Roman
The car was too quiet.
Dmitri sat in the front passenger seat, all stoic calculation and clipped orders given into his earpiece. Lev was next to me in the back, silent as the grave, staring out the tinted window like he wanted to storm the horizon itself.
The desert rolled past us in long, endless waves of gold and dust. The sun hung low, cruel and perfect. Somewhere ahead, beyond the heat shimmer, waited the man we’d come to see—the Sheik.
“Remind me,” I said lazily, “why we’re meeting an oil-obsessed desert peacock again?”
“Because the ‘peacock’ funds half of ARCHEON’s field operations in this region,” Dmitri said without turning.
I smirked. “You say that like you expect him to tell us anything useful.”
“I expect him to tell us what he’s told everyone else,” Dmitri said. “And then I expect us to figure out the truth underneath it.”
Lev didn’t look away from the window. “Or I could just make him talk.”
Dmitri sighed. “We’re in Dubai, not a basement in Chechnya. No blood today.”
“That depends,” Lev muttered, “on whether he lies to us or not.”
I grinned. “There it is. The diplomacy our family is famous for.”
Dmitri finally turned in his seat, his gaze cold enough to crack glass. “You’d do well to remember what your diplomacy got us last time. You. Naked. And to top it off,throbbingly erect.”
I stretched, feigning boredom. “I was a victim, thank you very much. A beautiful one, if reports are to be believed.”
Lev snorted. “You should’ve tied her up and brought her back.”
I shot him a glare. “Maybe if you’d moved a bit faster, little brother, she wouldn’t have slipped through your fingers either.”
He turned his head then, those pale, predatory eyes meeting mine. “Next time I won’t let her walk away.”
“Next time,” Dmitri said sharply, “you’ll think before acting with your dicks. Both of you.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” I muttered.
“The fun,” Dmitri replied in a steely tone, “is not dying before we’ve cleaned up your mess.”
The car slowed as we approached the Sheik’s estate. It was less a palace and more a private kingdom carved into the desert.White stone and gold, glass domes gleaming beneath the sun, fountains whispering across immaculate courtyards. Security everywhere: men in suits, men in robes, men with rifles that probably cost more than most small cars.
Lev adjusted his cufflinks, every movement precise. “This man funds ARCHEON?”
“Among other groups,” Dmitri said. “They call him Sheikh Khalid al-Sarif. He calls himself a collector of futures.”
“Sounds pretentious,” I said.
“Sounds rich,” Lev corrected.
The car came to a stop. Two guards opened our doors in perfect sync. The air outside felt like we were stepping into an oven. A servant led us through an archway into a long, shadowed corridor lined with carved marble and gold filigree. The scent of oud hung heavy, ancient and intoxicating.
The Sheik waited at the end of the hall, seated in an ornate chair that wasn’t quite a throne but might as well have been. He was younger than I expected—in his forties, maybe—dressed in a pristine white kandura, his dark beard trimmed to perfection. His smile was pure hospitality, but his eyes held a certain clever intelligence that couldn’t be faked.
“Ah, the Markovs,” he said in flawless English, rising to greet us. “Finally, the legends of commerce and chaos visit my humble home.”
“Humble?” Lev murmured, glancing up at the glittering chandeliers.
Dmitri inclined his head, all professionalism. “Thank you for seeing us, Your Excellency.”
