65. Bronwyn

65

brONWYN

The car pulled up to the curb and stopped next to a long line of people. The temperature was well below zero and it had started snowing again: I could see women in short skirts pulling their coats tight around them as they waited to get into the club.

Beside me, Spartak leaned close. “We’re going in, now. Walk right in front of me. Try to run and I’ll snap your neck.”

I nodded mutely. I’d spent the afternoon locked in a side room at some sort of warehouse. When I’d tried to make a break for it, he’d hit me so hard I saw stars. I’d managed to slip the switchblade into my bra, but it wasn’t much use now: they’d handcuffed my wrists behind my back.

Spartak and his two bodyguards climbed out of the car and then hauled me out, Spartak pulling me back against his chest so that no one could see my cuffed hands. They walked me straight past the line and up to the door, where the bouncers nodded respectfully and waved us in. I saw now why Spartak had wanted to do the exchange here: everyone but us had to walk through a metal detector to get in. When Radimir came, he’d be unarmed and defenseless. And he would come. I’d heard Spartak’s phone call, and I knew Radimir would make the trade: his life for mine. Then Spartak would kill us both.

One of Spartak’s bodyguards opened a set of heavy doors ahead of us and a wall of sound slammed into us, pummeling my ear drums. The bass was making the floor jump and tremble under my shoes and all I could see ahead of us was a claustrophobic crush of bodies, silhouetted by sweeping lasers and smoke.

Spartak pushed me forward, into the crowd and across the huge room. For a moment, I thought I might be able to slip away into the crowd, but he killed that hope instantly, gripping the chain of my handcuffs and twisting it in his fist so that my wrists ground painfully together. We were so close, I could feel his breath on my neck. He used me as an icebreaker, pushing me through the sea of people ahead of him, and it was terrifying: when you’re pushing through a crowd, you naturally use your hands to pry people apart and make a path. But my hands were trapped behind me, so it was my face and chest that touched people first. I got elbowed in the face three times, and two guys took the opportunity to “accidentally” brush against my breasts.

I tried to get my bearings. The club was huge, with one massive, hexagonal dance floor downstairs and at least three floors of balconies and smaller VIP rooms looking down over it. Right at the top of the building, I could see a glass-walled room that overlooked everything. The place had a run-down, seedy feel: the carpets were sticky from spilled beer and the place stank of weed. I could see people openly popping pills and it felt like there were way too many people there for it to be safe: every balcony and bit of floor was crammed. The worst thing, though, was the atmosphere. In some clubs, everyone’s caught up in the music, riding the same natural high as the DJ plays the crowd like an instrument. Even around strangers, it feels like you’re part of something. But here, there was an undercurrent of nervous, twitchy energy. Women moved around in groups, thumbs over the mouths of their beer bottles. Men leaned against pillars and walls, watching, waiting, moving in when they saw a woman on her own. The place felt unsafe.

We finally reached the stairs and began climbing, spiraling our way up around the edge of the club. The stairs were slippery with spilled drinks and cluttered with people sitting on them: security would pass by and make everyone get up and as soon as they were gone, everyone would sit back down again. The club was just too full, there was nowhere else to sit. And some of the people on the stairs weren’t capable of standing anyway, either drunk or drugged. It was slow going and the stairs seemed to go on forever: by the time we got to the final flight, my joints felt like they’d been packed with salt. Then I tripped over someone’s handbag strap and went down face-first. Spartak caught my handcuff chain just in time, and I snapped to a stop with my face an inch from the stairs. “Say thank you,” he told me as he hauled me upright.

I stood there panting and shaken, looking up at him. He was intimidatingly big and with my hands trapped behind me, I felt completely defenseless. “Thank you,” I managed.

He leered at my breasts, and we moved on, the panic notching higher and higher in my chest.

At last, we reached the glass-walled room at the top. A blond-haired guy in a blue suit who I assumed ran the club lounged in a chair, using a gold credit card to chop a line of coke. He scrambled to stand up when Spartak walked in. I recognized Liliya, Spartak’s wife, effortlessly graceful in a white dress that looked like it was made of leather. When she saw me, being pushed along in front of Spartak, her face softened for a second. Then she quickly looked away. Her lower lip was swollen and puffy on one side, as if she’d been punched, and I felt the anger flare in my chest.

Spartak strolled in behind me, then gave me a push that sent me stumbling into a corner. “Radimir will be here soon,” he announced. He pointed to the guy in the blue suit. “Make sure he’s searched. Twice. Then have your men bring him up here.”

