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My arms float in the water like they don’t belong to me. I’m dissociated, watching while Adrik lathers a sponge and begins to wash me, starting at my feet, moving up my body. He washes every inch of my skin, gently and carefully.
When he’s done, he tilts up my chin and pours a little water over the crown of my head, letting it run backward around my ears.
He takes the shampoo from the shower, squirting a little into his palm. He begins to massage it into my scalp, with slow, deep circles. His hands are strong. The pressure is immensely relaxing. I lean my head back against the copper rim of the tub, eyes closed, hearing the seashell sound of his palms passing over my ears.
Adrik rinses off the shampoo, pouring the water over my hair from the glass he uses when he’s brushing his teeth. He scoops the water out of the tub, gently pours it over my head, keeping his hand pressed against my hairline so no water runs in my eyes.
When he’s done with the shampoo, without me asking, he retrieves the conditioner and runs it through the lower two-thirds of my hair. Even in my strangely distant state, I note how observant he is. He knows not to use the conditioner on the roots, not because I ever told him, but because he watches me in the shower. He watches how I treat my hair. He knows my habits and my preferences.
That’s what makes it so painful when he goes against what I want. It’s intentional. Adrik doesn’t do anything by accident.
He uses his fingers to separate the tangles, no easy task in hair as long as mine. Then he lets the conditioner sit for three minutes, gently stroking my head with his palm while we wait.
He rinses my hair once more, before lifting me from the tub and wrapping me in the biggest, fluffiest towel. He sits me on his lap, my head on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Can you forgive me?”
I’m quiet for a moment, wondering how truthful I should be.
At last I admit, “I’d forgive much worse than that.”
It’s not good to write someone a license to treat you any way they please.
Yet I’m only telling him what we both already know. We’ve tested each other’s boundaries and found that they are far outside the norm. They hardly exist in some places.
What Adrik and I value, what we accept, is not like normal people. That’s what draws us together. But also what makes us so incendiary.
We’re a combination of elements that hasn’t been tested before. Will we create something revolutionary together? Or will it all blow up in our faces?
I don’t know. And I hardly feel that I have a choice. I can’t disengage from Adrik, even if I wanted to. Every day I’m pulled deeper and deeper.
This is why I’ve never fallen in love before—it opens the door to all kinds of madness.
* * *
28
ADRIK
Ireally fucked up with Sabrina.
Maybe the pressure is getting to me. Navigating the complexities of the underworld in Moscow is like running a dozen games of chess in my head—if there were hundreds of players swapping in and out, and all of those players would shoot you in the back given the chance.
Meanwhile I’m supposed to direct the six other people in this house. I’ve got to keep them all safe and motivated, I’ve got to play to their strengths while shoring up their weaknesses. I’m a fucking babysitter and therapist and boss all rolled into one.
I’ve got to keep Vlad from bullying Chief, and Andrei from irritating everybody else. I need to find another assistant for Hakim, and figure out how to thaw the Cold War between Sabrina and Jasper.
I have to keep the cops out of our business and a constant ear to the ground for the backlash coming our way from our legion of rivals, as the success ofMolniyadraws way too fucking much attention.
I know Yuri Koslov is pissed at us. Veniamin has cut him out, giving us full access to sell in his clubs. Koslov is a member of the High Table, and not someone I would have wanted as an enemy. Unfortunately, while I believe in abundance when it comes to making money, power is a zero-sum game. For one to gain, someone else must lose.
The Wolfpack is on the rise. Several of the old guard are declining.
Moscow is in turmoil. Two of thekachkigot in a conflict no one seems to quite understand—some say it was over a woman, others that it was a refusal to pay a gambling debt. Whatever the real reason, Boris Kominsky put a dagger in the eye of his old friend Nikolai Breznik. Even the High Table isn’t exempt—Savely Nika had his mansion raided, $48M in cash and jewels carried out by the cops. Nika himself is sitting in a prison cell, an unheard-of humiliation for a Bratva boss. Apparently he got on the wrong side of the Minister of Energy over a bad oil deal.
Chaos creates opportunity, but also risk. Everyone is on edge, violence breaking out in Solntsevo and Kapotnya over what should have been minor disputes. The Chechens and the Slavs are closer to war than they’ve ever been.
The distribution deal with the Markovs is crucial. They’re a powerful ally. I’m sure the Chechens and Yuri Koslov would love to squash the Wolfpack before our drugs get any more popular, but now they risk tangling with Nikolai Markov and Simon Severov’s family as well.
