It’s a ten-minute walk through the woods to where Mal keeps his truck, concealed in a low brick structure built into the side of a hill. From there, it’s an hour on a rutted dirt road into town, a charming alpine village with an airstrip for small planes on one end. The flight to the city lasts just under two hours.
Like everything else he does, Mal pilots the Cessna with ease and confidence.
We land in Moscow without ever having spoken a word since we left.
I don’t know why.
I don’t know why I’m afraid, either.
But I sense instinctively that this is a big deal, him taking me into the city. More than simply being the place where he works, it’s also the place where his boss is. Where Spider is. Where danger waits for both of us.
In the forest, we could pretend he lived a different life. His absences were short interruptions in an otherwise peaceful little bubble. We were a snow globe on a shelf.
But the snow globe shatters the moment we touch down at Sheremetyevo airport, and I’m exposed to the other side of Mal’s life.
The darker side.
Where all his monsters live.
A black Phantom waits for us on the tarmac. The driver takes our bags and loads them into the trunk without looking at me, not even to acknowledge my existence.
It feels purposeful. Like he knows something terrible will happen if he glances my way, and he won’t dare risk it.
Mal says something to him in Russian. Then the driver bows—he bows—and opens the back door.
Mal climbs in behind me, then we’re off.
And I can’t stop looking out the windows. Moscow at night is a glittering fairy tale of lights, people, and movement. It seems larger than San Francisco by a factor of ten.
Mal takes my hand and squeezes it. “What are you thinking?”
“There’s no snow.”
“We’re not in the mountains anymore.” After a beat, he says, “What else?”
How well he can read me. When I look down at my hands, he wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me against his side, lowering his head to murmur, “What else, malyutka?”
I lean my head against his shoulder and close my eyes. “Everything else.”
He kisses my forehead gently. I’m glad when he doesn’t say more.
The drive to his home from the airport lasts under thirty minutes, but by the time we get there, I’m a nervous wreck. Even the incredibly beautiful views of the city passing by the windows can’t distract from my panic.
I feel frazzled and strung out, like I’ve had way too much caffeine. After the tranquility of the woods, everything is too loud, too close, too bright. My heart is palpitating.
We pull into the parking garage of a glass tower and stop in front of a bank of elevators. Four hulking men in black suits step forward. One of them opens my door, another one rounds the back of the car and opens Mal’s.
He doesn’t need to instruct me to stay put. My intuition tells me there are rules here, new rules I’m not aware of. The primary one being follow his lead.
Mal exits the Phantom, walks around to my side, and holds out his hand.
The men in suits step back to form a line in front of the elevators. Hands clasped behind their backs, faces impassive, they look off into the distance.
I take Mal’s hand and step out, feeling shaky. He curls his big hand around mine to steady me.
One of the men in black presses a call button for the elevator, then goes back to pretending to be a statue.
When the doors slide open and Mal and I walk past the men, all of them bow in unison.
I wait until the doors slide shut and the elevator starts moving before I say, “What the heck was that?”
He says simply, “Respect.”
“Are those your bodyguards?”
“I don’t have bodyguards.”
“Why not?”
He slants me a look.
“Oh. Right. You’re the guy other people need bodyguards for.”
He looks at me for a moment, his eyes half-lidded, then takes me by the arm and pulls me against his chest. He cradles my head in his hands and kisses me.
It’s a firm kiss, but not a passionate one.
It’s a kiss that tells me to calm down. That he’s in control, and I have nothing to worry about.
That he won’t let anything bad happen to me.
I drop my forehead to his chest and heave a sigh. “Thank you.”
“You needed that.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
Despite my jangling nerves, I smile. “So what happens now?”
“Now we get you settled, then I go to work.”
Work. So much violence contained in so few letters.
The elevator slows to a stop. The doors slide open. Mal takes my hands and leads me into the foyer of a dark apartment. The view of the city through the floor-to-ceiling windows lights up the space in a ghostly glow.
“Holy shit.”
“You like it?”
I don’t know if I like it exactly, but it is beautiful, so I stick to the positive. “It’s incredible.”
He leads me through a living room, empty except for a giant black sectional sitting in front of a big-screen TV on the wall. We pass an open space that seems like it’s supposed to be a dining room, but it’s also empty. Then we’re in a kitchen, a vast echoing space of white marble and glass, as sterile as an operating room.
Mal flicks on a light, illuminating the kitchen. It’s so bright, my eyes water. He walks to the stainless steel fridge and opens the freezer door. Inside, dozens of identical boxes of frozen dinners nest side by side. He removes two and tosses them onto the counter.
“Are you hungry?”
