Not to mention, if I don’t succeed on my first try, I might not get another.
I need his help.
His car arrives at 11:30 p.m. I see the headlights from the window.
I wait.
Thirty minutes pass.
I’m in his room, book open, and not reading, the words moving under my eyes without leaving any impression.
Forty minutes.
The book goes down.
I check the corridor. It’s empty.
Where the hell is he?
I go to the office. The door is open, and the lamp is off. The desk is as he left it this morning. I stand in the doorway and think about where else he goes when he comes home late.
I check the kitchen. Empty. The study. Empty. I’m standing at the top of the main staircase past midnight, considering going back to the room, when I catch the noises.
Muffled below, coming through floors and walls. Voices, more than one.
I know this house now. I follow the sound to the east service corridor, the one where the staff offices are. The door at the end of it has a keypad. I’ve seen it closed every time I’ve passed it.
I’m standing in front of it now, and it’s not fully closed.
A gap, two inches, maybe three. A strip of light spills onto the wall, warm and yellow. Sounds drift through more clearly now. Voices in Russian.
My hands are shaking.
Don’t,says the logical part of my brain.
He doesn’t tell you anything. You need to find out yourself.
I push the door open.
The stairs go down further than I expected. The air changes as I descend, getting cooler. The voices get louder. My heartbeat is fast.
At the bottom of the stairs, I stop.
I’m behind a partial wall, a support pillar that creates a natural corner. I press myself against it and peer around it.
I spot Alexei first. His profile, three-quarters to me, standing with his arms crossed in the posture of a man observing rather than participating. Two of the guards are with him.
And Rolan.
His back is to me. I know him from behind the way I know him from any angle, the set of his shoulders, the way he occupies space. He’s in his suit, jacket still on, which means he came here directly from wherever he was tonight.
He speaks in Russian. A voice answers from somewhere in front of him, a voice whose source I can’t see because he’s blocking it, his body a wall between me and whatever is on the other side.
He raises his hand and lets it fall, hitting something.
The sound that follows is low, wet. It’s a person. A man.
Rolan hits him again.
