Page 30 of For a Price

I sit obedientlyat a long table lined by burly men who look like they belong on WANTED posters. They drink heavily and shovel food into their mouths, exchanging grunts at each other in a language I don’t understand.

Their Russian sounds aggressive and cold. Almost threatening to an outsider like me.

I avoid eye contact and nudge food around my tiny plate. It’s half the sizes of the men’s at the table. Glancing around at the other women—or pets with collars—I see their plates are smaller too.

A depressing commonality in this world I’ve found myself held captive in.

My stomach gurgles yet I can’t bring myself to eat.

How can I when my reality is so depressing? When I don’t even know what tomorrow will bring and what Roman plans to do with me?

But that’s not even the most troubling part about dinner.

Every time Idolook up, I’m on the receiving end of a lecherous stare from the squat, bald man who called himselfRoman’s uncle. Through bits and pieces in conversation, I’m able to pick up that his name is Leonid.

He stares at me like I’m what’s really on the menu for tonight. His shifty eyes remain on me as he dines piggishly on his food, dribbling liquor on his chin and staining the front of his shirt with borscht.

He sucks some kind of meat skewer clean while holding my gaze, licking at the stick with a tongue that makes me retch on the inside.

None of the other men at the table notice. They’re too engrossed in the fast-paced conversation bouncing around the table.

Roman’s an active participant.

“My dobivayemsya progressa. My rasshiryayem sferu deyatel’nosti?*,” he says in response to another man across the table.

I recognize him as the same man with the jagged scar on his cheek who had rolled down his window in the unmarked black SUV and laughed at me as I ran away.

His name is Kazan.

At Roman’s words, he scoffs. “Nedostatochno bystro. Byli oshibki?*.”

Roman grits his teeth and clenches his fists on the table. From beside him, I can feel the masculine heat rolling off him, his temper like an energy I can pick up.

“Mistakes by who, Kazan?” he asks impatiently, switching to English. “Certainly not by me. Not by my men. Let us not forget the latest fuck up was your doing.”

“Moya vina? Menya ne pokhitili. Ty byl, Zver?*.”

Kazan reaches for his steak knife as if tempted to throw it straight at Roman.

Truthfully, both men look as if they might strangle the other at any second. Neither one is anything to balk at. While Romanis built like a tank, Kazan’s no slouch either. If they ever came to blows, it would be two titans leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

But before they can wreak any havoc, the man at the head of the table holds his liver-spotted hand up and silences them both.

Two large, muscular men immediately defer to an older man half their size at the head of the table, his complexion so pale and translucent, blue veins are visible on his face and scalp. He projects a sickly image, which tells methisis the Roman Volkova that Finch believed we were kidnapping.

The sovietnik.

The advisor to the head of the bratva.

The head himself—or pakhan as he’s called—seems to be absent tonight.

As Roman’s father peers around the table at the men under his purview, he almost seems disgusted. The nostrils on his large, misshapen nose flare and he opens his mouth to reveal teeth in poor health.

“Khvatit drat’sya. Yest’ dela povazhneye. My obsudim pozzhe. Odnazhdy devochki rabotayut?*.”

His words settle the situation.

Both men retreat into stubborn silence. Others around the table pick up conversations slightly less tense.

---