by Vivian Wood
She sighs.
“Give Hazel all the cock she wants,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” she says, but she’s trying not to laugh. “Are you okay?”
“I survived this time,” I say.
“Shut up,” she whispers, and I kiss her.
I want to tell her I like being marked yours, but I don’t. Instead she falls back asleep slowly, turning onto her side in my arms and snuggling into me while I watch the minutes tick by on the clock.
For the first time all day, I don’t want to do this any more. I just want to stay in bed with her while the world goes on outside, but then I think of the dream again, of her head at that angle. She stirs in her sleep, and I realize I was holding her too tight.
I kiss her on the shoulder and slowly unwind myself. She turns onto her stomach but doesn’t wake up.
“I love you,” I whisper, kiss her other shoulder, and get out of bed.
At 4:15 I meet Niko in the Emerald Dining Room, the one we never use except for formal events. It’s still dark outside, and he walks up to me without speaking.
“You’re sure?” he asks, finally.
“I’m sure,” I say, and he nods once, crisply.
“I thought so,” he says.
At 4:30 we’ve made it to the east gate of the palace. Niko pulls out his phone and begins the security system updates, taking it offline, and he and I open the gate manually.
On the other side are four Humvees. American-made, nearly new. My father got them just last year. Dmitri waves from one window, and I wave back. Captain Ovechkin jumps out of a truck.
“Everything’s in place?” he asks.
“Yes, sir,” Niko and I say in unison.
The captain gives me a funny look, but doesn’t say anything. He holds out one hand to Niko.
“Nikolai,” he says, clapping his other hand over Niko’s. “It’s been an honor.”
“Likewise,” Niko says. The captain lets his hand go, and Niko’s gaze washes over the trucks and the men inside them, full of naked, unabashed longing.
It must be hell to be the guy who has to stay behind while the rest of us get to go on a mission like this. It doesn’t matter that he’s got some of the most important jobs, or that there’s no way it would be happening without Niko. There’s nothing else like it in the world, and he knows that.
Captain Ovechkin nods again and turns back to his truck.
I turn to Niko and we embrace hard.
“Good luck, brother,” he says gruffly.
I back up and we hold each other’s shoulders at arm’s length.
“I wish you could come,” I say.
“I do too,” he says. “I’d slow you down.”
“You’ve got everything,” I say.
He nods.
“You know the backup plans?” I ask.
This could go bad. I could die. We could all die.
“Of course,” he says.
“Thank you, brother,” I say, and we let go. He walks back through the still-open gate, his limp only just noticeable.
Then he watches us as we drive off, and the car is quiet for a moment. I look out the window at the barely-gray horizon, thinking about the hour and half between now and the meeting.
Finally, Sergei speaks up.
“What the hell happened to your neck?” he asks.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Hazel
I’m almost too wired to sleep, too nervous about the day ahead. I wake up again at 5:30, look at the clock, sigh, and roll over.
Then I sit up in surprise. The bed’s empty. Kostya’s gone. I put my hand on the mattress.
Cold. He’s been gone a while.
There’s a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach as I roll out of his bed.
This is the thing he wouldn’t tell me about, I think. I fucking know it is.
I yank on my pants and a bra. I can’t find my shirt in the dark so I grab a t-shirt of his off a chair and it’s barely over my head before I’m leaving his room, still barefoot, adrenaline spiking through my veins.
Maybe I can find him and stop whatever the fuck he’s doing, I think.
I come out of his apartment into the hall and try to think. He’s probably leaving, and if he didn’t want to get caught he’d go out a lower level—
I round a corner into the broad, tall main hall and stop. Niko’s standing there, arms crossed, staring out a window. He looks over at me as I enter.
“I was about to come wake you up,” he says.
“Where’s Kostya?” I ask, doing my best to make my voice not shake.
“Already gone,” he says.
“Gone where?” I ask.
I feel like I’m seconds away from losing my shit.
“Come on,” he says, and starts to walk away.
“No!” I say, then look around.
I take a deep breath and lower my voice.
“I am fucking done with people not telling me shit,” I say. “I’ll come look at whatever you want me to look at but would you please fucking tell me what is going on.”
“He’s meeting Pavel,” Niko says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“I knew it,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose with one hand. “I fucking knew it.”
I take a deep breath.
“What the hell for?” I ask.
“Because he’s the King, and he didn’t want to send a defenseless foreign national to do his work for him,” Niko says, then lowers his voice. “And because neither of us trust the volki not to try something, even with an American.”
“So he’s going?” I ask.
“He’s got half the Royal Guard with him,” Niko says.
I exhale, crossing my arms in front of me.
“That’s the first thing you’ve said that’s made me feel any better,” I admit.
“He’s in very good hands,” Niko says, and looks back out the window.
“When’s the meeting?” I ask.
“Six,” Niko says. “Thirty minutes. We have dashboard cameras, if you want to watch.”
“Can I talk you out of this?” I ask quietly.
