The cab was waiting for me, just as he’d said. And the driver took the Post-It note and drove me there without complaint, even though he’d only been paid to take me to my hotel. Did Luka have some sort of bottomless credit line with these guys, or were they just too scared of him to complain?
The thick Plexiglas partition between the driver and me helped cement it in my mind as cab and not car and that crucial pathway in my broken brain didn’t light up. No flashbacks. But the fact that it could happen so easily, as it had in the car with Luka, was terrifying.
I hunkered down in the back, arms folded across my chest, and tried to process. Was it just about sex, with Luka? That certainly made sense, given that we’d barely spoken from the moment we got to his apartment to the time he—I flushed. And that morning, he’d seemed ready to hurry me out. And yet he’d sat there watching me, when he thought I was asleep. And even during the sex, I’d seen that flicker in his eyes, gotten that feeling that, however much he treated me like something to simply be fucked, there was a lot more going on inside.
And what about this trip on the yacht? I kept Adam informed of where I was. In theory, if I got into trouble, he could get me out. But that didn’t apply if I was off in the middle of the ocean. I didn’t even know which country we were going to.
I tried to focus on the mission, but I couldn’t help wondering what it meant, that Luka wanted to take me away with him. Did I qualify as a girlfriend, now? My last relationship had been in college and had followed the same pattern as the ones in my teens: flirting and kissing and dating and then, eventually, something more physical. This was completely different. Was I a lover, now? That sounded like something out of a 70s French movie. Was this how grown-up relationships were—you fucked the guy and then you hoped that you started to mean something to him?
I went around and around thinking about it, getting more and more worked up. Just when I was about to wind down the cab’s window and scream to vent some stress, my phone rang. I presumed it was Adam and grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Arianna. Thank God. What in the name of fucking fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Nancy.
And suddenly, everything was okay. At last, I had someone I could talk to. Someone who’d understand what it was like to be undercover.
Of course, we’d have to talk in code. Our calls were probably being intercepted by the Russian authorities and there’d be hell to pay if they thought the CIA was running an op in their country. We had to sound like a couple of typical twenty-somethings. “I thought you were on that business trip,” I said.
“I got back last night and found you gone. Your...dad told me about your vacation in Moscow.” She sounded casual and cheery, while letting just enough of a hint of fear bubble through that I understood her real message.
“Yeah, well...I figured it was time I saw the world. You know I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.” I’d moaned plenty of times to Nancy about wanting to try field work.
“Sure, sure. But Moscow? I didn’t think the travel company you use even did that sort of trip.”
I frowned. The Company was slang for the CIA. She was hinting that the op didn’t make sense. Roberta had said something similar. Why was the CIA—and Adam—so interested in Luka? And why had he sent me, not someone experienced, like Nancy?
I pushed the disquiet down inside me. This was my one chance. I wasn’t going to start second-guessing my new boss. Maybe she was just jealous, although that wasn’t like her at all.
“Don’t you think you might have rushed into things a little?” Nancy asked. “Your dad says you’ve already fallen for some guy out there. I don’t want to see you get your heart broken, Arianna. And this guy sounds like a real heartbreaker.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. She wasn’t talking romance. She was talking about my body being found floating in a Moscow river.
“You don’t know what these Russian men can be like,” she said. “A lot of them have big families. Lots of brothers.” She was talking about the brotherhood, the Russian mafia. “It makes it difficult for them to form attachments with women. In fact, they don’t get on with women at all. Do you remember I told you about my old boyfriend, Dmitri? He was Russian.”
I felt sick. I remembered Dmitri. She’d told me, one night after too much wine, about how one of her first missions had required her to steal documents from his office. He’d caught her, beaten her and tried to rape her. “I remember,” I said in a small voice. “But Luka isn’t like that.”
“I really think you should come home,” said Nancy. “I know your dad thinks it’s good for you to be out there, seeing the world, but I’m really worried you’re going to get your heart broken. Just come home, Arianna.”
“I’m fine,” I said again. The car was slowing. “I have to go. Take care.” And I ended the call before she could argue.
I wanted nothing more than to speak to her. Hearing her voice after so long with nothing familiar around me was like coming home. But if I kept talking to her, she was going to persuade me to bail. God, she didn’t even know about the trip on the yacht, yet. If she knew I was planning to do that, she’d freak out completely. And the scary thing was that she was absolutely right—I was way out of my depth.
The cab pulled up outside a boutique that was all soft lighting and artfully displayed mannequins, a world away from the places I normally shopped at back home. My stomach tensed. In theory, I had the new Arianna Ross credit card Adam had given me, but my instincts took over. Shit! I couldn’t afford this!
As soon as I took a step inside, a woman in an immaculate black designer dress stepped from behind the counter. Her blonde pixie cut was so precise I suspected it was styled with a laser. Something about my clothes clearly marked me as a tourist, and not a rich one. “Can I help you?” she asked in English.
There’s a certain way that store assistants can say Can I help you so that it sounds like Please get out of my store.
