Page 97 of Cruel Demands

Petyr picks up his coat. “I know enough.”

“You just like green eyes and tan skin.”

His mouth tightens. “And you like Korolev for his heart, I suppose.”

I look toward the door.

Petyr follows my gaze. His jaw works once, then he nods. “All right.”

Anya stands. “Petyr⁠—”

“No.” He picks up the unopened bottle he brought, thinks better of it, and leaves it on the counter. “She wants me to go.” He walks to the door. Before opening it, he looks back at me. “Whatever you found tonight, do not go looking for more.” I fold my arms. “And do not ask Korolev about Orlov again.”

Then he leaves. The lock clicks behind him. Anya and I stand in the kitchen listening to his footsteps fade down the stairwell. She turns toward me slowly. “You slept with Mikhail Korolev?”

I sigh and throw the food container into the trash. “That’s what you got from that conversation?”

“It was a very complicated conversation.”

I stare at the table. Lyubertsy. Orlov Transport. Six pending. Mikhail asking whether I photographed the page. Mikhail telling me I’m safe when I never asked.

Anya studies my face. “Are you going to keep looking?”

“No.” I stare at the table. The page comes back to me with perfect clarity. Transferred. Held. Cleared. “Maybe. I don’t know,” I say.

She groans.

I reach for the vodka.

21

MIKHAIL

I study the photographs in Arkady’s hands while he stands across from my desk. Neither of us speaks for several seconds. In the image, my mother is standing outside the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, one gloved hand resting on Anton’s arm. Her other hand is wrapped around the gold head of a cane. She will not take a wheelchair to church. She’s wearing the dark green coat I bought her last winter and looking toward the street as though someone has called her name. The photograph was taken from far enough away that she never knew anyone was watching.

There is no message attached. There does not need to be.

Outside my office, staff begin arriving. Chairs roll across the floor. Someone starts the coffee machine. The building wakes around us with the ordinary sounds of people who do not know how close violence has come to them.

“Where is she now?” I ask, staring at the photo like I might make it come alive.

“At home. Anton is inside with her.”

I smile despite myself. Anton she trusts. If Anton tells her to go inside, she will complain while doing exactly as he asks. “Good. And who else?”

“Two men in the east wing and four outside.”

“She knows?”

Arkady nods. “She knows something happened.”

“Something happened when three men came to her gate. Something happened when they knew her pharmacy. Now someone follows her to church and photographs her.”

“She was not pleased when we doubled the security.”

“She is never pleased when I do anything sensible.”

Arkady places the next photograph on my desk. The angle is different, my mother farther down the cathedral steps. Another shows the car waiting for her. Another shows Anton opening the rear door. “They followed her from the house?” I ask.