Lev sat back.
Nadia passed our booth with three empty glasses on her tray.
She didn’t look at me. She smelled faintly of citrus and heat and something clean beneath the smoke of the room. Up close,the small gold hoop in her left ear caught the light, and a loose piece of dark hair clung near her temple.
Want moved through me, hard and immediate.
I wanted the tray out of her hand. I wanted my coat over her shoulders. I wanted Gennady Kask on the floor, learning the difference between looking at a woman and having a right to touch her.
I kept my seat and my hands to myself.
Nadia set the glasses down at the server station and took a new order from a table of men. One of them snapped his fingers at her. She finished writing before she lifted her eyes to him, and he’d had the sense to put his hand down.
My phone lit on the table.
Oksana.
She’d worked in my father’s house since I was young enough to know which doors not to open.
I opened the message.
OKSANA:
Mrs. Sorin asked me to let you know your father has taken to bed. He dismissed the doctor and won’t answer questions from staff.
I read it twice.
My hand stayed still beside the glass.
Lev’s eyes flicked to the screen. “Your mother?”
“Oksana,” I said. “At my mother’s request.”
“Do you need to go?”
“I don’t need to go for this.”
Lev nodded once.
Across the room, Gennady moved toward the short hall beside the bar. One of his men followed. The scarred one stayed behind with his back to the room and his eyes on Nadia.
I touched the edge of my phone and turned it facedown.
“We leave after we hear this,” I said.
Lev followed my gaze.
Gennady had stopped near the coat check with a man in a dark green suit. The man was narrow through the shoulders, with slicked hair and restless fingers. He kept checking the bar mirror.
Gennady leaned close to him.
The music covered his first words.
Then a drunk near the piano laughed over his own toast, the bartender stopped the blender, and Gennady’s voice slid through the gap.
“She thinks she’s clever,” he said.
The man in green glanced toward the room. “Is this because of the contract?”