Niko shakes his head.
“You sure?” I ask.
My mind is racing. What if I called the state department? The military base in Turkey?
I’m pretty sure that’s all stupid. Sveloria is a sovereign state. They were only involved because I was, and now I’m not.
“I’m sure,” he says.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Then it wouldn’t be a secret,” Niko says.
“Come on,” I say.
Niko almost smiles.
“Because you’re also stubborn and argumentative, and he was afraid you’d do something like call the State Department, and then he’d have to argue with them for another day,” he says. “His words, not mine.”
It was the first thing I thought of.
“I don’t have to like it,” I say.
“No one thought you would,” Niko says, and tilts his head toward the door. “Come on.”
We’re in the same office where we have all our meetings, and we’re projecting a dashboard camera onto the screen. Every so often Niko switches to a different one, but right now all four show the same thing: a wide open concrete slab, buildings in the distance. There’s no sound, but we can see men carefully patrolling, checking the ground, keeping watch.
I have no idea which one’s Kostya. The camera’s not that good, and it’s simultaneously boring and tense, like a nature documentary that could become a horror movie at any moment.
Right now, in the room, it’s just the two of us, and we’re not talking.
Finally, after a long stretch of silence, I speak up.
“Can I ask you a nosy question?” I say.
“Americans only ask that when they’ve made up their mind to ask it already,” Niko says.
I sigh.
“Yes,” he says.
“Are you watching from here instead of with them
because of your leg?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says again.
I wait for him to elaborate, and finally he looks at me, like he realizes I’m waiting.
“Land mine on a road in the mountains,” he says.
I can tell there’s more. I glance at the screen, then wait.
“It killed two other men instantly,” he says. “I was ten feet away and just got a legful of shrapnel.”
He folds his hands on the table and looks at them.
“It was a trap, and they started shooting the second I went down,” he says softly. “Kostya and Sergei came back and dragged me behind cover. I’d be dead if they hadn’t.”
I glance at the screen. Still nothing.
“I’m sorry you’re not there,” I say.
“It’s that obvious?” he says.
“Only to people with eyes,” I say.
He’s quiet for a long time, watching the screen.
“It’s a stupid thing to miss, but I miss it,” he says. “We all do. The words were hardly out of my mouth before Sergei and Dmitri said yes.”
I almost say some platitude, like you’re also being helpful here or this is also important, but I keep my mouth shut instead. I’ve learned that’s not the sort of thing Svelorians appreciate.
“They liked you, you know,” Niko says, his eyes still on the screen. “After they met you at the bar.”
“They weren’t what I was expecting at all,” I admit. “You guys are fun.”
“There was beer,” Niko says. “And you could have knocked everyone over with a feather when he came in with you.”
“Me?”
He hits a button, and we switch from one camera to another. A clock in the corner is ticking down, my stomach twisting with every minute, and I try to ignore it.
“With a girl at all,” Niko says. He hits the button again, toggling through cameras. I think he’s getting antsy too. “Let alone one who actually makes him smile.”
Then he looks at me almost slyly.
“And who kicked her attacker in the balls twice.”
“I also clocked him in the face with a motorcycle helmet,” I say. Talking with Niko is finally starting to make me unwind. “He tell you that?”
“He bragged about that,” Niko says.
He toggles through the cameras again. It’s nearly six, and for a long moment, the two of us watch. I think Niko’s just as nervous about this as me, even though he’s been through this with Kostya more than once before.
Suddenly, on a camera, there’s movement where there was nothing before.
“Go back!” I say, but Niko’s already there, and we both sit forward in our chairs.
The camera is a hundred feet behind a small wooden table, off to one side. On the other side of the table, probably two hundred feet from the camera, there’s a small knot of people.
I hold my breath. One of them starts moving, hesitantly, with small steps. After a few more seconds I can see blond hair and a lithe frame.
“That’s Yelena,” I say, and Niko nods.
Together, we watch her approach the table, pass it, walk toward the camera and finally disappear. A few seconds later, a radio beeps in front of Niko, and he talks quietly in Russian for a few moments, then nods at me.
“She’s safe,” he says, and I swallow.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Kostya
Once Yelena passes the table, the knot in my stomach unwinds a little. I’m still strung like a piano wire, every nerve pinging, but at least it looks like Yelena’s going to be safe.
She’s twenty feet away, then ten, and then she’s between two of the Humvees and staring around, bewildered, before she looks at me.
“Kostya,” she says, like she’s confused.
I take her gently by the shoulders.
“Did they hurt you?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Are you sure?” I ask, looking into her bloodshot blue eyes.
“I’m okay,” she says.
Someone else comes, takes her hands, and pushes her into a vehicle.
There. I’ve done one thing right, at least.
I look back at the table, and realize that Pavel is already there, standing behind his wooden chair. The whole setup is strangely formal — a table and chairs on a concrete slab? — But I wonder if they just want this to look as legitimate as possible.