“Um,” I said. “I think I need some clothes. Quite a lot of clothes. I’m not sure exactly what.” We stared at one another. Well done, Arianna. Very decisive. I looked around. “I’m not sure I can afford this place…”
The store assistant gave me a smile so incredibly patronizing, it felt as if she’d kicked me in the chest. “There are some cheaper stores a few streets down,” she said sweetly. And she picked up the coffee she’d been drinking and leaned against the counter, smirking. Even her coffee mug was designer, with some achingly cool clothes company’s logo on the side.
A hot flush rose in my cheeks. She made me feel as if I was something she’d scraped off her shoe. I turned to slink out and then remembered something. “Luka Malakov sent me,” I mumbled.
There was a crash as the designer coffee mug hit the floor.
I thought I’d offended her. I thought maybe his name was so despised that she’d thrown the mug down in anger. I headed for the door.
She ran in front of me, slipping and almost falling on the marble floor, and blocked my path. And now I saw how the color was draining from her face. She babbled at me in Russian for a few seconds, begging forgiveness, before she remembered I was just a dumb American tourist. “I’m sorry!” she said in English. “I didn’t know! Alina! Alina!”
I’d seen people go pale, but I’d never seen anyone go white before. She looked as if she was about to throw up.
A slightly older woman with dark hair came running in from the back. At first, she frowned at the commotion, especially when she saw the coffee all over the floor. Then the blonde woman hissed in Russian, “She’s from Luka Malakov!”
Alina stopped dead in her tracks and then swallowed as if she was trying to choke down a football. Her hand played nervously with the necklace at her throat. “You work for Mr. Malakov?” she asked in Russian.
“She’s American!” the younger one said in a terse whisper, still in Russian. Holy shit, there were tears in her eyes. “I think she’s his….” She looked up at her boss with huge, scared eyes. “I was rude to her!”
Alina stared at her and then at me. I actually saw her knees weaken. She spoke in English for the first time. “You are Mr. Malakov’s…” She swallowed again. “You are with Mr. Malakov?”
I nodded, growing more freaked out by the minute.
Alina glanced at her assistant and then at the spilled coffee and smashed mug. She spoke in English, so I knew she wanted me to understand. “Clean this up,” she snapped at the store assistant. “Then collect your things. You’re fired.” She looked back at me, eyes wide with concern, clearly hoping this would appease me.
I was too shocked to react. The scariest thing was that the store assistant didn’t even argue. She just nodded, head down, and ran to fetch cleaning things.
“Please allow me to help you,” said Alina. She stressed the allow me, as if nothing could be a greater honor.
“I—” I was completely freaked out, now. All I wanted to do was run. “I’m not sure I can afford this place.”
Alina reacted as if I’d said I was thinking of drinking bleach. “There’s no charge!” she said, aghast. “We would never charge you!”
For the next hour, Alina showed me dresses and jeans, jackets and shoes. She picked out long woolen coats for above deck and figure-hugging dresses for below deck. I soon had more clothes than in my closet back home. And then we started on the shoes—towering heels I could barely walk in, but that did wonderful things to my legs and ass.
“And will you be needing...underneath?” asked Alina, her English failing her. She yanked her dress away from her chest and pointed to her bra.
“Um…” I flushed. I hadn’t even thought about lingerie. In my suitcase back at the hotel, I had the same plain briefs and bras I always wore. Would those do? “I don’t know.”
Alina flushed too. “For Mr. Malakov,” she whispered, “I think you need—” She gestured at her breasts and groin in a va-va-voom sort of a way. “Upstairs,” she said.
She led me up to the next floor and shooed away the sales clerk there. She started to bring out artful constructions of lace and satin, mainly in black, purple or red. I didn’t doubt that one of Luka’s blondes would have looked fantastic in them. Was this what Nancy did on assignment: pick out underwear to seduce her target? Or did she have a secret closet full of it in Virginia that she packed into her suitcase along with her guns? I am so out of my depth.
I tried to imagine myself in one of the lingerie sets and couldn’t. Then I remembered what Luka had said. “Do you have anything more...innocent?” I asked, red-faced. “White?”
She blinked at me. “Like bride on night of wedding?”
“Exactly like that. Innocent but good quality and”—am I really having this conversation?— “sexy.”
She nodded quickly, but gave me a look that was almost pitying. Aghast, maybe, at the idea of an innocent in Luka’s hands. She brought out white bras and panties, hold-ups and suspender belts and even a corset. They were all strokably soft and gorgeously made. I told her I’d take them, along with some of the tamer black sets.
When I finally returned downstairs, the coffee was cleaned up and the clothes and shoes had already been packed into my cab. The driver was still waiting patiently for me, even though it had been over an hour. Luka’s money was going to take some getting used to.
“Please,” said Alina, squeezing my hand. “Give Mr. Malakov our regards.” Her eyes were wide with fear when she said his name.
I felt bad about the store assistant. She’d been rude, but she didn’t deserve to lose her job. “Please...you don’t need to fire that woman. Could you...get her back?”
From Alina’s astonished face, compassion wasn’t high on the list of traits when it came to Luka’s previous women. Maybe, when you were that powerful, people started to look like bugs to be stepped on. And now everyone thought I was one of those women.
“Of course,” said Alina. “Whatever you wish.”
The scary thing was, I sensed that I could have asked her to fire the woman, or get her back, or cut off one of her fingers and she would have done it, without question. And it was Luka who had instilled this fear in them.
The man who wanted to corrupt me.