasons. Sasha cries because art means something to her, and it hits me harder than it should.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine. It’s just sad.” She wipes her face with the back of her hand. “The director uses visual metaphors brilliantly. See how he frames her between the doorway and the window? She’s trapped between the past and an uncertain future. And the crane symbolism throughout—cranes mate for life. When one dies, the other flies alone.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t.” She pulls the blanket tighter around herself. “Film studies was one of my electives at university. I thought I might want to work in art preservation for cinema, but then I got the opportunity at Christie’s and specialized in visual art instead.”
