Page 25

She’s been going at me for five minutes. Standing in the middle of the bedroom, arms crossed, eyes sharp, running through a list of grievances that she’s clearly been organizing since she figured out the informant situation. Privacy. Trust. The audacity of monitoring her movements in my own house. I let her finish. Then I sit on the edge of the bed and look at her.

“You planted a fake name,” I say. “Fake firm. Waited to see how fast it got back to me.”

“Yes.”

“That’s smart,” I say. “I’m not angry.”

She stops. “You’re not?”

“No. I’m impressed.” I lean back on my hands. “Pisses me off that I’m impressed. But here we are.”

She stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. She came in here ready for a fight, and I’ve pulled the floor out from under it, and she doesn’t know what to do with that. “You should be angry.”

“Why? Because you’re good at it?” I shrug. “I knew you were working an angle. Didn’t know what. Now I know more. That’s useful.”

“So you’re just going to sit there?”

“Da.”

“That’s it? That’s your response?” Her voice goes up half a degree, which for her is basically screaming. “You had someone reporting my every movement to you, and your response is that you’re impressed?”

“I’ve got eyes on everyone in this house,” I say. “That’s how I don’t end up dead. You’re not the exception, Zayka.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? You’re my Zayka,” I say. “Little rabbit. Hopping around, sniffing at everything, digging into shit that isn’t yours.” I stand up. “You think I don’t see it? The smiles you throw at Natasha to get her talking. The questions that aren’t questions. The way you count every head that walks through the door.” I look at her straight. “You’re the smartest person in this house, and you’ve been using it against me since day one, and yeah, that does something to me. Makes me want to bend you over the nearest table and fuck the scheme right out of you.”

Her chin comes up. “You are genuinely one of the crudest men I have ever encountered.”

“You’ve said.”

“A pig,” she says, “who mistakes brutality for competence and intimidation for intelligence. You sit at the head of your little table, and you grunt orders at people, and you call it running an empire. You rule through fear because it’s the only currency you understand. That’s not power, Volkov. That’s just loud.”

That one gets somewhere it shouldn’t. Not because she’s wrong about the fear. Because Lavro used to say something close to it, different words, same meaning, that I was better at ending things than building them. I don’t let it show. I let it sit where it lands, and I don’t move.

“There it is,” I say.

“I’m not finished.”

“Go ahead.”

“You think putting your hands on your wife in a room full of your men is some kind of statement. It’s not. It’s juvenile. It’s the behavior of a man who has never learned that control doesn’t come from making people uncomfortable, it comes from making them afraid to disappoint you. You’ve confused the two your entire life, and it shows.” She takes a breath. “And before you say something about my body, yes, I know what my body does around you; it’s a biological response to proximity, and I find it deeply irritating, but it means nothing.”

“Your pussy’s already wet,” I say.

“I hate you,” she says.

“I know.” I take a step toward her. “You married me anyway.”

“Tactically.”

“Right.” Another step. She holds her ground, chin up, eyes hot, not moving an inch. I’ll give her that. She never moves. I stop close enough that she has to tip her face up to keep her eyes on mine. I can feel the heat off her, and I know she can feel me through my pants, and neither of us is pretending this is still about the argument.

“You’re doing it on purpose,” she says.

“Da.”

“Move back.”