Page 12 of Brutal Secrets
The girl at the door wouldn’t have let us in if the manager didn’t owe me a gambling debt. The couples at the neighboring table keep slanting worried looks our way, now that the maître d' looks like he might be about to have a heart attack. My singing angel sits in front of me, knitting her fingers together like she’s trying to find something hidden beneath the skin.
I reach over and take her tiny, trembling fingers in my large fist. She’s so damn pretty and she smells like flowers, but she’s way too good for me.
I have no idea how to romance a woman at all.
A heavy weight settles in my gut, as if I’m stepping around land mines. If history has taught me anything, it’s that women who get close to me end up shattered.
“What do you want to drink?” I look around the room for a waitress and wave at a woman with a nose ring and bleached hair who pretends she hasn’t seen me. She begins to rearrange some cutlery on a nearby table.
Kesera rolls her neck, looks at me from under long, dark lashes, and gives me an embarrassed smile which makes me want to kiss her. “I know it makes me sound like an old woman, but I’d love a hot drink with some honey. It helps my voice.”
I look over at the maître d', who glares at the waitress and says something that makes her rush over. “I’ve got an idea,” I say, ordering a drink and rubbing her fingers with my thick thumbs to try to stop her trembling. I’m torn between wanting to wrap her in cotton wool and wanting to tear off her clothes.
I’m saved from my jangling thoughts when a flight of vodka appears. Little jewel-colored shot glasses balance on a piece of wood, along with a glass teapot containing a bright-orange drink.
“What’s this?” She pulls her hands from mine and runs her fingers along the teapot’s silver filigree handle, avoiding my eyes.
I reach to take the pot from her and pour her a small cup. The liquid glows like the sun on a polluted day.
“Try it. It’s a berry that grows wild in Siberia.” I grin at her like I’ve done something clever and then feel like a fool. I don’t want to scare her, and the women who seek me out for a quick fuck usually do so for the cheap thrill of being scared.
Kesera lets her eyes fall shut when she takes a sip and moans softly as the drink slides down her throat.
“It’s so gooood,” she says, her southern accent caressing the vowels. It makes me think of other ways I could get her to make that sound. “It’s like the drink the handsome prince in a fairy tale would bring thousands of miles across Siberia for the princess to try.”
I can’t help laughing when she smiles at me.
“You should laugh more often. It makes you look younger.” She tilts her head to the side and watches me with those mossy-green eyes for a moment.
“You’re determined to see everything as a fairy tale, aren’t you?”
A shadow falls across her face, and she reaches for one of the vodka shots, picks it up, and drains it, wincing a little before she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.
“God, that’s strong.” She stares at me and then says, “I got saved by a handsome hero and now I’m drinking a magic drink. Isn’t that the kind of thing that happens in fairy tales?” There’s a fierceness in the way she says it, like she can will it to be true.
“I’m not sure vodka qualifies as magic.”
“The Day-Glo orange stuff. It tastes like magic.”
She looks at me with those big eyes, and I run out of words. I reach for her hand and thread our fingers together. We sit in silence for a few minutes as the cathedral’s gleaming domes shimmer in the water below the window. There’s a strange kind of comfort in it, but I feel compelled to warn her.
“I’m nobody’s hero, zolotaya. I’m not a good man, and you shouldn’t put your trust in me.”
Her smile goes brittle and doesn’t crinkle around her eyes. “You keep calling me that nickname, and I’m no one’s golden girl. Not anymore.”
“Tonight, you are. You’re mine.” I bring her fingers to my mouth again, kissing them softly.
The vodka must have gone to her head, because to my surprise, she circles the table and slides in next to me. She draws my head to hers and kisses me so softly it feels like feathers or angel wings. Like every soft thing I didn’t know I was missing.
When I open my eyes, she’s staring at me.
“I know we don’t have long. It’s only hours, really. Can we suspend reality until I leave? Call it a fairy tale for a little while?”
I pull her tiny frame against me, wrapping her against my side and enjoying how small and delicate she feels. She sighs, shifts, and leans her head on my chest, and I watch the snow fall into the dark water outside as I explore the sensation of having this strange woman put her trust in me. I’m plucking up the courage to kiss her again when I hear a soft snore and she slides sideways into my lap. She’s out cold.
The drink must have knocked her out because I can’t wake her up and I have to carry her to the car, cursing myself for not looking after her better. Once we’re in the car, the noise of the city fades as we pass the ring roads and reach the snowy countryside on the outskirts of Moscow.
This is the best time to leave the city. When the snarls of traffic calm to emptiness. It’s the thing I fucking hate about Moscow, and it’s one of the many reasons why I have to get out of here. Nothing works. Everything is a zero-sum game. You could have all the billions in the world and die of a heart attack before the doctors could reach you in an ambulance because the streets were clogged with cars. Money can’t buy you out of the dogfights and the chaos. The only way out of this mess is to leave. China, America, it doesn’t matter. Sasha and I need to be anywhere but here.