Page 56 of My Trojan Horse Majesty

“I was off for a few days, and it’s been the weekend, but I have a job at a vet hospital. I’m an aide.”

“Okay, well, we can work that out on the way over.” Leonid lifts his arm, like he’s waving me to come along with him.

“Over where?” I lift my eyebrows.

He smiles. “How about I let you drive?”

Apparently some of his minions understand English, because that sets them off. They’re talking in such rapid-fire Russian that it makes me a little nervous.

“They don’t really understand,” Mikhail says. “While we were gone for a few days, they worked very hard to keep the media from noticing.”

“Gone?” I wonder what he means. “Were you gone too?”

“Mikhail and Boris were with me when. . .” Leonid says. “You’re trying to jump ahead in the story.”

“Always,” I say. “But I said I’d wait for your context, and I’m waiting.”

“How about a compromise?” Leonid asks. “You let me drive, and we’ll meet them at our hotel.” He switches to Russian and speaks so fast, I can’t even tell how many words he said.

“You have to negotiate with your staff?” For some reason that makes me laugh.

“He’s not a monster,” Boris grumbles. “No matter what some people think.”

“You should have seen how he reacted when I locked him up,” I whisper. “He was pretty monstrous, with all his screaming and rearing up and pawing at the ground.”

Mikhail actually cracks a smile.

“Did they agree to your terms?” I ask. “Because we do need to go by my place. I have things—things I need.”

Leonid arches one eyebrow. “I only pretend to negotiate to make them feel better. I always do whatever I want.”

“That’s true,” Mikhail says. “Which is why they don’t want to agree to let you out of their sight.”

“I won’t be gone long.” He points at the black SUVs lined up in a row. “You guys go with them to reassure them, and we’ll see you there soon.”

His people, to their credit, do listen. I hold up my end and hand Leonid my keys. They are, after all, to a car he just bought me. Once we’re inside, I say, “You better pick up the pace on that story. I feel like I have more questions now, not less.”

He chuckles. “I’ll try.”

“Start with the woman.”

“Katerina?” His eyebrows rise.

“Don’t say her name,” I mutter. “Just tell me how disappointing she was.”

He starts the engine and pulls up a phone. One of his people must have either found his old one or supplied him with a new one. It’s strange, watching a man I know was born in the eighteen hundreds, tapping away on the phone like it’s totally normal. Clearly he’s had no trouble adjusting to our screen-filled world. He drops the phone in the cupholder. “She was disappointing.” He sighs. “She used me to try and convince Alexei Romanov to take a real interest, and it didn’t work nearly as well as she’d hoped. One good thing did come out of it for me.”

“What?”

He shoots out onto the road going way too fast.

“Hey, crazy man. We have speed limits here.” I grab both arm rests.

His smile’s diabolical. “Diplomatic?—”

“Don’t say it,” I say. “Just slow down, and keep talking.”

Although he does slow down, it’s not by much.

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