The light in the club bathroom is too white.
The kind of white that forgives nothing: not pores, not dark circles, not the mistakes made after one drink too many. I brace my palm on the edge of the sink and feel my fingers slide slightly over the cold, glossy marble, like on ice.
Everything is spinning. Not violently, not like a fall, but like a slow rotation of the room, as if everything were caught in a badly calibrated carousel. The music outside seeps through the walls in dull pulses, thudding against my ribs from the inside.
Yelena is holding my arm. I feel my skin compressed beneath her fingers—contact that seems delicate, but with exactly enough pressure to remind me that if I wanted to leave, I would only leave if she decided I was allowed to.
"You know, the toilets in this place are renovated every year," she tells me, in English, with a faint accent, as if sharing a confidence between girlfriends. "It's funny. Men kill each other for power, and we change the marble."
She laughs briefly. The sound is too clean for this club. Too sharp.
I nod, though I don't think I'm answering anything. In the mirror, my eyes have a strange, delayed shine. The green is there, but it looks softer, as if someone had diluted it with water. The emeralds at my throat press into my collarbones—heavy, cold, still foreign. The black dress clings to my body like a second skin, and yet I feel as though I'm wearing someone else.
"Are you okay?" Yelena asks, but there's no care in the question. Just curiosity.
"I'm fine," I lie.
I run my hands under the stream of water, then splash my face. The cold slices across my cheeks and gives me one second of clarity. Just one.
Yelena takes her lipstick out of a small purse and rolls it between her fingers like a toy.
"Do you like Russia?" she asks. "Moscow is beautiful, isn't it? It pretends to be civilized. I like that about it. A good mask."
Her words spill out without waiting for an answer. She chatters about traffic, about a new restaurant on Arbat, about a designer who refused her and then cried when he realized whom he had refused. None of what she says matters. It's all filler.
But the way she looks at me matters.
Not directly. Not constantly. But in those cold, brief glides, like a blade brushing skin: once at my neck, once at my dress, once at my lips still wet from water. As if she's taking inventory. As if she's preparing me.
I swallow and feel the taste of vodka rise again—bitter, metallic.
I shouldn't have drunk so much.
In my head, the image of Duca's hand remains lodged like a fingerprint: his palm at the nape of my neck, his fingers along my spine, his voice lowered into my ear. And then the way he withdrew.
Control.
He didn't allow me to forget that.
A wave of heat suddenly surges from my stomach to my throat. I clench my fingers around the edge of the sink, trying not to vomit. That would be too… humiliating. And I feel, stupidly clearly, that humiliation is a currency here.
Yelena steps closer, as if she's noticed the tremor.
"You drank well for a little girl," she says, smiling. "Russians appreciate that."
Little girl. The word slips under my skin.
I suddenly remember Nikolai asking how old I was. The way his eyes lit up in something ugly when I answered. The way Duca squeezed my hand—a short grip, almost painful—and how, in that same second, I knew it wasn't good.
It's not good. And yet, here I am.
"Today's your birthday, isn't it?" Yelena goes on, her tone turning artificially sweet. "Eighteen. Lovely."
I lift my eyes to her. She's so close I can see the details that are supposed to be beautiful—flawless skin, perfect brows, long lashes—and yet all I feel is cold. Cold behind my eyes.
"Why do you care?" I ask, before I can stop my mouth.
My words tremble, but they come out.
Yelena blinks slowly. Then she smiles. A smile that never quite reaches her eyes.
"I don't," she says. "I'm amused."
She raises her hand and touches a strand of my hair, very lightly, as if testing the texture of a fabric.
"This color isn't common. It's more usual for us. But on you, in your country, it looks like a beautiful mistake."
My skin prickles along my arms.
"Don't touch me," I say, and my voice is sharper than I intended.
She doesn't pull away right away. She only shifts her fingers slowly, as if the decision to stop were hers.
"You're brave, Alla," she murmurs. "Or you just don't understand yet where you are."
She withdraws her hand and, with studied nonchalance, opens the small purse tucked under her arm. From inside she takes out a small metal case, old, studded with gemstones that catch the light like tiny eyes. She opens it.
