“What is this builders you speak of?” Bohdan demands.
“It’s erm, strong, brewed for a long time. How a lot of builders take it, allegedly, hence the name.”
This is surreal! I’m discussing ways of taking one’s tea with a load of mobsters.
“I bet you do not have a teapot,” Bohdan says. “If you are using a bag and pouring in milk, it is not tea.”
I don’t have a teapot at home; he’s right. “Do you have a teapot?” I ask Konstantin.
“Of course,” he says. “I have a set. From an antique dealer in St Petersburg.”
His accent thickens when he’s around his friends, I notice. Sometimes, when he speaks, for a moment or two it can sound British, but then certain words will have that heavy Russian emphasis on consonants. Other times, he’ll slightly mangle a phrase. Since Andrius, Vasily, and Bohdan have been here, though, his accent shows more. I don’t think he’s aware of it.
“Can I see it one day?” I ask.
“Yes, of course.” He smiles at me, and I catch it and hold it to me.
He smiled at me with affection, in front of his friends, and he didn’t think before he did so. It means something to me, this smile, and so I cherish it close.
“So, you are Cassie? The one who has caused all this bother.” Bohdan eyes me, and I can see it. The moment he figures out Konstantin must have lost his mind doing all this for me. Yeah, I bet I’m nothing like he imagined. I bet the women he screws around with are the model types Konstantin also gravitated toward before me.
I decide there and then I don’t like him much. Andrius, I like, despite his wolf eyes and his horrifically deadly accuracy with a gun. Vasily, I hate. This one? I dislike him so far.
He says something to Konstantin in Russian, and I wonder if he’s saying I’m far too plain, too non-descript to be causing all this hassle, and he should simply get rid of me.
Konstantin glances my way, and he must see something in my eyes because he turns to Bohdan and snaps at him. “Speak in English while Cassie is here. It’s fucking rude to talk in Russian, since she can’t understand it.”
Bohdan glances at me, and there’s something akin to anger simmering in his beautiful eyes as he watches me for a long moment. He holds his hands up to Konstantin. “Okay. She is the one who let Popov find out you were hacking him, and so she is the reason all this happened.”
“Hardly,” Andrius says.
I walk to the coffee machine and calmly start to make coffees, even though inside I’m shaking. None of Konstantin’s men seem to like me at all, and I can’t see how that will change. If I did manage to make a relationship with him, it would be fraught because his closest men would always be against me.
“All of this would have happened anyway,” Andrius continues. “Cassie isn’t to blame. Liza, though…”
He says her name like it’s dirt he’s spitting out of his mouth.
“Is she still alive?” Bohdan asks. “I always said she was trouble.” He shakes his head.
“She’s still alive. I think it’s today they’re… I don’t know how to say,” Andrius says. “Taking the baby out, and then her mother will turn off the machine.”
“You should be there,” I say to Konstantin.
“Excuse me?” His eyes narrow as I turn to him. “Why the fuck would I be there after what she did to me and Vasily, betraying us this way?”
“For her mother. She has no one. When I asked her in the hospital, she said that she has no family. I know now she’ll have the baby, but she’ll have to say goodbye to her daughter all alone, and no one should have to do that.”
“You go then, if you’re so bothered,” he says.
“Fine, I will.”
“It’s not safe,” he says.
“Then you go.” I stare at him as he stares back.
I’m not backing down on this. Her mother shouldn’t have to face this all alone; it’s cruel. It’s not her mother’s fault the daughter turned into a total bitch; her mum seemed lovely. I lost my mother, and it’s made me appreciate family so much more.
“Fine, I will go be with her mother, but only as it seems to matter to you so much. I have to see Vasily anyway,” he adds. “It’s not as if I’ll be going especially for that.”