Without waiting for an answer, he tears open a box, removes the plastic tray from inside, turns to the microwave above the sink, and pops it open. He sets the timer and closes the door.
When he turns back to me and sees me standing there, looking lost, he abandons the other box he was about to open and comes to me.
Murmuring something in Russian, he wraps his strong arms around me and squeezes.
I whisper, “I’m okay.”
“You’re not.”
“I will be.”
“What do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it.”
I do, for several long minutes while he holds me, stroking a hand over my hair, his lips pressed to my temple.
I exhale and close my eyes. With my cheek resting against his chest, I say, “It’s just…weird.”
“Keep going.”
“This place. Those frozen dinners. It’s beautiful, but everything is very cold here.”
“I’ll keep you warm.”
He takes my jaw in his hand, tilts my head up, and kisses me.
This is a different kiss than in the elevator. It’s deeper, more emotional, and ten times as hot. I cling to him, trembling, as his tongue sweeps against mine and his mouth turns my body to liquid fire.
When the knock comes on the front door, I jump, gasping.
“Easy, baby,” Mal murmurs against my lips. “It’s just Dom with the bags.”
“Dom?”
“The driver.”
“Oh. Okay.”
But when Mal opens the door, it isn’t the driver. It’s a beautiful young brunette, carrying a large black box tied with white ribbon in her arms.
She bows, like the men at the elevators did, then says something I can’t hear and holds out the box.
Mal accepts the box without a word and closes the door. He stands with his back turned for several long moments, his shoulders stiff. When he turns to face me, I go cold.
His jaw is set. His eyes are black. His expression is stony.
Whatever’s in that box, it isn’t good.
He walks slowly across the apartment until he’s standing in front of me again. Just standing there, holding the box, looking at me like it’s the end of the world.
“What is that?”
“It’s for you.”
The hollowness of his voice terrifies me. I look at the black box with its pretty white ribbon and take an involuntary step back.
Mal sets it on the big marble island and lays his hand on top. “It’s a dress.”
Now I’m confused. “A dress? For me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Then why are you being so strange?”
“Because I didn’t buy it.”
My stomach twists into a knot. Something unpleasant crawls down my spine, a feeling like a centipede is slithering along my skin, its tiny insect legs cold and prickly.
“Who bought it?”
“Pakhan.”
The only sound that breaks the following silence is the whirr of the microwave. We stare at each other until the timer bell rings, then Mal says, “He’s invited us to dinner. We leave in ten minutes.”
“Now? It’s got to be one o’clock in the morning.”
“The time is immaterial.”
I’m sensing all kinds of weirdness coming off him. It makes my already frazzled nerves fray even more. “This isn’t good, is it?”
He hesitates. “It’s unexpected.”
He’s hedging his answers. There’s something he doesn’t want me to know, and it freaks me out. “Did you tell him about me?”
“No.”
“How did he find out?”
He hesitates again. “Any one of a million ways. He’s the most powerful man in Russia.”
My breath shallow, my heartbeat zooming, and my palms starting to sweat, I look at the box as if it’s full of snakes. “But…but if he sent that dress, he knew about me before we got here.”
“Yes.”
Oh, god. Has he been watching us? And if he has been…why?
I can think of a few reasons off the top of my head, none of them good. Adrenaline floods my system, leaving me shaking.
Mal walks over to me and takes my face in his hands.
“You’re not in danger.”
“Are you sure? Because it sounds like you’re only saying that to convince yourself.”
“This is a chess move. A power play. He wants me to know he knows about you, that’s all. I never would’ve brought you to the city if I thought you wouldn’t be safe.”
I lick my lips and try to swallow. My mouth is as dry as a desert. Fear has leached all the moisture from my body. I close my eyes and inhale a shaky breath.
“Look at me, malyutka.”
When I gaze up into his eyes, he says vehemently, “Any man who even looks at you wrong will die. Any man, including him. If I sense any hint of a threat, if anything whatsoever happens that displeases me, I will make him unalive. Do you understand me?”
Trembling, I say, “Not really.”
“But do you trust me?”
His eyes are fierce. His intensity is breathtaking. And the truth of his words is obvious in every taut line of his body, in every muscle and pore.
This man will kill to protect me. Even his own boss, the most powerful man in Russia, isn’t exempt from the Hangman’s noose.
Gun. Knife. Whatever he uses. The fact remains: my assassin has my back.
Fortified by that thought, I stand straighter, taking a breath. “Yes.”
He pulls me against his chest, hugging me hard and exhaling into my hair.
“Good. Now let’s get dressed. The sooner this is over with, the better.”
With that cryptic statement hanging over my head, Mal picks up the box and leads me into the bedroom.
