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Nik slaps cash down on the bar and leads me to the door. I let him.
“Was that worth it?” Nikandr spits in disgust as he dumps me into his backseat. “Do you feel better?”
Blood drips down my chin from the split in my lip. My right eye is already swelling closed.
I shake my head. “I don’t feel anything anymore.”
I’m not in my bed.
I know because I can’t hear the soft sound of Luna’s breathing. Also because I hear cabinets banging around and a kettle hissing.
I roll over, leather squealing underneath my clammy skin.
“You got blood on my carpet,” Nik accuses.
I wince. “Stop fucking shouting.”
He laughs. “I’m not. You can thank the gallon of vodka you drank. I didn’t think you had a tolerance level, but you found it last night.”
“That explains the headache.” Each word out of my mouth feels like a knife to the brain.
“And the blood on my carpet. Don’t worry: I accept cash or credit.”
I sit up and Nik’s penthouse swims around me. I have to blink a few times before the ground levels out.
I can’t remember the last time I was this hungover. Maybe the night after my twenty-first birthday. Maybe the night after Otets died. Maybe never.
Nik is making a pourover. The smell of coffee brewing turns my stomach, but I also need it. Coffee, some bread, maybe a lobotomy.
“You could’ve taken me home. Then I would have bled on my own carpet.”
“You really don’t remember shit,” he snaps. “I tried to take you home and you threatened me within an inch of my life to bring you here instead.”
“I hate sleeping on leather.” I unstick my legs from the couch and stand up. My legs feel like sandbags, but the dizziness is gone. I pick my way to the counter and drop down on a barstool.
“I told you exactly that, but you didn’t care. You didn’t want to go home.” Nik slides a plate of dry toast towards me. “You actually wanted to go to another bar, but I wasn’t interested in paying more hapless losers to forget the sight of Yakov Kulikov drooling into his beer or stirring up stupid fights.”
“That makes sense.” I flex my hand, cuts opening up on the middle three knuckles. “Did I win?”
“Don’t you always?” Nik smirks. “You let the guy toss you around for a second. I never took you for a masochist, but you looked like you enjoyed it.”
You think you can hurt me? Fucking prove it.
The memory feels hazy, like a dream. Every time I try to grab hold of it, it slips a little further away. But I remember talking to Luna. The way she sounded on the phone… the way she looked in the kitchen before I left… That’s not hazy at all. I remember it in high definition.
I wanted to kick my own ass. Since that wasn’t possible, I guess I found someone to do it for me.
“I had some energy to burn,” I say instead.
Nik slides a mug of coffee over to me. He doesn’t look convinced. “‘Energy.’ Sure. Whatever you want to call it.”
“How did you know where I was anyway?”
“The owner of the bar works out at my gym. We go way back. He recognized you and thought you were in a bad way. He was afraid to cut you off himself, though.”
“He couldn’t have.”
“Hence why he didn’t try.” Nik drags a hand down his jaw. “When I got there, you were on the phone with Luna. You looked… It didn’t seem like things were going well. Do you remember any of that?”
