The downstairs furnishings were decadent. Cabinets of rift-sawn oak with ebony finish. Marble countertops with quartz for the glint. Dripping chandeliers, imported gold-leafed fixtures, patterned parquet flooring. A different life.
He pattered down the brief hall and turned into the girl’s bedroom, opening the door quietly. The curtains were drawn, and it smelled of cigarettes and stale perfume. Nastya lay on her stomach across her bed, facing away, painting her nails, headphones on so loud he could hear the tinny echo of rock music. Tall and reed-thin, she wore a sleeveless T-shirt and jean shorts slightly bigger than bikini bottoms. Her legs were so smooth that it looked as though her skin had been spray-painted on. She was striking as only a Ukrainian girl could be. Expansive cheeks, pouting mouth, neck like a swan.
He remembered the first time he had seen her, a bundle of pink blanket delivered to his doorstep by a familiar whore, a girl herself. The infant’s sapphire eyes, the shape of them, too-there could be no question that she was his. He’d taken her in his arms, and by the time he’d looked up, the whore had vanished.
As a vor, he could hold allegiance only to the brotherhood of thieves. He had turned his back on his birth family and sworn to have no family of his own save the vory v zakonye.
And yet.
Anastasia. Nastya for short. A daughter. Arriving like Moses in the reeds. And him a weathered criminal aged by decades of crime and life in the Zone. When he’d held this infant, some part of him he’d long thought extinguished had flared to life inside his chest. She was pure. She was good. She was his last chance to be human.
He was revered enough that the brotherhood would honor this choice, but he could not be seen raising a girl in plain sight. To have her he’d have to leave the nation. Leave his life behind. And so he had, riding the wave of emigrants allowed out by Yeltsin in the late nineties. A stop in New York’s Brighton Beach to organize his money through wires and offshore accounts, then on to Los Angeles, where anyone could be reinvented as anything. For her. All for her.
She was seventeen now.
He stood in the doorway and watched her. Long honey hair that reached the small of her back. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, one foot bobbing to the music. Fluorescent bands from various dance clubs encircled her wrists, each day of the week marked by a different stripe. He had spoiled her. He knew this and yet could not help himself.
He knocked gently on the open door. She turned, flinging the headphones down around her neck, her smile lighting the room. “Papa.”
“Open these curtains,” he said. “The view, it is free.”
He could barely make out the faint etchings of the scars, a spiderweb just past her cheek. The imperfection only highlighted her beauty. He watched her in the liquid glow of the lava lamp.
“I like it dark. All holed up safe, ya know?”
She knew little of his past.
“Very well, Nastya.” He discerned the faintest whiff of schnapps, that American syrup. “Have you been drinking?”
“Course not.” She stretched, curling her back, her face screwed to one side, childlike. “What’s with the new guy? Misha? He creeps me out.”
“He is friend from the old country.” The fan turned lazily overhead. “He makes you uncomfortable?”
“Yeah. He’s always fucking staring at me. Why can’t we just keep Valerik, Yuri, and Dima like we always have?”
“Misha, he does other things.”
“Fine.” She turned away and flicked her hair like a horse’s tail. “I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. A little butterfly. Right here.” She poked a finger at the base of her neck.
“We have discussed. You will not ever have your skin marked.”
His tone, harsher than he’d intended. He remembered the time one of his brodyagi had brought him a monogrammed shirt, how it had reminded him of the ID tag sewn onto his prison uniforms. He’d excused himself and burned it in the bathroom sink.
Nastya looked at him, a touch of fear showing in her eyes. But he didn’t mind if the fear kept her from marring her smooth skin. She covered with a pout and stretched languidly, rolling her shoulders, a great cat. “Okay, fine. But Jesus H. I mean, you’re a fine one to talk. Head to toe.”
“You are not me. And thank God you will never have to be.”
“You’re not so bad, old man.” That smile. “Can I have some money? It’s Tuesday night.”
“The club again?”
“Yeah. It’s Julie’s birthday and the girls want to-”
Already he was peeling hundreds from the wad he kept shoved in the pocket of his bathrobe. “You know I cannot say no to you.”
“Except about tattoos.”
“Yes. Except tattoos.” He set the money on her nightstand, next to an overflowing ashtray. “You will be driven. The Town Car.”
“You’re the best.” Tugging the headphones back on, she returned to her nails. It was three in the morning and a school night, but when he thought about what he was doing at seventeen, he closed his mouth and exited.
Dima, Yuri, and Valerik were playing cards at the kitchen table. Misha sat alone at the counter, cleaning his gun and wearing the faint grin of a contented boy. They rose when Pavlo entered. He strode across to Misha.
“Do not look at Nastya again,” he said quietly.
Misha nodded.
Pavlo moistened his lips. “I do not trust Nate Overbay. Watch him closely. And his daughter. At any sign…”
Yuri said, “What if he cannot deliver?”
“Any other plan will have a cost in lives and resources. We can afford to give him five days before we consider these.”
“Why do we not just take the daughter now and start mailing him pieces of her?” Misha asked.
Yuri snickered. Misha swiveled his dead stare over at him, and the smirk dropped from the big man’s face.
“This is not the old country,” Pavlo explained patiently. “It does not work that way here. We must be more … subtle.”
“I see no need,” Misha said. “If you would free me to handle matters in the fashion I am accustomed-”
Pavlo leaned forward, setting a hand on Misha’s shoulder, his stare making clear that the conversation had just ended.
Misha bit off his words, assembled his pistol with a deft twirl of the hands, and headed out.
Pavlo looked at Yuri. “I brought Misha because he is fearless. This is good but can also be bad. You are important. You understand how to play here.”
Yuri’s mouth moved around bunched lips, no doubt swallowing his objections.
Pavlo tilted his head toward the door. Yuri rose and followed. Valerik and Dima returned to their cards.
Pavlo walked upstairs. Fifty-seven steps. That empty second floor, room enough to breathe, to stretch. He walked the edges again, his shoulder rubbing the glass, counting and recounting his steps. Finally he lay on his mattress and stared through the skylight at the coal-black heavens, contemplating all that was at stake and what he was willing to do to protect it.
Chapter 14
Nate pried his wallet from his stiff jeans and paid the taxi driver with a credit card still cool from the ice block. Some UCLA frat boys ran by, hazing a pledge who was jogging with a bra on his head, all clamor and idiotic fun. The Westwood apartment, priced for students, had been the most that Nate could afford when he’d moved out, so a certain measure of shenanigans came with the territory. A block from campus again, but as a grown man. One step forward, nineteen steps back.
The cab pulled away, and he shouldered against a tree cracking the sidewalk and dialed. Of course, Pete answered.