Spartak’s bodyguards took out their guns and checked them. I stared at them, my heart slamming harder and harder against my chest. They’re going to execute him right here. He’d walk in and Spartak would give the order and he’d be dead ? —

Unless I did something. I looked across at Spartak, who’d pulled Liliya to him and was kissing her hard, which must have been agony with her bruised mouth. She was standing there passively, letting him maul her, but behind her back I could see her digging her fingernails into her palms.

I swallowed. I could feel the instinctual dread I always got around Spartak twisting in my stomach, telling me to stay right where I was. He could hurt me. Or worse. But I had to do this.

I summoned up every bit of Bratva Queen energy I could muster...and marched over there, head high. “Mr. Nazarov, listen to me, please,” I said desperately. I figured he’d like being called Mr. Nazarov.

Spartak broke the kiss and looked at me. I tried to ignore the way his eyes roamed over my breasts.

“There’s something you don’t know,” I told him. “When...Radimir killed your brother, it was because he’d been ordered to. Someone fooled us, they pretended to be one of The Eight and told us to kill Borislav.” I looked up at him imploringly. “They did it so that exactly this would happen, we’d wind up in a war with you. We are not your enemy! Whoever fooled us, they’re the ones you should be mad at.” Spartak was glaring down at me, furious, and all I wanted to do was slink away, but I kept my eyes on his. “You should join us, not fight us! Help us figure out who did this! Look...I know you’re hurting because of your brother.” I shook my head gently. “I can’t even imagine what that must be like. But please…help us find out who’s really responsible. And you can have your revenge against the right person.”

I stared up at him breathlessly, tears in my eyes. I searched his face for any sign it had worked…

And then he burst out laughing. A great big belly laugh that smelled of vodka and cigars. I stood there staring, completely thrown.

“Look at you!” he spluttered. He fisted my hair and yanked my head back painfully. “The brave little bookseller. Gets some fancy clothes and thinks she’s Bratva. Giving speeches! I heard it was even you who talked Konstantin around: on your knees, I assume.”

I stared up at him. My face had gone scalding hot. All the insecurities I’d fought my way through were suddenly back. Of course you’re not a fucking Bratva Queen. Spartak’s bodyguards were laughing at me, too. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Only Liliya was looking on in sympathy.

“You’re a woman,” spat Spartak. “And your only place in the Bratva is on your back with your legs open.” He put his face close to mine. “You think you’re so fucking smart. But you’re a stupid little shlyukha .”

He’s right. I was too big, too uncool, with a body that couldn’t even handle fucking walking some of the time and a bookstore I couldn’t make profitable: my big new idea, that had seemed so great that morning, was probably another failure waiting to happen. I stared up at him through eyes swimming with hot tears.

Spartak sneered at me and turned to one of his men. “O na yeshche boleye zhalkaya, chem moy brat .” And after all that time with the language app and watching Russian movies, my brain automatically translated: She’s even more pathetic than my brother.

I stared at him in shock as the meaning sank in. It was an act. All of his grieving and raging for his beloved, dead brother. He hated him. But he kept up the act because… My mind spun. Because…

“You had him killed,” I thought out loud. “It was you. You made the deep fake phone call.”

He blinked at me, shocked that I’d understood the Russian. But he couldn’t stop himself grinning in pride.

“You wanted a war,” I said, stunned. Now I knew why the attacks over the last few days had been so perfectly thought out. This whole thing had been planned from the beginning, so that Spartak could wipe us out. “That video from the hidden camera in your brother’s apartment: you had it from the start! You put the camera there! You were hoping the police would point the finger at Radimir on their own, but they didn’t get there, even after you pressed them to re-examine the scene. The video was your backup plan.” I stared at him. The funeral. All that time he’d played the grieving sibling, desperate for vengeance. “You tricked us into killing your own brother,” I whispered. “Just so you’d have an excuse to go to war with us.”

“Borislav was getting ideas,” Spartak told me. “Just like you’ve been getting ideas. He thought he should be running things.”

I felt my jaw fall open. His plan let him eliminate his brother and the Aristovs.

Spartak smiled at my expression. “You see how things work now. You don’t belong in our world. You never did.”

He gave me a savage shove. I went stumbling backwards, tripped over my own feet and went down hard on my ass. Without my hands to catch me, I couldn’t control my fall, and I rocked back and cracked my head against the wall. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes, and I lay there, head throbbing, utterly defeated.