The house was huge, extending far back from the street. An elegant staircase led up to the second floor with another suited, frowning bodyguard at the top to make sure none of the guests strayed up there. At the far end of the hallway, I could see the huge living room through an open door. And in the corner of the hallway was another door, tightly closed. The door to Luka’s office.
We trooped through to the living room, sat down on the chairs they’d put out for us and got out our instruments. We’d tuned up and were just about to start when he walked in.
Some people have presence. I know this because I have none of it myself. I disappear into the background.
When Luka entered the room, all of us looked up. Even people who’d been facing in the opposite direction turned around. You just knew he was there, like a sixth sense for pure, undiluted evil.
He was wearing a black suit and white shirt, but the shirt was lazily unbuttoned at the neck and his tie hung unfastened around his neck. I could see just a hint of broad, curving pec and a glimpse of black—tattoos. The photos from his file swam up into my mind: symbols of gangs and death and brotherhood, a world completely different from mine.
He was huge—not just taller than me but broader, too, his shoulders almost seeming to brush the door frame, yet his waist was tight and perfect. He looked as if he was chiseled from stone, no softness anywhere.
It was his face, though, that really hit me. His eyes were blue but not the warm, clear blue of a summer day. They were like a winter sky when the air is so cold it hurts. And I couldn’t stop looking at his mouth, at that gorgeous full lower lip pulled tight in anger, or the shadow of stubble on his cheeks.
If someone had painted a portrait of the devil, he’d have looked exactly like Luka Malakov. Evil and beautiful. Scary and tempting.
The photo hadn’t even come close to doing him justice, not to his looks nor his sense of menace. It’s not that he was different from a normal man, in the way night is different from day. Night is just the absence of light. Luka sucked the light right out of the room.
I saw Karen react out of the corner of my eye. Her mouth fell open. Her knuckles went white on the bow of her cello. Fight or flight, like a mouse seeing a hawk. I think she stopped breathing for a few seconds; I know I did. My heart started slamming against my ribcage, my palms sweaty. I was terrified on a deep, instinctual level I’d never felt before.
Wait. That’s not true.
Once. I’d been scared like that once.
But this time, the fear was churning and boiling inside me, turning into something else. A deep, dark heat was separating out and spreading down through my stomach...down to my groin.
Fight or flight.
Flight or fuck.
There were a couple of people hanging around in the middle of the room, blocking Luka’s path, but he just strode towards them and expected them to get the hell out of his way, and they did.
He spoke in rapid-fire Russian to the bodyguard who’d let us in—the one with the scar, who seemed to be in charge of the others. I didn’t even process what he was saying, even though I’d been happily translating his calls for months. I was lost in the sound of his voice.
Like the photo, the recordings weren’t the same as the live experience. Each hard, snapped-out syllable felt like my brain was being slapped with a warm leather glove. I was reeling in seconds.
This was him. This was the man I’d been secretly fantasizing about, made flesh after so many months as just a voice. And now I knew what he was: a man who sold death to the highest bidder. A man who’d kill me if I got in his way. He’d certainly kill me if he found out I was CIA.
I have to get out of here. Right. Now.
And yet I was trapped there like an insect in amber. His presence seemed to drain all the will out of me. I didn’t want to run. I wanted to stay right there and look at him. And, down between my thighs, there was a lashing, snaking heat like I’d never felt before.
No. This is just a twisted crush. Desperate for excitement, I’d locked onto some fantasy guy, created in my own head from a voice. This is the real thing, Arianna, and he’s dangerous. I needed to pull myself together and look away—
He looked at me. Just a glance at the four of us, a sweep of those icy blue eyes. But, as he passed over me, his gaze lingered.
And then locked.