Page 27 of The Last Dance

Four minutes and seventeen seconds later, trouble arrived in a dress that cost more than my life insurance policy.

She entered the breakfast room without knocking, her heels clicking a staccato that probably had a name in Italian. She was tall—taller than me and she wore it like a crown. Chestnut hair, dark eyes, skin like expensive china. The kind of woman who turned heads and then collected them as trophies.

I was halfway through a piece of sourdough when she zeroed in on me, smile sharp and professional, like the greeting on a Christmas card from your bankruptcy attorney.

Vadim did not introduce her, but he did stand, which was apparently the highest compliment in this house. She took the seat beside him, not across, and helped herself to a slice of toast directly off his plate.

“I see you have a guest,” she said, her voice a strange mix of formal and something softer, almost musical.

“I do,” Vadim said. “He’ll be staying.”

She eyed me, then the bread, then me again. “How lovely,” she said. “I do hope you’ll be comfortable.”

I gave her my best pageant wave. “It’s already the nicest prison I’ve ever been in.”

She considered this, then, “Vadim only keeps the best.” She took a bite of the toast, chewed, and set it down with a precision that suggested she wanted to do violence to it.

Vadim watched the exchange with a look that was half “proud dad” and half “zookeeper observing the mating habits of captive predators.” He poured her coffee, black, and she sipped it without taking her eyes off me.

I knew this game. I’d seen it in the club, two men posturing over a girl, or vice versa. This was the version with actual weapons and no witnesses.

She finished her sip and finally offered, “Sasha.” No last name. Didn’t need one.

“Iren,” I said. “As in, ‘I run from danger,’ but I guess that joke doesn’t really work anymore.”

She gave a soft laugh, zero amusement. “You’re quite funny.”

I shrugged. “It’s the only defense that’s gotten me this far.”

Vadim seemed satisfied with the direction things were headed. “Sasha is family,” he said, tone neutral.

I caught the subtext: family, but not family. Or maybe family in the way that meant “untouchable unless you had a death wish and a really good will.”

“Do you also live here?” I asked.

She gave a micro-shrug, more Paris runway than “meh.” “Often.” There was an empty silence, the kind that usually comes before an ambush or a job offer. “It must be a difficult adjustment, coming from—where was it?”

“Uptown,” I said. “But not the nice part. More like ‘Uptown, Adjacent.’”

She smiled again, this time with more teeth. “Vadim is a generous host. He will see to your every need.”

I shot Vadim a look, eyebrow up, but he just sipped his coffee, unbothered. “He already has,” I said, letting it land.

Sasha’s smile wobbled, the first crack. She put down the cup, untouched, and shifted the conversation to him. “You have meetings today,” she said, a statement of fact.

“I do,” he said.

She rose, as if the act itself was the point, and leaned over to kiss him on each cheek. “You know where to find me,” she said. Then to me she said, “Enjoy your breakfast.”

She left, and the room lost ten degrees of temperature. Vadim did not watch her go, but I did. I wanted to be sure she wasn’t circling back with a knife or a cryptic comment.

When the silence was sure, I leaned in. “She hates me.”

“She does not hate you,” Vadim said, voice flat.

“She definitely wants me dead. Maybe in a river with cement shoes.”

“She is loyal to her father,” he said. “He died protecting me.”