“That information isn’t mine to share,” he uttered, scrunching up his face in a silent, playful grimace.
“Of course.”
“We’re around Moscow. That’s all I can tell you,” he revealed.
“I figured.”
He nodded.
“I don’t want anything. To eat, I mean. I just want water.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding as he moved away from the heavy furniture.
“How would you have gotten food, anyway? We’re outside the city.”
“Oh, I’m the cook around here. A good one at that, if I say so myself. Even the boss has no complaints about most of my meals.”
“Your boss? Konstantin?”
“Technically, he’s my boss’s boss. But yes, and that’s high praise because he’s such a picky eater.”
The image of the stony Konstantin I knew as a man who ate intentionally instead of wolfing down anything he saw didn’t correspond in my head. So I just decided to forget about it.
“But, since it’s late and the house hasn’t been in use for a while, ordering is the way to go until morning. Then I can make proper food tomorrow.”
“So what? You cook with your right hand and gun people down with the left?”
“Not exactly,” he answered, chuckling in amusement. “Both hands can do both.”
I laughed at the way his expression became serious, like he was letting me in on a state secret.
“I see.”
“We’ll be friends, I see it already,” he told me, smiling.
“That’ll be assuming I survive this.”
“You will. If not, you’d be dead by now, trust me,” he disclosed. “Just water?”
“Yes. Oh, and I don’t know, I’ll need a change of clothes and stuff for tomorrow. There’s too much nervous sweat on these. Is that a possible request?”
“Sure. It’s a safehouse. I’m sure I can get some tees, blouses, and even dresses in your size. I’ll just dry clean them.”
“Wow, dry clean? Thanks.”
“It’s the least we can do. I’ll be back with your water.”
I nodded, and he left the room.
I wondered how someone warm and normal like him could be a member of the Bratva, and under Konstantin, for that matter. He talked about being under Konstantin like it was something cool.
Not that it’s any of my business.
It was nice to talk to someone who wasn’t exactly my captor, anyway.
**********
When Konstantin walked into the room wearing his stony expression, I hadn’t expected anything good. I had braced myself for a more violent interrogation. Torture, maybe. I had expected one of his men to drag a chair into the room after him to sit on while they dragged me to his front, and he hit me until I was bloody. I had expected him to come with bigger threats, things that made death sound good. But I never imagined a scenario where Konstantin would come in to tell me that marrying him was the only way I would come out of the situation alive. And that was exactly what he did hours after he left the room, after I told him about Siroc.