Inside, scattered carelessly on pale velvet, are several small pink pills, heart-shaped—more like candy or toys made for dolls than something meant to be swallowed.
She lifts one between two fingers, looks at me for a second too long, then sticks out her tongue and places it exactly in the center, like a promise. She swallows it without water.
She closes her eyes.
For a moment, her face softens completely, as if she's tasted something rare, something that belongs to her. When she opens them again, she's wearing—for the first time tonight—a real smile. Warm. Almost beautiful.
"Eighteen years," she says, with a calm delight that makes my stomach tighten. "Clearly something worth celebrating."
She tilts her head to the side, studying me.
"Let's have some fun," she adds, her voice dropping slightly. "Unless you're a coward…"
I can't look like a coward.
Not to myself, to my thin, stubborn pride. And most of all not to Duca—to the man who holds my hand in front of the world and calls me, in a low, steady voice, little love.
Not a coward.
But stupid…
I'm stupid, because somewhere deep and lucid I feel that the hand Yelena is extending isn't an invitation, but a road. One that leads nowhere good. A road that will hurt. Maybe not now. Maybe not immediately. But certainly.
And yet, when I look at my slightly blurred reflection in the mirror and hear the music pulsing beyond the doors, I know I'm going to step onto it.
Yelena takes out a second pill, identical to the first—pink, small, absurdly innocent. She places it on her tongue with the same slow, almost ritual gesture and moves closer before I can say anything. Too fast. Too close. I smell her cool, sweet perfume, feel her breath.
She kisses me.
It isn't a tender kiss, and it isn't an erotic one. It's precise. Calculated. Her lips seize mine, and her tongue forces my mouth open in a fraction of a second in which my brain doesn't have time to scream. I feel something small, smooth, sliding onto my tongue and lower, pushed with a certainty that asks nothing.
I swallow on reflex.
Only then do I manage to pull back.
Yelena bursts into a short, bright laugh, almost childish.
"See?" she says, pleased with herself. "It didn't even hurt."
She wipes the corner of her mouth with her finger, satisfied, and looks at me like a successful work of art.
"Now we can really have some fun."
My heart is hammering out of rhythm, my stomach tightening into a cold knot. I know—with a clarity that frightens me more than anything—that I've just crossed a line.
We leave the bathroom and step back into the club.
The music hits me straight in the chest, but this time it doesn't push me away. It catches me. Pulls me in. The bass climbs up through my soles, follows my legs, my hips, my stomach. The lights pulse, and the smoke feels softer, warmer, like a friendly fog.
Gaston is behind us. I sense him without looking. The same with her bodyguards—two compact silhouettes moving with us, like well-trained shadows. They don't bother me anymore. They don't weigh on me.
Yelena grabs my hand and pulls me onto the dance floor.
"Come on," she shouts over the music, laughing. "Relax."
And, strangely, that's exactly what I do.
The first seconds are clumsy. My body is still searching for its balance, still negotiating with the floor, with the air, with myself. Then something clicks into place. The music stops being noise and becomes rhythm. I don't have to think about what I'm doing anymore. My body knows.
I feel good.
Not just dizzy. Not confused. Good.
A pleasant warmth spreads beneath my skin, like a gentle promise. The thoughts that usually never shut up retreat somewhere far back, leaving room for a comfortable emptiness. I'm no longer analyzing looks. No longer calculating risks. No longer anticipating pain.
I just am.
Yelena dances in front of me, close, self-assured, laughing. She catches my hands and lifts them above my head, then loops an arm around my neck. She's warm. Familiar. She speaks near my ear, but I no longer really hear what she's saying. It doesn't matter.
What matters is how she makes me feel.
Accepted.
I laugh. I laugh with a free sound I don't remember ever making in a place like this. My head tips back slightly, my hair sticks to the nape of my neck, and my body starts to move more slowly, more fluidly. My hips follow the music, my chest arches on instinct, and my hands end up at her neck without me realizing when I decided that.
We dance lasciviously.
