Page 24 of Cruel Demands

“I am.”

“What?”

“A job.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“What kind of job?” She hesitates, and I raise my palm. “It’s okay. You can keep your secrets. I have some of my own.”

“Oh, like what?”

“If I told you, they wouldn’t be secrets,” I retort, and that earns me a real smile from her, wide enough to see that her teeth are unusually straight. American. I look down at the drink in her hand, still mostly full, then back up at the dirty-blond hair framing her freckled, heart-shaped face. “Do you like it?”

“I haven’t decided. It may be a bit…mature for me,” she says, swishing it.

“How old are you?” I ask her, looking into her green eyes to watch for a hint of lies.

“Old enough to know that when a man asks that, I’m too young for him,” she says sharply.

I can’t help but laugh at her directness. “You walked over,” I point out, pointing my drink at her friend and the boy who has returned. They both quickly avert their eyes from us.

“To say thank you.”

“You said it.”

Her eyes don’t leave mine, the air charged between us, and I gesture to the leather seat across from me. She looks back for one second at the pair she left behind and then tucks the little black dress around her tightly before sitting. “I’m Taylor,” she says, like she’s placing a knife on the table between us and daring me to pick it up. “Taylor Hayes.”

I should send her back to her friends. She is young. American. Tipsy enough that her smile has gone loose at the edges, but not yet foolish. Still tracking every movement around her.

There is a difference. I have built a life on recognizing the small separations between weakness and choice, between fear and obedience, between a person who can be bought and a person who has not yet learned her price. Taylor has not learned hers. That makes her interesting. It also makes her dangerous. For both of us.

“Mikhail.”

“Mikhail,” she repeats, testing my name on her tongue. It should not affect me. It is a common name. A strong name, yes, but not rare. I have heard it from politicians, enemies, priests, my mother, men begging for their teeth. I have heard it shouted in anger and whispered in fear.

I have not heard it like this. Curious. A little drunk. Completely unaware that there are men in this city who would lower their eyes before speaking it.

This is why I come here when I want to be left alone. No one in this room knows who I am. University students do not know what the governor of Moscow Oblast looks like. They do not care to find out. If they do know, in this bar, they do not look close enough to recognize him. They see the suit, decide I am too old and too serious for the place, and turn back to themselves.

Tonight, I needed that.

The driver lasted longer than I expected before admitting Orlov’s name, though not long enough to convince me he had told us everything. By the time we let him go, there was still blood flecked inside the buttonholes of my cuffs and too much violence still coursing through me to return home and sit across from my mother as though I had spent the evening signing documents.

So, I came here to drink until the edge wore off. I gesture to the server to bring us another round, something she can hold and sip, not throw back like the vodka at her table.

Taylor’s eyebrow lifts. “You’re trying to get me drunk.”

“You are already drunk.”

“I’m celebrating.”

“Then I am helping.”

“That sounds like something a villain says before the third act.”

I pause with my drink halfway to my mouth, and she smiles, pleased with herself. She folds her hands in front of her on the table, waiting for my response. “It is just a drink,” I tell her, finishing mine and setting the empty glass on the edge of the table for the server to take.