Page 31 of Cruel Juliet

“Because he’s making a mistake with you,” Kira says. “I won’t help you do anything that might hurt him.”

“I’m not planning to hurt him. I just?—”

“Like you weren’t planning to hurt him when you ran?” She cuts me off coldly. “Yeah, right.”

The words settle heavily in the air. I try to think of something, anything that might make Kira change her mind.

But I’ve got nothing.

She slams the door behind her back. The lock slides back into place.

Again, I’m alone.

14

PETYR

I step through the doors of the White Russian Club with a dark face and an even darker mood.

The sound hits me first. The thump of the bass through the floor, the hum of voices and clink of glasses.

Familiar.

Too familiar.

A hostess stands by the podium. She lifts her head as soon as she sees me. “Good evening, Mr. Gubarev. So good to see you again.”

I don’t answer.

She approaches with a smile despite that. By now, the staff here knows not to test me when I’m like this. “This way, please.”

I shove my hands in my pockets and follow her into the crowd. She’s short, petite, with generous curves, the kind of woman that would have had my head turning if this had been a year ago.

But it’s not a year ago. I can’t even think of looking at another woman now. Not after Sima.

As we weave through the bar area, the air grows thicker with perfume and the sharp bite of alcohol. The neon lights sweep across bare skin. The dance floor is a mess of warm bodies in scant, expensive clothing. The same as always.

Just like we designed it.

Once, this club was ours. Mine and Dimitri’s. Lev’s, too, in a way, since he handled the day-to-day more than either one of us. We built it out of an empty industrial husk and turned it into the most exclusive place in Manhattan.

Soon, every major city in the country wanted a White Russian of their own. Our first solo business venture, and our biggest success.

We spent countless nights here, at our table, perfecting the formula. Closed deals in the back of this place more than in our own offices. The music was loud enough to rattle our bones, but we didn’t give a shit back then. We were young, reckless.

We used to go back home with a different woman on our arm every night. Before Dimitri married, we were the most eligible bachelors in New York, and there wasn’t a single girl who wouldn’t have traded her mother for a diamond ring from any one of us.

Our table is on permanent reserve now, but it’s been ages since anyone occupied it.

I don’t like to call it sentiment. It’s nothing like that. I prefer to think of that table as property I don’t always need, but want to be ready for me at the snap of my fingers.

The fact that I’d been saving it so we could all toast to Dimitri’s full recovery there isn’t something I like dwelling on.

My jaw tightens. Lev turned traitor and I killed him for it. Dimitri lies half-dead in a hospital bed, a tube jammed down his throat. The last time I saw him truly alive, he was brash, defiant. A youngpakhanat the top of his game.

But that man doesn’t exist anymore. What’s left of my brother is a shell, and what’s left of my best friend is rotting at the bottom of the Hudson.

Those nights with Dimitri and Lev are gone. Now, I run the place alone. No partners.