18
Lev
I know we’re out of time before Ruslan clears the second turn away from the hotel.
He drives with both hands on the wheel and his mouth shut, which means he’s either furious or thinking. Tonight, I suspect it’s both. I sit in the back with Polina, and all I can think is that she’s in danger because of me.
I was invited to the event as a potential donor. I declined at first, but once I found out through the grapevine that Polina would be there, I decided to use that as an excuse to see her.
Thank God I changed my mind.
My father’s men followed her to a public event. They were watching. That alone is a problem. If they start asking questions, it gets worse fast.
They won’t need much. One clerk willing to talk, one report pulled by the wrong man, and her face lands in front of my father, and he does what he always does when he sees something useful near an enemy family.
He either turns it into leverage or gets rid of it.
By the time I get Polina home, my decision is already forming, even if I still hate it.
She doesn’t invite me upstairs, nor do I ask.
She stands on the sidewalk, barefoot because she never put the heels back on, and she looks at me like she wants to kiss me and kill me in the same breath.
“Tell me what you’re not saying,” she demands.
Street traffic rolls past us. Ruslan waits at the curb with the engine running.
“I can’t do this here,” I reply with a sigh.
Her eyes narrow. “You keep saying that.”
“I know.”
“Stop showing up and dragging me into cars if you’re not going to tell me the truth.”
She’s right, and I still don’t tell her. I need one more night to be sure. I tell myself a lot of things while looking at the woman my father might kill because I touched her.
“Go inside,” I say instead.
Her mouth parts like she’s about to tear into me. Then she clamps it shut and takes one step back.
“I’m very tired of your half-answers, Lev.”
“I know.” It’s the only thing I can say without detonating everything on a Moscow sidewalk.
She stares at me for a second longer, then turns and walks into her building without looking back.
I get back in the car after the door closes behind her.
Ruslan checks me in the mirror. “You want me to say it?”
“You’re going to anyway.”
“You should’ve told her.”
“I know that.”
Back at home, I shower, change, and sit on the edge of my bed as I stare at the wall for an hour. I pour whiskey and don’t drink it and spread city maps across my kitchen table like territory lines will solve a problem that stopped being about territory the second Polina looked at me in the hospital room.
