Nadia didn’t give him her face. She turned Petya by the coat and started him toward the door.
The scarred man moved half a step.
I held his stare.
The color drained from his mouth. He shifted back beside the bar and kept his hands where I could see them.
Gennady saw it.
Gennady turned toward our booth.
I lifted my glass and drank.
Gennady’s face held its smile, but the skin around his eyes tightened.
Nadia had Petya three steps from the door when he tried to turn back. She caught his sleeve with both hands and pulled him close enough for her words to reach only him.
“Go home,” she said. “If you love me at all, go home and stay alive.”
Petya’s shoulders rose. He looked over her head at Gennady, then at the two men by the bar, then down at his sister.
The fight went out of his fists.
It stayed in his face.
He opened the door himself. Cold rushed in. He stepped outside and stood there under the awning, furious and ashamed, waiting because he wouldn’t leave her alone.
Nadia pointed toward the street.
Petya shook his head.
“Please,” she said.
Petya turned away from the window and walked out of sight.
Nadia stayed at the door until he was gone. Then she came back inside, shut out the cold, and pressed her hands once against the black satin at her waist.
She did it only once.
Then she picked up the tray from the service station and went back to work.
The lounge returned to itself by degrees. The bartender poured again. The piano picked up a softer tune. The woman in emerald silk leaned toward the men at her table, and one of them lowered his voice when her eyes shifted toward Gennady.
Gennady stayed away from his drink.
He followed Nadia across the room as she carried a receipt to the older couple.
Lev leaned forward enough that his voice wouldn’t travel. “Do you want me to remove the Kask men from the room?”
“No, I want them visible.”
“The scarred one moved toward her brother.”
“I saw him.”
“You let him stop himself.”
“I let him understand whose room he was standing in.”