Not for someone else. Not for watching eyes. But for each other.
Yelena pulls me closer and laughs again, happy, as if she's just won something important.
"See?" she says. "I told you."
I don't know what she told me. But I nod.
In that moment, I feel clearly that Yelena is my friend. Maybe the only one I have here. The only one who sees me, who pulls me along with her, who asks nothing of me in return except that I feel.
And I want to feel.
Minute by minute, my body grows lighter. My smile comes naturally. Closeness no longer scares me, touch no longer tenses me. The world seems slower, kinder, as if its edges have been worn smooth.
If there is danger, it's far away. If there are consequences, they're for someone else.
Now there is only the music, the lights, my laughter, and Yelena's arm around my neck, holding me close like something worth keeping.
"You're beautiful when you laugh," she tells me, sincerely.
I believe her.
I slide my hand behind her neck and keep it there, and we keep dancing, lasciviously, without caring about eyes on us. My dress clings to my thighs, to my back, and I no longer feel exposed. I feel… desired. Alive.
Minutes pass, and each one makes me lighter, looser, braver. I move my hips without thinking about who's watching. I throw my head back and let my hair fall free. The music is inside me now.
I don't know exactly when Duca appears.
I feel him before I see him.
His arm settles around my neck from behind—firm, possessive, familiar. His large palm catches my collarbone, his fingers closing over my skin exactly where my body recognizes him without asking permission anymore. I smile wide and mold myself against him instinctively, as if I were made for this place.
I want him.
I sway, slowly at first, then bolder, searching for his solid body, pressing into him, letting the music decide for me. I feel his chest, his breathing, the familiar scent that calms and ignites me at the same time.
From the corner of my eye, I catch a brutal movement, almost comical.
Nikolai lifts Yelena as if she weighs nothing, throws her over his shoulder, ass up, and carries her toward the couches. Yelena bursts into loud, unrestrained laughter and shouts something back at me—a jumble of words and laughter I don't understand, but that strikes me as terribly funny.
I laugh too.
Duca leans down toward me.
"Alla," he says, his voice low, controlled. "Let's sit for a bit."
He strokes my arm, trying to temper my movements, but I don't want to stop. When I lift my eyes to him, I see the change.
His gaze locks onto mine and hardens.
He sees the wide dilation, the wrong kind of shine, the way I don't blink in time anymore. Understanding hits him instantly, cold and clear.
He doesn't push it further.
He grabs my hand and pulls me after him, decisive, through the bodies, toward the Volkovs' table.
"We're leaving," he says shortly, without raising his voice. "We'll talk another time."
Nikolai stretches out lazily on the couch, wearing the satisfied smile of a snake.
"Hold on a second, brother," he says. "There's one more document on the way. Five minutes."
Duca measures the distance, the faces, the time—in a fraction of a second in which it feels like he sees more than I do, more than anyone around us.
Then he sits back down on the couch, with a quiet, calculated decision, as if he's buying minutes at the cost of his own patience.
I have no patience left for anything.
Not for words, not for negotiations, not for the world continuing to exist around us as if it weren't about to crack open. My body looks for his with an urgency that no longer has logic, and before I can stop myself—or want to—I climb into his lap, my thighs on either side of him, claiming, natural, as if this had always been my place.
I move against him, slow at first, then surer, hungrier, searching for balance, for closeness, for that sense of safety that comes only from the weight of his body beneath mine. I feel him solid, present, anchored in a reality I can no longer quite reach.
I wrap my arms around his neck, sink my fingers into his hair, and the world blurs at the edges, like an image slipping out of focus.
I kiss him.
It isn't a timid kiss, and it isn't one that asks. It's a kiss that takes, that demands, that no longer knows how to wait. My lips seek his with a sweet desperation, and in that moment the music, the lights, the watching eyes, the Volkovs, Russia—all of it becomes distant noise, meaningless.
For me, there is nothing left but this sensation—intense, wrong, and perfect at the same time—the sensation of being alive in a dangerous way.
I don't know what will come next.
I only know that, in this moment, I'm incapable of paying attention to anything else but him.