16
Lev
I’ve only been back in Moscow for a few hours, and I already feel the city closing in.
We spent the weekend play-fighting, fucking, and drinking wine like we had nowhere to be, which we didn’t. The rain came down hard enough to turn the road to mud by morning, and part of me wanted to use it as an excuse to stay another day. But my father is pissed enough at me, and all the wishing in the world doesn’t change what’s waiting on the other side of this drive.
I’ve dropped Polina at her place, and Ruslan is leaning against my car in the garage when I pull in. He has the look of a man who rehearsed what he’s going to say on the way over.
“You could have called ahead,” I tell him.
“You would have let it go to voicemail.”
He’s not wrong. “What happened?”
He falls into step beside me as we move toward the elevator. “Frol went to your father two days ago. He’s had someonefollowing you. Says you’ve been distracted by a woman, and he thought the old man should know.”
I skid to a halt and glare at the pavement in front of me.
“Your father wants to see you tonight,” Ruslan continues.
The elevator ride takes thirty seconds, and I use all of them to run the angles. My father doesn’t request meetings out of concern. He calls them when he’s already formed a conclusion and wants to observe whether the person across from him confirms it or tries to outmaneuver him.
“Does he have a name?” I ask without looking at him.
“Not yet.”
I nod curtly and continue walking. “Then it stays that way.”
Ruslan’s silence is not agreement; I learned that long ago. It’s the patience of a man who has already seen where this goes and is waiting for me to catch up. Frol knew what he was doing when he ratted me out. He’s been watching for a gap to step into since before either of us could articulate what we were competing over, and he just found one.
I arrive at my father’s estate by 9 p.m. The drive takes forty minutes, and I spend them building a version of events I can sell. My father is standing by the window in his study with his hands clasped behind his back, and he doesn’t bother turning when I walk in.
Gennady and Aleksandr are seated in red leather chairs near the wall. He lets me enter the room and sit before he speaks, something he has always done on purpose. Making you settle in before he says anything establishes that he controls the pace. I learned that at twelve. I still feel it at thirty.
“Tell me about the woman,” he prompts without greeting.
“Doesn’t matter.” I keep my voice flat and uninterested, the way you talk about something that costs you nothing. “It was brief. It’s run its course.”
He turns from the window, moving his pale, measuring eyes over my face the way they always do, looking for the seam. He has never looked at me the way he looks at Frol. With Frol, he looks for confirmation. For me, he looks for problems. I stare back and keep my face as neutral as the wall behind him.
“A dancer, then? Or maybe just a dirty prostitute?”
“Didn’t bother to find out what she does for a living. It’s already over.”
Framing it in the past tense is a gamble. It might close the conversation, or it might pull at his attention. My father has built an organization on finding the difference between what people say and what they mean, and he is very good at his job. I give him nothing to anchor to and wait.
He crosses to his desk and sits. “Gennady tells me your reports are current. The Karamazov situation is resolved.”
“As I said it would be.”
“Then we’re finished with this subject.” He opens the folder on his desk. “However, I’m assigning two men to your detail for the next week. A precaution to make sure your head is where it needs to be.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It isn’t a discussion.” He doesn’t look up from the folder. “You’ll work alongside them, or you’ll explain why you can’t.”
I nod once. “Fine.”
