And now Milos did the pouring, from the decanter into the pair of wide-mouthed tulip-shaped glasses Kim had set out. Half a glass each. He handed one to Cino, then raised his own.
'To a weekend full of surprises," he said, locking eyes with her.
"I'll drink to that," she said.
Milos took a sip and swallowed. It tasted… awful. But he let nothing show on his face. He looked at his glass.
I spent two and a half grand a bottle for this shit?
He took another sip. Not quite as bad as the first, but still awful.
He glanced at Cino who looked as if she'd just spotted a maggot in the bottom of her glass.
"Eeeeuw! This tastes like cigarette ashes!"
"Don't be silly," Milos said. "It's delicious."
Actually, she wasn't far off. It did taste like ashes.
"Blech!" Another face as she returned the offending glass to the table and pushed it as far away as she could reach. "Like sneaker soles."
"Just try a little bit more." Milos forced a third sip. Ugh. How was he going to drink the rest of this? "It's really excellent."
"Tastes like dust bunnies. Where's my Dampierre? I want my Dampierre."
"Very well."
He pressed a button built into the coffee table, sending a signal to the kitchen. Dressed in a crisp white shirt and a black vest, Kim whispered into the room a moment later and did one of his little bows.
"Yes, sir?"
"It appears the lady does not find the Petrus to her liking."
Another little bow. "Most unfortunate."
"Old holy water," Cino said.
Milos wanted to clock her. "Perhaps you would taste it, Kim, and give her your expert opinion."
Kim smiled. "Of course, sir. I would be honored."
He whisked this oversize silver spoon from his vest pocket and poured maybe half an ounce of the Petrus into it. He sniffed it, then slurped it up like hot soup—Milos never would have believed Kim could be such a slob—and rolled it around in his mouth. Finally he swallowed. His eyes rolled up in his head before he closed them. They stayed closed for a moment. When he opened them he looked like someone who'd just seen God.
"Oh, sir, it's wonderful! Absolutely magnificent!" He looked damn near ready to cry. "Nectar of the gods! Mere words cannot do it justice!"
"See," Milos said, turning to Cino. "I told you it was good."
"Laundromat lint," she said.
"Perhaps the miss's palate is not so educated as Mr. Dragovic's. It takes a certain seasoning of the tongue to fully appreciate a well-aged Bordeaux."
You just earned yourself a bonus, Kim, Milos thought. But Cino wasn't the least bit impressed.
"I appreciate Dampierre, aged all the way from 1990. When can I have some?"
"Right away, miss," Kim said, bowing and backing away. "I shall return in an instant."
Furious, Milos rose with his glass and moved away before he throttled her. Cino liked it rough? Cino might get more than she could handle tonight.
He pretended to study one of the paintings his decorators had stuck on the walls. A swirling mass of creamy pastels. What the hell did it mean? All he knew was that it was expensive.
He sipped the wine again. Did Monnet and people like him really enjoy this stuff? Or did they just pretend to?
"You really should give the wine another chance," he said. "At twenty-five hundred dollars a bottle you—"
"Twenty-five hundred dollars a bottle!" she cried. "For stuff that tastes like wet cedar shakes? I can't believe it!"
"Believe it," he said. "And worth every penny." Even if she hated the wine, she'd talk about the price tag.
"Say, who's this?" she said. "He looks like you."
Milos turned and saw her by the bookshelves, holding a framed photo—Milos's sole contribution to the room.
"He should. He was my older brother."
"Was?"
"Yes. He died a few years ago."
"Oh, I'm so sorry." She sounded as if she meant it. "Were you close?"
"Very."
Milos felt a twinge of sadness at the thought of Petar. They had done so well running guns to the HVO in Bosnia, but they fell out during the Kosovar meltdown. Peter hadn't wanted to sell to the KLA. He'd wanted to supply only the Serbs. Oh, how they fought, like only brothers can fight. He remembered Petar screaming that he would die before he supplied the KLA with the means to kill Serbs.
How prophetic.
To this day Milos could not understand his brother's idiotic posturing. They'd always sold to both sides when they could. And the KLA had had a blank check from the Arabs to buy anything they could get then-hands on—they'd been willing to pay multiples of the going rate. How could he turn his back on such an opportunity?
But somehow, somewhere Petar had got it into his head that he was a Serb first and a businessman second. Fine. Milos would do the deal on his own. That was when Petar stepped over the line. Bad enough that he would have nothing to do with the KLA, but when he tried to sabotage Milos's deal…
Milos still regretted shooting his brother. His only consolation was that Petar never knew what hit him and did not suffer an instant. The point-blank shotgun blast literally took his head off.
Milos had killed before and since—Emil Corvo being the most recent. He'd been careless with Corvo and might have been sent up had he not iced one witness to chill the rest. Who was the one he'd ordered the hit-and-run on? Artie something… he couldn't even remember his name.
That was the way it was. A death settled problems, cleared the air, and Milos believed in doing his own wetwork when he could. Not because it was personal—never personal. It simply kept everyone on their toes.
But with Petar it had been personal, too personal to allow anyone else to do. He'd grieved for months, and to this day he missed his older brother.
Ah, Petar, he thought looking at the photo in Cino's hands, if only I could have seen the future then. Had I known of Loki and the millions it would bring, I would not have bothered with the KLA deal, and you would be here with me today to share in the bounty.
Milos's throat tightened as he lifted his glass to the photo. "To my beloved brother."
Wishing to hell it was vodka, he forced the rest of the Petrus past the lump in his throat.
16
Nadia blinked and bolted upright to a sitting position. Dark. Where were her clothes? Where was she?
She glanced out the window and saw the underside of the Manhattan Bridge and remembered. She was in Doug's bed—alone.
God, what time was it? The red LED digits on the clock said it was late.
Where was Doug? She called his name.
"Is that Sleeping Beauty I hear?" he called back from somewhere in the apartment.
"Where are you?"
"I'm in the office. Come here. I want to show you something."
She stretched, arching her back under the sheets. She and Doug had returned to his place with the intention of hacking into the GEM mainframe together, but made a detour to the bedroom on their way to the computer. She smiled at the memory. Doug hadn't been the least bit distracted during their lovemaking. She'd had his full attention then.
And afterward, lying snuggled in his arms, she'd dozed off. She never did that. Well, almost never. But she hadn't been getting enough sleep lately.
She slipped out of the bed, pulled on her clothes, and detoured to the kitchen where she found a Jolt Cola in the fridge. She preferred Diet Pepsi, but this would do. She carried it to the second bedroom that Doug had converted to an office.