Page 26 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

He does a slow turn. We agree it warrants monitoring.

At four, my phone buzzes. Ivan, who texts the way other people send telegrams.

Dinner tonight. My place. Lev at six thirty, if you’re willing.

If you’re willing. He does that, leaves the door in the sentence, and the door is why I keep walking through it. I text back a thumbs up and then, because the thumbs up felt insufficient for reasons I decline to investigate, a photo of Hairy, whophotographs from his good side without being asked, like a professional.

Lev says nothing for the whole ride, which by now I’d miss if it changed. The city slides past in early dark, and I watch the lake appear between buildings in slices. Somewhere around the river, I notice I’m not nervous, which is its own data point.

The elevator opens on Ivan’s floor, and I’m two steps into the private vestibule when the penthouse door opens ahead of me, and a man comes out of it.

A stranger, fortyish, in a good gray suit with his tie loosened, and the first thing I notice is the color of him, which is wrong, paste-pale. The second thing I notice is the walk. He’s limping, favoring his left foot so completely that the foot is barely participating, one hand trailing the wall for balance, and his left shoe is unlaced, loose.

He sees me. Whatever is left of his composure goes into not making eye contact, and he edges past me to the elevator with a wide, careful berth. The doors close on his pale, sweating face, and the vestibule is very quiet, and my heartbeat is loud in it.

Ivan stands in his doorway, jacket off, sleeves rolled, watch absent from his wrist. Calm in the way deep water is calm, which is to say, not actually calm, just deep.

“Luna,” he says, and steps back to let me in, and the door closes behind us with its soft, expensive click.

The penthouse smells of Darya’s cooking and underneath it, faintly, something coppery I might be inventing. I set my bag down on the counter slowly, organizing the last ninety seconds into a question. There are several available, and I pick the load-bearing pair.

“Who was that? What’s wrong with him?”

“An employee.” He pours two glasses of water, hands me one, level as ever. “He was skimming off the top. So, I skimmed him.”

The sentence sits there between us, neat as an invoice. He doesn’t dress it up, and he doesn’t look away from me while it settles on the counter between us. I understand, distantly, that the plain delivery is itself a decision. He could have said a business matter. But he said what he said, to my face, on purpose.

But I don’t know the purpose. “What exactly does that mean?”

“Nothing to you.” He says it without heat. “His broken foot will heal. The matter is closed.”

His broken foot.I hold my water glass and process this with the part of my brain that processes, while the rest of me does a quick and honest inventory of my own pulse. Elevated. My feet, which are not moving toward the door, confuse me.

Hugo used to hint about his family in our third year, late at night, vague and self-important, dangerous people, you don’t want to know, and I’d thought Hugo was just making himself interesting. Apparently, not.

Apparently, the dangerous people have a kitchen that smells of roasted chicken.

Ivan watches me think. He doesn’t fill the silence, doesn’t manage me toward a softer version. He just stands there with his glass and lets me work. Somewhere in the quiet, his stillness changes in quality, and I understand that this giant, scarred man is braced.

The most dangerous man I’ve ever met stands in his kitchen, holding his breath about what a candle maker thinks of him. “You’re quiet,” he says, finally.

“I’m deciding if I should be scared of you.”

His volume sinks to a near whisper. “Have you decided?”

“Not yet. Give me a minute.” I take my glass to the big window and look at the lake while I finish deliberating, because this deserves the full minute.

The facts: a man left this apartment broken. The man who broke him is standing in his kitchen in rolled sleeves, worried about my judgment.

My body is standing in this apartment, loose shouldered and warm. Whatever alarm is supposed to be ringing, isn’t. Maybe my sense of self-preservation is broken.

I play with fire on a daily basis, which might have something to do with it. “So,” I say, turning around. “All that stuff Hugo used to say about his family. That’s true?”

“Depends on what he said. If it was, my stepbrother is the pakhan of the Fedorov empire, then yes.” A beat, dry as the lake in February. “If it was anything else, he was probably trying to get in your pants.”

A laugh gets out of me before the committee can vote. “Pakhan. That’s the boss, right?”

“That’s the boss,” he confirms, watching me hold the word.