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I blink at him in disbelief, the image of the gun in his hand crisp and clear in my mind. There’s no way a regular wealthy businessman, even one with military training, would be able to kill and torture as casually as he had. “But I saw you… And your men… And—”

“I didn’t say we were angels. Open up.” He brings a forkful of currant-dotted pear to my lips and waits for me to start chewing before he continues. “In Russia, to gain and retain power, you have to be ruthless. You have to be willing to do whatever it takes. It’s always been that way, since time immemorial.”

I open my mouth to speak, but he just feeds me another bite of the pear and continues in a light, even tone, as if reading a bedtime story.

“My family has always understood that,” he says, “which is why we’ve prospered since the times of the Mongols’ rule. In fact, our first known ancestor was one of Genghis Khan’s right-hand men—a nice, kind guy who looted, burned, and raped his way all across Siberia and into the Moscow region back in the thirteenth century. His children followed in his footsteps, and by the time Peter the Great was building his city, the Molotovs—or Nebelevskys, as we were known back then—were a fixture at the tsarist court, guiding and directing national policy from behind the scenes. We were also filthy rich and owned thousands upon thousands of serfs—which makes it extra ironic that during the Revolution, my great-grandfather was one of the ones putting the ‘despicable nobles’ and ‘evil bourgeoisie’ on trial for crimes against the common people. He even changed his name to Molotov, the root of which means “hammer” in Russian—a much more Communist-friendly last name than Nebelevsky. But that’s how we roll.” A hint of bitterness twists Nikolai’s lips. “We do whatever it takes to stay on top: whether it’s running the gulag labor camps during Stalin’s era, or spearheading the propaganda machine of the Communist Party in the fifties and sixties—or jumping on the oil and gas vouchers during the Perestroika and then diversifying to retain the resulting billions in wealth. We’re like cockroaches—except the kind that know not just how to survive but how to rule their corner of the world.”

I’m both disturbed and fascinated, so much so I forget to chew the next bite of dessert before asking, “So you’re not actual mafia?”

My mouth is so full the words come out jumbled, but Nikolai understands and smiles. “No—but that doesn’t mean we shy away from getting our hands dirty. Staying on top in Russia is like building a house on a sandy ocean beach: The ground underneath washes away with every tide, and a storm is always brewing on the horizon. My late grandfather, for example—my father’s father—was nearly executed back in the fifties when a high-ranking Party rival falsely accused him of disloyalty to the Communist regime. He spent two years in one of the Siberian gulags he’d been overseeing, and when he made his way out, the first thing he did was plant evidence on his rival and get him sent away to the gulags while having the government transfer all of his property to himself. Then, later on, my father—” He stops, his expression darkening.

I sit up straighter. “Your father what?”

Nikolai’s face turns impassive. “Nothing. The nineties in Russia were just a particularly corrupt and volatile time, so my family had to be extra vigilant and ruthless.”

“Specifically, your father.” I’m not about to let him drop this topic, not when I’m finally getting some answers.

“And his brother, Vyacheslav—my uncle. His son, Roman, is now nearly as rich as we are.”

“Uh-huh.” At any other time, I’d jump at a chance to learn more about Nikolai’s extended family, but right now, I’m solely focused on his father. I let him feed me a couple more forkfuls of dessert, and after I swallow, I ask cautiously, “So what kind of things did your father have to do to stay on top in the nineties?”

Nikolai’s eyes turn a greener shade of amber. “Nothing worse than any other oligarch of his generation: a lot of bribery, some blackmail and racketeering, a little physical coercion, and—when required—forceful elimination of obstacles. Tactics you might think of as falling into the organized crime domain, except they were standard business strategies in Russia at the time. And it wasn’t just the oligarchs—the government used the same toolbox. That’s still the case to some extent; lawfulness and criminality are highly flexible, constantly evolving concepts in my country, each with a lot of room for interpretation.”

I do my best to keep my expression neutral, even as my arms prickle with a chill. Physical coercion and forceful elimination—those are obviously euphemisms for torture and murder. And this is what he’s been raised to view as standard business strategies?