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I shrug.
“Do you wear glasses or contacts?”
“Glasses. Contacts irritate my eyes.”
His other hand cups my face and he glides his palm up, brushing his thumbs along my eyebrows and then over the sensitive skin under my eyes. “We’ll get you glasses tomorrow when we go to the mall.”
He lets go of my face and removes his wristwatch. “Would this work?” he asks.
I stare at the expensive gold watch he placed in my hand. It’s still warm from touching his skin. “Yeah,” I choke out.
“Okay.” He nods. “Take a shower. You have three pairs of pajamas—they’re all the same so you don’t have to choose. Put away your new clothes. Eat. Wait for me. In bed, not on the floor in front of the door.”
I get down off his lap and watch him leave, then head into the bathroom to have a shower.
* * *
I grip the wristwatch in my hand. Half past eleven. I’ve been sitting in bed for two and a half hours, staring at this thing, and with each passing minute, the panic in the pit of my stomach intensifies.
I did everything Pasha told me to do within the hour, including preparing risotto with chicken. It was the first dish that showed up in my Google search. Making food was usually my task at home. I quite enjoy cooking, so I can prepare almost anything except seafood. The slippery feel of it in my hands always made me cringe, so Arturo was in charge of that. My brother is an amazing cook, and he’s the one who taught me everything. He tried to coax Sienna into learning, too, but my sister burned everything. My guess is she couldn’t cook and simultaneously post dozens of photos on social media.
I look down at the watch again. Twenty to midnight. Where is he?
Chapter 9
Three hours earlier
Everybody is staring. The two security guards at the back entrance of the club. The cleaning lady mopping around the tables. The barman. I ignore them and climb the narrow stairs leading to the gallery housing our administrative spaces that overlook the dance floor.
I pass the room where two security guys are hunched in front of the screens, watching the camera feeds, and enter my office. Kostya is sitting behind my desk, looking at the monitor and clicking angrily on the mouse. The whole tabletop is covered with papers. Off to the side, there are two empty coffee cups and a half-eaten sandwich with crumbs scattered everywhere.
“Such a pig.” I shake my head.
“You picked the worst fucking time to take a vacation,” he mumbles and keeps hitting the mouse. “The contracts with liquor suppliers need to be renewed. Two waitresses are sick and another is going on maternity leave. The surveillance system crashed twice yesterday. I forgot to order . . .” He looks up and scans me from head to toe. “Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Pavel?”
I nod toward the mess on the desk. “Clean this shit up so I can sit down and see what else you’ve fucked up.”
“Jeans? Really? And a fucking hoodie?” he raises his eyebrows, then bursts out laughing. “Pasha, sweetheart, are you all right?”
“Hilarious. Get up.”
“Yuri called,” he says and collects the cups. “They found the guy who supplied those pills. He’s bringing him here.”
“Good.” I sit down and sort through the contracts strewn across the desk. Some have round brown stains on them. “Wait for them downstairs and take the guy to the back room when they arrive.”
“Okay. Are you sure you don’t want me to call the doc to check your head?”
“Fuck off, Kostya.”
I’m almost done with the mess Kostya made when gunfire explodes downstairs. Grabbing my weapon from the drawer, I rush into the surveillance room.
“What’s happening?” I yell.
“Yuri and two soldiers came in two minutes ago, dragging some guy with them. Those vehicles arrived after them,” the security guy says and points to the screen showing the back alley. Two cars with tinted windows are parked just around the corner. “Eight people came out, killed the guards, and came inside the club.”
“Call Dimitri. Tell him we need backup and Doc. Then, get downstairs. Now!” I rush toward the door while gunshots keep ringing out below.
The dance floor is covered in blood. Three hostiles are down in the center, and two feet away, the body of a waiter is sprawled with his face to the ground. Across the room, there are two more bodies, probably the soldiers who arrived with Yuri. Kostya is crouched behind the bar, shooting at two men near the entrance. I aim at the first one and shoot him in the head. The other one turns in my direction but falls when Kostya’s bullet strikes his neck.
