Page 86 of Brutal Secrets
“Are you leaving again?” I whisper as I listen to his heartbeat slow.
“I’m not going anywhere, zolotaya. I’m staying right here as long as you’ll have me.” But even as he looks at me, I have a gnawing sense there’s still something he’s not telling me.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The back room of Bolshoi has the fetid smell of yesterday’s alcohol, stale cigar smoke, and other men’s cum. I don’t like to look at the black sofas, and I make a point of not resting my hand on the leather as I sit down and lean back.
The door creaks open and Oksana, my old lover from Moscow, walks in. She manages the strippers and the dancers and the girls behind the bar with an iron hand. Never one for subtlety, her hair is dyed fire-engine red this week.
“What have the girls been up to?” I ask.
“The usual.” She smiles at me, holding the eye contact a beat too long. “The same round of rivalries, catfights, and drug problems.” She shrugs. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Did you find an aspiring singer to lure Jimmy in?” I pull a cigarette from the pack and slide it between my lips as I search my pocket for a lighter, but she moves faster, leaning across with a lit flame. Finding an excuse to touch me.
I wave the packet at her, and she shakes her head. “I’m going to need fillers to deal with my pout if I keep it up,” she says.
She sits down next to me and lays her hand on my thigh, but I give her a squeeze and return her hand to her lap.
“So, it’s like that, then? It’s serious?” She gives me a pensive smile.
“Yeah. Serious as a heart attack. Or a kidnapping. Or disposing of a body.” I slant my eyes across to her.
“I found someone, but you’re not going to like it. I had a look at the girls, but he wants someone fresh and talented and young. Really young, but not desperate. I think he likes to break them.”
“Okay.” I’m curious. “Who did you pick?”
“Julia.” She gives me a hard stare.
“Christ, Oksana. Your own daughter?”
“Well, you’re serious about getting rid of him, aren’t you?” Oksana shakes her head. “After all the damn money I spent on her education, Julia wants to follow in my footsteps and try to be a singer. We all know how that ended up.” She gives a harsh bark of laughter. “I want the girl to be a surgeon or a dermatologist. Make a mint. Be respectable. She’s got the grades. I don’t want her in this world, and this will be a lesson to her.”
“Sasha and I will be taking him for a little walk.” I nod at her.
“Off a long pier, I hope.”
“The less you know, my dear,” I say, grinning at her as I bump her shoulder.
She smiles at me with a hint of her old warmth. She’s been a good friend. “I want that fucker out of here. He’s been wining and dining Julia. Telling her she can make it. I want her to understand what’s at stake in this world, and I want him to pay. I don’t know what your woman went through, but I can imagine.”
I nod but say nothing else. As I said, the less she knows.
By the time Sasha arrives in the evening, I have a headache. The back rooms of Bolshoi echo with the sound of groaning men, and the thud-thud-thud of an Usher song comes over the speakers from the room next door.
God, the sound of other men getting off turns my stomach.
Sasha and I watch the cameras in room seven. Julia is there, giggling as Jimmy pushes her long blond hair behind her ear. He looks even sleazier than he did a decade earlier—the chin a little weaker and softer, the waistband of his jeans a little snugger.
We’ll pull the footage later and replace it with footage of Sasha getting a lap dance from Oksana. The alibi will be watertight once Marat, our tech guy, splices the video.
Jimmy moves a little closer and shoves his hand up her shirt. Here it is. The moment he lives for. The power move where a woman gets scared.
Julia shakes her head and puts her hand on his arm, as if to reassure him and push him away at the same time.
“Do we go in now?” Sasha asks.
I see the moment I met Kesera. Him on top of her. Her eyes begging me for help in the back room of a seedy club in Moscow.