I was smiling before I finished reading it.
I looked up. Dottie was watching me with an expression of serene satisfaction, her chin back in her hand, like a woman whose hypothesis had just been confirmed by the data.
“Don’t,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to say something extremely pointed.”
“I was going to say,” she said composedly, “that you should probably text him back.” A pause. “And also that his name is Jared and you should use it at some point because Master Loki is a very sexy name for a club but it is not how you think about someone who texts you things like that when the room is empty.”
I looked at the message again.
She was not wrong.
“My situation doesn’t exactly lend itself to—“ I gestured vaguely toward the door, toward Vlad and Dimitri and everything they represented.
“I know.” Dottie leaned forward, dropping her voice, eyes sharp and warm at once. “But here’s what I also know. I have been around those people for years: Jared, Erik, all of them. When they decide something matters, they are not deterred by complications. Not one of them.” She held my gaze. “Leave it with me. Between Raia, Erik and the rest of us, we’ll figure something out.”
I looked at her, at this woman I had known for approximately two weeks, who had folded me into warmth without condition or agenda, who had sat across a table from my bodyguards and notmade it a thing, who had just offered me something nobody in my life had offered me in a very long time.
An ally.
“You’d do that,” I said. Not quite a question.
“Honey.” She picked up her wine with a smile that contained entire multitudes. “I live for this.”
Vlad caught my eye with his habitual blank expression and I felt the familiar small burn of it, the reminder, never quite ignorable, of what my life actually was. I looked away.
I typed back:Exceptional is a generous word from someone with your level of experience. Should I feel special? Or sorry for you that less than exceptional women came before me?
I sent it before I could edit it into something more composed.
Three seconds later:I’ll let you decide.
I pressed my lips together and looked up at Dottie, who was watching my face with unabashed delight.
“Well?” she said.
“He’s annoying,” I said.
“Mm hm.” She raised her glass. “To annoying men who text you from empty rooms.”
I raised mine.
“To annoying men,” I agreed. The smile stayed with me long after the wine was gone.
Chapter 10
Jared
The Barnes Foundation knew how to throw a gala.
The great hall had been transformed in the way that serious money transformed spaces—effortlessly, expensively, with the particular confidence of an institution that had never needed to try too hard. Flowers, the cost of each arrangement that of a reasonable car payment, anchored each table. The lighting was warm and precisely calibrated to make everyone present look slightly better than they were. A string quartet occupied the far corner, playing something that landed between background and performance, which was exactly the right register for a room fullof people who wanted to be seen appreciating culture without being required to actually listen to it.
I accepted a glass of champagne from a passing tray, took a slow circuit of the perimeter, and read the room.
Forty minutes. That was my estimate for getting to Ivan Morozov through legitimate social channels. The kind that left no fingerprints, built the impression of a natural meeting, and gave me a foundation for a follow-up invitation. The Barnes put Morozov in a context where his guard would be partially lowered by surroundings he’d chosen for their respectability. He wasn’t here to conduct business. He was here to be seen conducting philanthropy. Men like Ivan were always most accessible when they were performing their own virtue.
