Page 116 of Nothing More

As hoped, Blaire’s gaze lifted and sparked with interest when it alighted on Tenny. “Wait…” She had that special, American flavor of vocal fry, half Valley Girl, half groan. “Were you as Lola Carden’s birthday party last week.”

Tenny tipped his head so his glasses slid down his nose, and he could peer dismissively over the rims. He snorted, unsmiling. “No. I don’t hang out withLola Carden.” His accent lent the name extra derision, and Blaire’s interest only deepened; she was the sort of fawned-over princess who got excited by contempt.

“Yuri’s been working out of St. Petersburg,” Raven said. “He’s more familiar to European and Asian audiences.”

“Right,” Blaire said, likeof course I knew that. She sat up straighter and fluffed her hair.

“May we sit?” Raven asked.

Blaire waved to the seats across from her. “If you want.” But she didn’t manage to sound as flippant as she probably wanted to, gaze still fixed on Tenny. Her boyfriend frowned beside her.

Score one for the arsehole brother, Raven thought, and slid into the booth.

~*~

The backseat of the Mercedes wasn’t empty. A young guy with a shaved head and an expensive jacket looked up from his phone, gave Toly a flat, unreadable glance, and then went back to his screen. Up front, a thick-necked bit of muscle sat beside the driver. None of them spoke.

Neither did Toly. He slumped down in the seat and gazed out the window, memorizing the turns.

The bratva had owned the laundromat that still served as a money laundering front since before he first arrived in the States. It was where the police had raided months before, during the Abacus shakeup, so he knew it was still in bratva hands. It was where – when he’d still been a member – Oleg, Andrei’s cousin, had lived in an upstairs apartment, drunk half the time and raging the other half.

Now, the driver didn’t steer them anywhere near that old neighborhood, but into a nice one. A neighborhood that was in fact only two streets over from Mrs. Newsome’s. Easy access, Toly thought, as the car ducked into a driveway that cut through a gate in the house itself, third floor windows overhead gleaming with light.

A tunnel – brick with wall-mounted sconces – led into a garage. Three bays, epoxy floor, lots of shelves and benches, tools hung neatly on pegs. It looked like a real garage, like someone lived here, and did home renovation projects on the weekend…but Toly thought it wouldn’t be wood dust that would come away on a forensic swab, if anyone examined the circular saw.

The door hummed down behind them, closed with a final thump, and only then did the doors of the car unlock.

Toly climbed out, and didn’t bother trying to search for an outer door, or the garage door lift button: there would be no escaping from this place. If he left, it would either be because they’d allowed him to. Or in a rolled-up carpet shoved in the back of a van.

The guy with the shaved head who’d ridden beside him motioned for him to follow, and led the way, gaze glued to his phone the whole time. Up a tall flight of wooden stairs, no rail. Through a door and into a brick-floored hall with tasteful, nondescript art on the walls. Through a stunning chef’s kitchen, and onto hardwood floors, through sitting rooms. Finally, down a tiled entryway, chandelier dripping crystal, and to an open set of French doors that led into an office in the townhouse’s bay window, a view of gray, windswept streets and other expensive houses across the way. There was a big, intimidating man standing just inside, hands folded together in front of him, gun obvious on his hip. Toly ignored him, gaze instead going straight to the man standing at the mantel, drink in-hand, gaze fixed dramatically on the fire that crackled merrily beneath.

Though still, the scene leaped out at him, grabbed him around the throat and dragged him back to Moscow. Andrei in his study, the Aubusson rug, the music playing softly. Snow falling outside the curtains, the chink of glass on crystal as a drink was refreshed. Andrei’s face full, and florid, dark eyes gleaming wetly as he contemplated the man strapped to a chair in the corner, begging for his life.

You will betray me only once, and then I will gut you.

Toly blinked, and the shape of the man at the fireplace was all wrong for Andrei. Taller, broader through the shoulders and narrower through the hips. Physically powerful in a way that Andrei had never been; the shape of a man able to follow through personally on his threats of violence. He wore his hair shorter and tidier than Toly remembered, smoothed down with product; wore a finely-cut suit, instead of dark jeans and a thick coat. Hands bare rather than gloved, watch flashing on his wrist, rings winking on his fingers.

He'd been muscle, once, but now, everything about Misha spoke to money.

He turned, as Toly’s boot soles scuffed over the threshold; raised his glass for a long swallow and regarded Toly over the edge of it. When he spoke, his voice was as low and serious as Toly recalled, accent less pronounced than his own: he’d either worked on it, or found it naturally less difficult to tamp down than Toly had. “Anatoly,” he greeted, without inflection. “It’s been a long time. Come in.”

Toly stepped inside.

To the guard: “Leave us.”

The big man nodded and stepped out, drawing the French doors shut behind him. They offered a semblance of privacy; a chance to speak unheard, if they kept their voices quiet.

Toly’s heart was beating very fast, but he kept his breathing very regular; a clash that left his insides shivering as though electrified.

Misha finished off his drink and moved to a sideboard in a few long strides. Poured himself another – he was drinking Bourbon, Toly noted, something they’d rarely seen in Russia – and then turned over a second glass. “Do you still take your usual?”

He had a beer with the guys, now and then, had shared wine with Raven. But if left to his own devices, in a bar, or at the clubhouse, he fell back on habit. “Yeah.”

Two ice cubes from a bucket with tongs, and then a generous pour of Stoli’s. Misha brought it to him, a drink in each hand, Toly’s thrust toward him, and Toly acknowledged the move for what it was: a momentary treaty. A way of showing that he held no weapons with which to attack him, better even than a handshake for dispelling thoughts of ill-will.

Toly looked down into his glass, wondered if the vodka had been poisoned, and took a sip, because Misha had never been the sort for underhanded, government-style sabotage. He liked his murder straight-up and honest.

Misha moved around behind a handsome desk and motioned to the chair across from him.