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“Yes?”
“Get your hand off my leg.”
He smiles at me like I’m joking, without moving his hand.
“Are you deaf?” Ilsa barks.
She hasn’t moved the towel off her eyes. Hasn’t sat up. But her voice cracks like a whip, echoing in the cavernous space.
Krystiyan jerks back his hand, then smooths his hair like that was the real reason he stopped groping me.
“This better work,” he says, his voice several degrees colder. “It’s an expensive proposition funding your operation …”
“You’re already selling five times what you ever sold before,” I toss my head. “Spare me the complaints.”
* * *
Puttingthe squeeze on Adrik is a slow process by which I continually drop the price ofMolniya,while selling as much product as I can to flood the market. Adrik has to buy materials at the Chechens’ exorbitant prices, losing money on every sale he makes. He can’t keep it up forever.
Krystiyan complains weekly about the money we’re bleeding out twice as fast as Adrik, but I know our reserves can stand it. It’s a siege. I’m starving Adrik out of his castle, while I still have a storehouse full of food.
Adrik is under attack, yet I’m the prisoner at Krystiyan’s house. Not only because I don’t want to encounter any of the Wolfpack on the streets of Moscow, but because Krystiyan becomes more anxious and repressive by the day. I’ve strong-armed him into sinking his fortune into this standoff. Everything rests on my head. I’m his gamble—he has to make me pay off or he loses everything.
There’s a distinct sense that his men are watching me, following me, always close. Ilsa hates it. She hates all of this. She’s always worked with her own family, on whom she could completely rely. We’re constantly on edge, not trusting Krystiyan, not even able to trust that his men are loyal tohim.
Not wanting to be at the house under Krystiyan’s eye, I spend as much time as possible in my new lab. It’s clean and modern with proper ventilation, but also cold and stark and much less cheerful without Hakim’s constant remarks on what I’m doing wrong. Ilsa doesn’t sit with me, she’s always prowling around making sure Krystiyan’s goons aren’t up to anything shady.
The lab’s other drawback is that it shares a wall with a restaurant owned by Yakim Dimka, another Bratva boss.I can hear the bang of the swinging doors as waiters go in and out of the kitchen, the sous chef bawling at his staff, and even the dishwasher humming to himself as he sprays down the utensils.
I’m sure Krystiyan rented this space to suck up to Dimka. I doubt it does him much good—the restaurant is too small and shabby for aPakhanto eat there himself. We’ll never even cross paths.
The sound of people working close by is less dreary than total silence, if occasionally distracting.
I’ve been making my most brain-bending formula yet. I don’t have Hakim to help me with the time-release, so I design it to all hit at once, an obliterating blanket of sensation, smothering and intense. I added ketamine for total dissociation. You can float outside your own body and watch yourself walk and talk and move around like an automaton. Like you’ve become both a robot and the god that operates it from afar.
I test it on myself with Ilsa keeping watch. I spend hours separating my brain from the pain in my chest that beats and beats all day and all night without any rest. That’s the only time I don’t feel it—when I’m high out of mind.
I take the drug more often than I need to for testing. I take it almost every day because it’s the only relief from the hurting.
When I’m on it, I don’t want to eat. Ilsa gets us food and I sit in front of mine, watching my hands touch and pick it up. When I put it in my mouth, it feels like a foreign object, like a penny. I move it around with my tongue, unable to chew or swallow.
My clothes are getting loose. My skin is sallow. I haven’t been outside barely at all. I’m yellow and drained.
Each day that goes by turns the screws on Adrik, but also punishes me. I hate working with Krystiyan. I hate how stressed Ilsa looks. This isn’t how she thought it would be—if it were just her alone, she’d never put up with Krystiyan’s bullshit. She stays because she’s worried about me.
All I can do is succeed, because that’s what I promised Ilsa, and what I promised myself.
I work harder and harder, while sinking further into misery. Wondering how anybody can feel this shitty and survive.
I call the new drugMechtat,which meansDream.It’s a lie … I’m not dreaming anymore. Not even hoping.
* * *
In the sixthweek of the stand-off, Krystiyan comes into my room while I’m getting ready for bed. He knows he’s not allowed in here. Without looking at his stiff gait and white knuckles, or smelling how much Stoli he’s been drinking, I already know he’s angry. The intrusion is the message.
I’m standing at the mirror in a silk slip, slowly wiping my face with a cleansing cloth. I took a double dose ofMechtatearlier, and I’m just at the point where everything looks distant and posed, like a movie set.
I see the pleasant chiaroscuro quality of the light, dark everywhere except the soft golden ring light illuminating my face. When I’m high I like to spend a solid hour washing, moisturizing, and massaging my face. Telling myself I’m still beautiful, no matter how ugly I feel.
