"That seems like a lot of pressure," I say doubtfully. "So much responsibility to carry. How do you handle that?"
"Playtime," he says, his grin looking more like a leer.
I roll my eyes behind my sunglasses, trying to not get all flustered and failing. "Now Roman, you can't just screw away all your problems," I scold, sounding disconcertingly like my sixth-grade teacher and not at all like the cosmopolitan women I'm sure he's used to.
"Of course I can," he says. There's a flock of teenagers stepping mindlessly into traffic at the corner and he slows down enough to let them scatter. "There's all kinds of different playtimes," he says. "Simply blowing off steam sex. Long, elaborate, drawn out sex. Like I'm going to do to you." Oh yeah, now his grin is definitely a leer.
"What else?" I say, my voice pitched embarrassingly high. "Your cold plunge baths?"
He doesn't laugh the way I expect, his hand is rubbing along the side of my thigh now, and it's very distracting. That monstrous Russian paw of his is big enough that his fingers spread over my thigh, extremely close to my center.
"There are other sorts of playtime," he says finally. But he doesn't say it like he means a rugby game with his friends on Saturdays. "Part of my job is to protect," he says, looking briefly behind us as he changes lanes. "The other half is to punish."
Oh, I am so out of my depth right now.
The car is silent for a moment, just the muted sound of horns outside our window.
"So, when you say punish," I ask, clearing my throat awkwardly. "Do you mean like, 'bring me the heads of your enemies' kind of punishment or 'I'm going to make an example of you so horrible that your ancestors will throw up just thinking about you for decades to come' horrible?"
Roman bursts into laughter, looking genuinely pleased with me. "And here I thought you'd be trying to get out of the car at the next stop," he says admiringly. "But yes, sometimes both."
"Oh," I say. "So do you have torture,torturechambers, the way you havesextorture chambers?" My thoughts are drifting off into the air and I can't seem to pluck them back into proper order becauseHoly Mother of God, I'm talking about torture chambers with the man who is keeping me and my sisters alive.
"Nothing is ever centralized, of course," he says.
"Of course," I agree.
"We have several different places," he continues before giving me a dark smile. "But I can always be creative in a pinch."
"Well, sure," I echo hollowly. "It's important to utilize your creativity in times such as those."
He gives my thigh another squeeze as I'm screaming inside my head.
"You're screaming inside, aren't you?" Roman says.
"Only a little!" I say defensively. "Though I have to ask, why are you telling me this?"
"The logical answer is that I have something on you. You've hired me to murder your stepfather. So now, you have something on me."
"That is the weirdest example of mutually assured destruction I've ever heard of." I shake my head, looking out the window. "It's even stranger because I'm a little proud that you told me. So, tell me where we're going again?"
Now, Roman's smile gets a little tarnished around the edges. "We're going to meet with my father, he isPakhanof the Morozov Bratva."
"What?"I screech. I'm wearing a casual summer dress and sandals. My hair is up in a ponytail. This is not 'meet thePakhan' presentable. "Why? Why does he want to see me? Your dad's probably a busy man, right? I mean, he's got a lot of things to juggle. I don't know most of them, of course, but I'm sure they're all very complex-"
His finger presses against my lips. "You're spiraling. Take a breath. It is not unreasonable for my father to want to know about the person who's occupied a great deal of my time and my home."
"He knows that?" I squeak.
"There is complete transparency between me, my father, and my brothers," he says. "There has to be."
"How could you let me go out of the house looking like this! I should be wearing a power suit and- and a tiara!"
Roman's laughter is cut short as something smashes violently into the back of the car. In the rearview mirror, I see the dark grill of a truck as it accelerates into the back of Roman's three-million-dollar sports car. I don't know why the price tag is the first thing that comes to me but stupidly, I wonder how expensive the repair bill is going to be.
Roman curses savagely and his foot jams on the gas as he hands me his phone. "Press star three," he orders. "That sends an emergency signal and our location."
The truck races after us through a red light, sending cars spinning and one going up on the curb and crashing into astreet light. It's bearing down on us, it's enormous, one of those monster delivery trucks that could be carrying anything from furniture to nuclear waste. The sunlight flashes off the windshield, I can barely see the face of the driver before he hits us again.
