Page 67 of Kingmakers, Graduation

Still, I set my own helmet down. It seems ungentlemanly to protect myself more than her.

The Ducati fires up with a low purr. I see Sabrina’s eyes gleam. She remembers how that engine feels pressed up against her.

“Keep your mitts to yourself,” I warn her.

She grins. “I will if you keep your keys in your pocket.”

I pull out through the gates, leaning hard to take the corner. Sabrina follows after me, light, easy, relaxed. We swoop through the dark streets in tandem, two bats released into the night. I like riding with Sabrina close behind me, floating in and out of my peripheral with each curve in the road.

The night air feels cool and liquid, ruffling through my hair like fingers. Sabrina’s right that it feels good to ride like this, unprotected and unbound. It’s easy to call out to her at the lights, to point out Tagansky Park and the Novospassky Monastery as we pass by.

I take her to the Soho Rooms, one of the most exclusive nightclubs in Moscow, located right on the Moskva river so the purplish light pouring out from its windows wriggles across the dark water below.

A long line of guests wait outside the door. I don’t have to pass a bribe to the “face master” before he waves Sabrina inside. He glances at the Vacheron on my wrist and allows me to pass along with her.

“Did you know him?” Sabrina asks me.

“It’sfeyskontrol’—face control,” I tell her. “Beauty is everything here. If you look wealthy, cultured, and gorgeous, you get in the club. If you don’t, you won’t.”

The evidence is clear all around us—a mass of disproportionately stunning club-goers, decked out in glittering mini-dresses and tight button-ups and slacks. Those who aren’t young and beautiful are clearly wealthy, the older men in bespoke suits and enough gold chains, watches, and rings to attract their pick of the stunning young women flocking around them.

I brought Sabrina here because it’s where the models and celebrities go. I thought she’d enjoy the glitz and glamour.

Dozens of disco balls reflect a flurry of purple speckles over the throng of drunken dancers. Once we’ve ordered our drinks, I take her up to the Summer Terrace, where a girl in a transparent bodysuit performs an aerial silks show. She floats through the air, twisted up in a long white swath, heedless of the fifty-foot drop to the dance floor below.

We take a seat at a small table with a good view of the room. Sabrina looks around at the stylish crowd, unsmiling.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

“It’s a tourist place.”

“Not just for tourists.”

She frowns. “This isn’t where you would go—if it was just you or the Wolfpack.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I want you to show me what you do, how you live. I want to see the real Russia.”

“It’s not as posh.”

She fixes me with that blazing stare, stubborn and demanding. “Take me where the Bratva go.”

I smile, not displeased. “Alright. Come on.”

We leave the club and wind through the darker, dingier roads leading into Danilovsky. Here the luxury cars pulled up to the curb look much more out of place, but no one would dare touch them, even if they were left unlocked.

There’s no line outside Apothecary and no sign above the plain brick entryway, other than a painted wooden board, the sort that might hang at an English pub, depicting a shot glass with an eerie green brew within.

I tell Sabrina, “It’s neutral ground of sorts. No business here—just networking.”

She nods, understanding.

We pass inside, through a dark and undecorated hallway, raw brick like the exterior.

Apothecary is smaller than the Soho Rooms, and less crowded. It resembles an old speakeasy, with ancient plasterwork on the walls, stained by cigar smoke, and a dark wood bar, carved and scrolled, in which dusty, unlabeled bottles line the shelves. The wrought-iron lamps let out a dim golden glow, casting pools of light distinct from the impenetrable gloom.

The tables are set far enough apart that conversations are unlikely to be overheard, especially under the steady thud of music pumped into the room.

---