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He says, “I’m used to being in control. With you … I’d trade anything for another minute.”
We’re kissing again, wild and hungry, eating each other alive. I’m filled with hot, soaring happiness. We finally said it out loud and it feels so good to admit it.
This is real. The realest thing I’ve ever known.
If we’re crazy, then we’re crazy together.
* * *
22
ADRIK
Within a week of Sabrina’s idea, I’ve already found her the perfect place for a lab. It’s an old brewery in Nekrasovka—closed for the last eight years, surrounded by a cluster of textile plants pumping out fast fashion and the counterfeit purses that Russians love almost as much as the real thing.
With all the smog pouring out of the plants, and the steam and noise of the dim sum shops and shawarma stands serving the workers, no one will notice if a couple more boilers fire to life in a squat brick building that ought to be empty. No one who matters, anyway.
It’s farther from the Den than I’d like, but I bought Sabrina her own bike. I park it right in front of the house so she sees it the moment she steps out the door.
It’s the brand new Aprilia superbike, ultra-light and sleek, black like mine. It amuses me to see the two bikes side by side, the difference in size mirroring the physical difference between Sabrina and me. Sabrina very much reminds me of a revved-up engine in a compact frame.
She can hardly contain herself when she sees it, dancing around the bike with many whoops and gasps as she examines the features. We’ve discussed her preferences enough times that I was fairly confident of picking right—still, it was a risk surprising her. Her obvious delight repays every second of stress I had finding just the right motorcycle to suit her tastes.
“How are you so fucking smooth?” she says, kissing me again and again, then rushing back to the bike. “This is exactly what I wanted.”
“I know.” I grin. “I didn’t exactly have to twist your arm for details. In fact, it would have been harder to get you to keep it to yourself.”
Sabrina punches me on the arm hard enough to hurt.
“Oh yeah, were you wanting to discuss Proust? Shut the fuck up, you love talking bikes.”
Her eyes are roaming over the chassis like it’s a naked cheerleader.
“I can’t wait to open it up and take a look at the engine.”
“It’s brand new! You’re gonna mess with it already?’
“Of course!” She’s laughing, bouncing on the balls of her feet like a kid on Christmas morning. “You guys have tools, a lift? Whaddaya got in that garage?”
I take her for a tour of what used to be a greenhouse, now functioning as a garage, tool shed, and general storage area.
Chief is already inside, working on Jasper’s KMT. He’s the best at repairs, and fixes most things that break at the house. Not because he has any special knowledge of plumbing or air conditioning units, but because he has the patience to puzzle over diagrams online and then cobble together a fix until Vlad or Andrei fuck it up all over again.
Chief was in my year at Kingmakers, though not my dorm. He was an Accountant, me an Heir. In our finance classes, he was the only one who could calculate projections faster than me, and I was the only Heir who could do it faster than the other Accountants.
We were drawn together immediately because I could see how smart he was, and he could see that I could see it. I brought him into my circle. Some of the others gave him shit at first—especially Vlad. Chief has that vulnerable quality that draws the attention of a bully like Vlad, a wounded chick stumbling around the biggest rooster in the yard.
Defending him would only make it worse. I give him chances to shine, to show what he’s best at. He makes himself useful around the house to make up for the fact that if we’re ever rolling out strapped, he prefers to stay in the driver’s seat while the rest of us handle business.
His real job is the books. He’s a wizard with numbers, which I really fucking need at the moment since we’re operating on a razor-fine margin. I only have my own bankroll—I haven’t taken a dime from my father or Ivan.
Sabrina wheels her bike in so she can show it off to Chief. He looks it over, all smiles and compliments, like he wasn’t with me when I bought it.
He took to Sabrina at once. He’s always ready to like what I like, and she’s the prettiest girl who’s spoken more than five sentences to him. Actually, Sabrina is more than cordial. She’s warm and open, especially to anyone she sees as an underdog. Her sense of justice compels her to celebrate the unappreciated, while puncturing the inflated egos of those at the top of the heap like Jasper or Vlad, or sometimes yours truly.
Bubbling over with excitement, she’s hitting Chief with a full blast of charm. He looks dazed, like he’s taken a couple shots to the head. It’s good for him—Sabrina is so overpowering that he forgets to be nervous, and he talks more like his real self.
Once she’s borrowed his tools to open up the crankcase and they’ve both pored over the engine, she nods to Jasper’s KMT, saying, “You working on the rattle?”
