Page 67 of Cruel Demands

“Three deny speaking to anyone. Two are blaming each other. The last one has a second phone registered under his brother’s name.”

That should have my full attention.

One of my men may have told Orlov enough to put strangers at my mother’s gate. The second phone may contain the answer. Men are waiting for instructions because they know acting without them could be fatal.

The bar door opens. A couple steps outside laughing. Neither of them is Nikolai.

“Search it,” I say.

“We already did. There are calls to a number connected to Orlov’s transport office. I thought you would want to be here before we question him.”

“Not now.”

Silence follows. Arkady knows better than to ask what could possibly be more important. “Pakhan⁠—”

“I said not now. Keep them separated. No one speaks to him until I arrive.” I end the call before he can answer and place the phone face down beside me.

Pavel’s eyes meet mine briefly in the rearview mirror, then return to the entrance.

The bar door opens again twenty minutes later, and this time Taylor steps outside with Viktoriya, Katya, Dima, and Alina gathered around her. She has her coat buttoned crookedly and her purse trapped beneath one arm. Dima says something that makes her laugh, but he’s looking at Viktoriya when he says it. Viktoriya rolls her eyes and takes his scarf from around his neck, wrapping it around her own before he can protest.

Taylor looks up and down the street.

For one irrational second, I think she’s looking for me.

Then a taxi pulls to the curb. Katya and Alina climb into the back, and Taylor hesitates beside the open door while Viktoriya says something near her ear. Taylor’s face changes. Her mouth tightens, and she glances back toward the bar before shaking her head.

I wonder if Viktoriya is asking about me.

I wonder what Taylor says.

I could lower the window. I could call her name. I could tell Pavel to follow the taxi and make certain she reaches home safely. The order is already waiting behind my teeth.

Instead, I watch her slide into the car. Viktoriya closes the door behind her, then steps back beside Dima. He places one hand at the small of Viktoriya’s back as the taxi pulls away, and she allows it without even looking at him.

Taylor disappears around the corner. I should leave now. She is gone. Nikolai cannot touch her tonight. Whatever threat I invented has ended.

“Drive,” I tell Pavel. His hand shifts toward the ignition. I look back at the entrance. “Wait.” Pavel’s hand goes still. Neither of us says anything.

Nearly two hours later, the door opens again. Nikolai steps outside with two friends, his voice carrying across the street. He is confident, happy, a little drunk, tired. The three of them sing part of an old bar song as they walk, their voices echoing through the mostly empty streets.

“Follow them,” I say. Pavel starts the car.

We remain far enough back that they don’t notice us. Nikolai and his friends walk for several blocks before stopping beneath a streetlight. One friend embraces him. The other claps him on the shoulder. Nikolai lifts one hand in farewell and turns alone into the narrow street beside a closed pharmacy.

“Stop.”

Pavel pulls to the curb. I open the door. He looks at my hands once. He knows what they are for. “Governor⁠—”

“Wait here.” I step into the cold before he can say anything else.

The street isn’t an alley, but it’s close enough. Moscow has many spaces like this, half-public and half-forgotten. Service doors. Dumpsters. Bad lighting. Enough foot traffic to keep a man careless, not enough to keep him safe.

Nikolai is still looking at his phone when I say his name. “Nikolai.”

He turns. For a second, he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing. Rich men do not usually wait for boys like him in dark side streets.

His expression changes from confusion to recognition, then settles into a tentative mixture of both. “Ah. The unfortunate boss.”