My hand on Lena’s cheek freezes, my whole body going still.
“I like you, too, Bianca. Do you like me?”
I brush her cheek again and nod.
“Bianca, why can’t you speak? You hurt your mouth? My daddy hurt his eye. Noemi says my daddy has only one eye but she’s lying. Daddy has two eyes. I asked and he showed me. Noemi says my daddy is ugly. Is daddy ugly, Bianca?”
My breath catches. I place my hands on either side of Lena’s face, shake my head and mouth, “No.”
“Daddy says he is a little ugly. I asked him. But you are so pretty, Bianca. You are like a princess. I like your hair. Will my hair be long like yours?”
Lena switches to retelling what happened in day care, something about a toy truck one of the boys broke, making the other boy cry, but I find it hard to focus. There was one sentence Mikhail said last night. It slipped my mind at that moment because I was too absorbed with his kisses. Something about how it would be easier if I was not so pretty.
Oh God. I close my eyes and shake my head. The long sleeves, the distance he’s been keeping, all those hot and cold signals . . . Things make much more sense now.
“Sergei!” I hit the door with my palm the third time. “If you don’t open this door, I’m going to break it down.”
The alarm buzzes and the lock clicks. I grab the handle, open the door and step inside.
“Don’t you dare shoot at me!” I yell into the empty living room. “And rein in that beast of yours.”
“You can’t break a reinforced door that costs more than a car, dickhead.” I hear Sergei’s voice from the kitchen and head that way, then stop in my tracks at the threshold.
Sergei is sitting at the table in the middle of the kitchen, with a disassembled sniper rifle in front of him, polishing one of its parts and whistling. The whole surface of a six-seat table is piled with weapons of various kinds. Guns, knives, automatic and semiautomatic rifles, and God knows what else is there.
A few feet away, on a folded blanket next to a wall, lays a black dog the size of a small calf. It watches me for a few moments, then looks up at Sergei and goes back to sleep.
I take the phone from my pocket and call Roman.
“When and where is the meeting with the Mexicans?” I ask the moment he takes the call.
“They will be at Ural around eleven.”
I look at my watch. Half past eight. “It will probably be me going to the meeting. Let Pavel know.”
“Fuck! How is he?”
“I just got here. I’ll call you later.” I cut the call and take a seat across from Sergei.
“Pakhan sent you?” he asks without looking at me and continues to polish the rifle part.
“Yes. You weren’t answering your phone. He worries.” I nod toward the table. “Doing inventory?”
“Kind of. Can’t sleep.” He places the polished piece into a box that is sitting at his feet and contains the rest of the sniper rifle parts, and closes the lid.
“Since when?”
“I stopped counting. Three days. Maybe four.”
“Jesus, Sergei.” I shake my head. “Have you been eating?”
“I think so, yeah. I have some cans in the pantry.”
I turn around, looking for his seventy-year-old butler-gardener-cook. “Where is Felix?”
“I sent Albert to a hotel for a week.”
Ever since I’ve known Sergei, he’s never called Felix by his actual name. It’s always Albert. I have no idea what the deal is with the two of them, but Felix has been living in a small apartment above the garage since Sergei bought the house and joined the Bratva four years ago.
“Why send him away?” I ask.
“He was getting on my nerves. I was afraid I might kill him by accident.” He snorts, reaches for the gun closest to him, and starts disassembling it.
“Maybe you should go visit a shrink?”
He looks up at me, leans back in his chair, and crosses his arms. “For the shrink thing to work, Mikhail, you need to actually talk to the guy about the things that trouble you. For most of the things that bother me, I signed documents saying I’d keep my mouth shut or end up in jail. Or worse.”
The most dangerous thing about Sergei is that most of the time he doesn’t look crazy at all. His eyes are clear, his movements controlled, his voice is steady, and to someone watching from the outside, he seems like a perfectly balanced person. Until he starts killing people. Even now, if it wasn't for the weapons scattered around the table, the only thing anyone would see is a clean-cut guy in his late twenties. Relaxed. Just chatting away as if nothing is bothering him.