We checked the table for a bomb five times, maybe six, even though I wouldn’t tell anyone why. I’m not superstitious as a rule, but that dream was hard to shake.
Dmitri hands me a small, sealed bottle of vodka and a glass. I take a deep breath, my kevlar vest tight against my chest, and I walk to the table.
Pavel straightens as I get closer, then holds out his right hand. I place my bottle on the table then take his hand in mine.
“Pavel Vasilovich,” I greet him.
“Your Majesty, Konstantin Grigorovich,” he says, very formally.
I gesture at the vodka. We’ve both brought bottles and glasses. It’s customary.
“A drink?” I ask.
“Please, you first,” he says.
This is all politeness. No one’s poisoned anyone with vodka for a long time now, but allowing me to pour first is a show of trust on his part, that I haven’t poisoned my bottle.
I pour into our glasses.
“To the light on the mountains,” I say. It’s traditional. We drink.
Then, at last, we sit. He pours two more shots.
“To the fish in the sea,” he says, his voice quieter now. Everything before now has been for show, but now it’s just the two of us talking.
“You came instead of the American,” he says.
“It’s a pretty bad king that lets defenseless Americans do his dirty work for him,” I say.
He just nods. I wonder if that was a test.
“I apologize about the kidnapping,” he says. “It isn’t what I wanted.”
“It’s a brutish way to make a point,” I say.
He nods once.
“Yes,” Pavel says.
We sit there for a long time, or at least it feels long. Slowly, Pavel reveals more and more of what his faction wants, and at the same time he tells me about the politics of the USF, the in-fighting. Everyone at each other’s throats, and the volki happy to come in and tear everything apart.
Without exactly telling me, he’s saying that there doesn’t have to be violence. He’s saying that most people don’t want things to change too much.
Pavel lists reforms. I’ve already uncensored the press and lifted the ban on meeting places, and we volley back and forth over taxes, elections, representation. He seems surprised that I’m willing to consider those things at all, and I tell him I’m not my father.
He considers this, and in the distance, I hear a rattle.
There’s something familiar about it, something that alerts the fight-or-flight, instinctual part of my brain, and I look around.
Nothing. I try to ignore it.
Pavel moves on to export tariffs, but the sound is getting louder and I can’t ignore it. I watch the open space to my right, desperately searching. I know something is there. I know something is going to happen.
“Konstantin,” Pavel says, trying to get my attention, but then it comes into sight.
It’s an old Soviet truck, and it comes out from between two factories and the driver guns the engine at top speed. Everyone is shouting. There’s gun fire, and the truck rocks from side to side, its thick steel body denting with pockmarks.
The driver just ducks and keeps coming, and Pavel is staring, open-mouthed.
I don’t think. I don’t plan. I just grab him by the shirt, pull him around the table, and we both run.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hazel
This is boring. Thank God, this is boring, and we’re just watching two men occasionally drink vodka and sit at a table. Every so often, Pavel will wave his hands around a little, but that’s about it.
N
iko and I just watch. Every few minutes, we toggle through the cameras, but they all show the same thing: two men talking.
After about ten minutes, we hear an outer door slam open. Niko and I both jump, and then look at each other. I think he was hoping to have this finished with before anyone else found out what was going on, but he doesn’t exactly look surprised.
“Damn,” he says, sounding resigned.
Footsteps stomp toward our meeting room, and the door flies open. Chief Minister Arkady is already shouting in Russian as he comes through it, a long string of guttural sounds and sibilants that sure sound angry.
Niko watches him, politely, as if waiting for him to finish. I realize he was expecting this.
Finally, the Chief Minister stops shouting at Niko. Niko responds with one sentence, then looks back at the screen, and the Chief Minister looks at me.
“And you,” he says. His face is bright red from all the shouting. “You Americans, you tell us one thing and then you do another, like a pack of lying weasel-snakes—”
Just take it, I tell myself. You can’t say anything to make him less angry right now, so just deal.
“—You go back on promises and then we’re left here to sweep up—”
Niko leans forward in his chair, suddenly going tense.
“What?” I ask him, ignoring Arkady.
He doesn’t say anything, just toggles through the cameras.
“—Leave a country in ruins—”
“I don’t know,” Niko says, but his voice is strained.
On the screen, Kostya’s stopped listening to Pavel, and he’s just watching the open space to his right. Something about it makes my blood run cold, my stomach clench. Niko speaks quietly into the radio, and Arkady stops shouting mid-sentence, then turns and looks at the screen.
He’s just in time to see Kostya grab Pavel by the collar of his shirt and drag him around the table.
“Chto on del—” Arkady starts.
Kostya and Pavel run toward the camera, which means toward the vehicles. Niko and I are both standing, and I don’t think either of us are breathing.
An ancient, gray-green armored truck with a faded red star on one side rolls into view and comes to a hard stop. There’s something strangely casual about it, like there’s a red light that we can’t see, and for one second, it sits there as Kostya and Pavel run hell-for-leather toward the Humvees.