“Two weeks,” Niko says. “Less if I tell him what you’re doing.”
To my right, I swear Hazel turns faintly pink.
It’s the beer, I tell myself, even though she’s hardly had half a glass.
“Careful,” I say. “I know where all the murder holes are.”
“No showers, murder holes,” Marina teases. “Line up, ladies.”
“I didn’t make the murder holes,” I say. “I’m just descended from the crazy-eyed bastard who did.”
Chapter Fifteen
Hazel
None of this is what I was expecting, not at all. When Kostya said we were going to a bar in the gray district, I thought we’d probably drink vodka near a bunch of other quiet, serious people in a concrete room.
I didn’t realize we’d be meeting his friends, or that when it’s just them and they’re drinking, they’re friendly, and warm, and funny, and love giving Kostya shit. I feel at home for the first time in a week, and it’s at this speakeasy in the worst part of town.
“Careful what you threaten,” Niko says. “I think your father might like me more than you right now.”
“I think my father likes everyone better than he likes me right now,” Kostya says, shaking his head. “I’m the only one who’ll argue with him.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Sergei says, but Kostya just shrugs.
“His other option for the crown is seventeen and failing his way through a Swiss boarding school,” Kostya says. “So we argue.”
Niko lets out a low whistle.
“Misha failed out of another one?” he says. “How many Swiss boarding schools are there?”
“He hasn’t actually been kicked out of this one yet,” Kostya says. “But it turns out there are quite a few.”
“See, your brother’s doing it right,” Dmitri says. His glass is empty, and he pours beers for everyone again before he pours his. “If you’re gonna be a prince, smoke lots of weed, party all the time, and bang lots of French heiresses.”
I raise my eyebrows and look over at Kostya, who frowns. Then I put my elbows on the table.
“Tell me more about this brother,” I say.
“He’s too young for you,” Kostya says, only half-teasing.
I wrinkle my nose.
“Ew,” I say, and everyone laughs.
“Mikhail — Misha — has failed out of two boarding schools, gotten kicked out of one for drug use, and allegedly charmed his way into half the panties in Europe,” Niko says.
If he’s as good-looking as his older brother, that part wouldn’t be hard, I think.
I look over at Kostya, who’s halfway to a glower.
“And this is your brother who’s charming,” I say. From the corner of my eye, I see Niko grin.
Kostya just takes another drink.
“The family resemblance is quite striking,” offers Sergei. “Just think, if things had gone differently, Kostya could have been really fun.”
I laugh. Kostya huffs.
“So Misha is bizarro-world Kostya,” I say.
Everyone at the table looks at me, frowning slightly, and blinks.
I realize I have no idea how to explain what bizarro-world is to a group of people only vaguely familiar with Superman.
“It’s from a superhero comic that’s really big in the U.S., but it just means the opposite—”
Suddenly there’s a huge bang at the entrance of the bar. The heavy metal door flies open, and every head turns toward it.
The guy who was standing there shouts something, but he’s already tripping over his own feet, hands in the air, walking backwards from the door where as a man wearing a uniform and carrying a huge gun shoves his way in.
I glance over at Kostya quickly, hoping he knows what’s going on, because I sure fucking don’t. I don’t even know if that guy is holding up the bar’s cash register or whether he’s police.
Does that distinction even matter here? I wonder. I’m frozen in place, completely and utterly out of my element.
Two more men come through the open door, pointing their guns around at the customers, mostly frozen in place.
Then a third man comes in. He’s wearing a different uniform, more official, and he stands in the doorway, looks around, and shouts something in Russian.
There’s pandemonium instantly. Everyone at the table but me jumps to their feet, though I follow a moment later as Kostya grabs my arm. Now everyone in the bar is shouting.
There are more men with huge guns walking toward the center of the room from the sides. The bartenders are just standing there with their hands in the air, but the bar patrons are scattering.
Everyone but me is shouting back and forth in Russian. Niko’s pointing in one direction, Sergei’s pointing in another, Dmitri’s waving his arms around, and they’re all looking at Kostya like this is his decision to make.
The men with guns move through the crowd in our general direction, and I feel like my stomach is trying to strangle me.
Are those machine guns? I think, trying not to panic. I half want to sprint away and half want to get on the floor and cover my head.
Just fucking once I want to be sitting at home and knitting or something when shit goes down, I think, still staring at the uniformed men as my heart hammers in my chest. Kostya, Niko, and Sergei are all still shouting at each other, and I’m standing there uselessly doing nothing.
People in the crowd start getting to their knees. We’re still just standing there, and panic spikes through my chest just watching the uniformed men walk, pointing those huge guns around like they barely notice that they’re holding them.
Finally Kostya nods at his friends, shouts something, and then points at the back wall. Everyone scatters and leaves the two of us standing there, Kostya’s hand still on my arm.
He leans down, grabs the motorcycle helmets, and hands me mine, totally cool, calm, and collected.
Are we getting out of this because he’s the prince? I wonder wildly.
“Come on,” he shouts over the din.
He moves his hand off my arm and takes my hand, then pulls me toward a huge piece of machinery against one wall. As we disappear behind it, I see one of the men — soldiers? Policemen? Thugs? — look at us and shout, but then we’re behind the thing and through a hole in the wall that opens into a wide, dark underground space.
Suddenly it’s much, much quieter and darker. Kostya’s hand is still in mine. The air is damp and it smells like dirt in here, so different from the room we were in moments ago that my head spins.
“What the hell is going on?” I whisper.
“This way,” Kostya whispers back, and pulls at my hand. The ground feels springy and damp under my feet, but I follow him, the motorcycle helmet in my hand banging against a wall.
I’m excruciatingly aware that I’m completely out of my element. If he left me here, I’d probably be fucked, not to mention lost as hell, so I stumble along, trusting him blindly.
I mean that literally. It’s so dark I can’t see a thing.
We turn right, then left, then right again. Then we stop. The noise of the bar has completely faded. I can’t hear anyone following us. There’s no sound but my breathing and his. I squeeze Kostya’s hand, trying to keep my panic under control, even though I’m underground in a foreign country being pursued by men with very large guns.