Scamming the Devil

CHAPTER NINETEEN

IRINA VOLKOV

The car was black, long, and moved through Moscow's Friday evening traffic with the particular ease of vehicles that don't have to worry about anyone getting in their way. I sat beside Nikolai in the back, a careful distance between us, watching the city slide past the tinted windows.

Moscow at night was different from Moscow in daylight. Softer. The lights turning everything amber and gold, the Moskva River catching the reflection of the bridges, the spires of the old buildings cutting dark shapes against a sky that never went fully black in the city.

I'd loved this city once, before I'd had to become invisible in it.

"What do I actually need to do tonight?" I asked, without turning from the window.

"Stay close. Observe. If Alexei approaches you directly, you don't engage alone." He said it simply, like instructions rather than restriction. "Other than that, it's a party, Irina. You're allowed to exist in it."

"And what do I have to do in the ball? I'm not sure I'm going for any intelligence operation — to hack some safe or something. Except sit, dance, and watch powerful wealthy people make business dealings instead of the so-called birthday celebration."

"Oh." The humor was audible in his voice without being visible on his face. "You could love scam some wealthy foolish men while you're there. It would be entertaining to watch you work again."

I turned to look at him. "Oh please." I almost smacked his arm.

"What? You're good at it."

"I'm retired. Thanks to you."

"Temporarily." His eyes were forward but the slight curve of his mouth remained. Then it faded, and his jaw set in the way it did when something shifted internally. "Alexei will be there. Even though I despise events like this — the politics, the performance of it — seeing his name on the guest list changed my mind. I want to look him in the eye. I want him to understand, without ambiguity, that he doesn't touch my people. That no one uses them as leverage against me." His fist closed briefly on his knee. "No one."

I watched his profile.

My people. He said it every time. Not 'you specifically', always my people. Like he was protecting the category rather than the person. Like saying it the other way would mean something he wasn't ready for.

"And if he doesn't listen?" I asked.

Nikolai turned to look at me then, and his eyes in the dark of the car were very blue and very calm.

"He'll listen," he said simply.

I believed him. That was the part I was still getting used to — how often I believed him.

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The venue was a converted imperial mansion on the river's northern bank, lit from below so that the white stone facade glowed gold against the night sky. Cars lined the approach, uniformed attendants moving between them with practiced efficiency. Through the tall windows I could see the chandelier light inside, the movement of people in formal dress, the particular shimmer of a party that cost more than most people made in a year.

Nikolai's hand came to the small of my back as we stepped out of the car. Light, present, a touch that said 'with me' without saying anything.

I let it stay there.

The entrance opened into a hall of marble and gilt, and the noise of two hundred people in formal wear doing business wrapped around us like a physical thing. Heads turned as we entered — discreet, but I caught them. I always caught them.

"They're looking at you," I said quietly.

"They're looking at us," he corrected, just as quietly. "Get used to it."

We moved through the room. Nikolai stopped twice to exchange brief words with men I didn't know, each exchange short and controlled, his hand never fully leaving my back. I smiled when I was supposed to, said almost nothing, and watched the room.

Third pillar from the east entrance. A man in a charcoal suit, dark hair swept back, a glass of champagne held loosely. He was talking to two other men but his attention was angled toward us — I could tell by the angle of his shoulders, the way his gaze traveled the room without appearing to.

He was waiting for us to notice him.

I touched Nikolai's arm once, lightly.

He followed my eyeline without making it obvious. A pause of three seconds.

"Alexei," he said. One word. Flat as stone.

"The one watching us from the third pillar," I confirmed. "He's been tracking us since we entered. He wants you to come to him."

Nikolai's hand at my back moved slightly — not quite pulling me closer, just a fractional shift in pressure.

"Of course he does," he said. And then, almost to himself: "Stay close."

"I know," I said.

We turned toward the third pillar together.

.

.

Alexei Morozov was exactly as dangerous as his reputation and nothing like what I'd imagined. He was charming in the way of people who have decided charm is the most efficient weapon in a room. Warm eyes, an easy smile, the kind of handsome that age had made more interesting rather than less. He looked at Nikolai like an old friend he happened to want to destroy.

Then he looked at me.

"So this is her," he said. In Russian first, then in English, which told me he'd done his research on where I'd learned my languages. "Irina Volkov. Your father speaks very highly of your abilities."

Oh please. Spare me that.

I smiled. Bright, easy, the smile I used to wear for marks. "How kind of him. I don't speak highly of him at all, so we're even."

Something flickered in Alexei's eyes. Amusement, reassessment. He hadn't expected that.

Good.

"I've heard about your work," he continued, his attention sliding between me and Nikolai with the practiced ease of someone accustomed to negotiating in subtext. "Remarkable skills. It would be a shame to have them pointed in only one direction."

"I find one direction is usually enough," I said pleasantly. "Especially when the aim is good."

Nikolai hadn't spoken. I could feel him beside me — very still, the specific stillness that meant something was being contained.

Alexei smiled wider. "I'd love to show you both to your table. We have much to discuss, old friend."

"We have nothing to discuss," Nikolai said. His voice was quiet and final and it landed in the conversation like a door closing. "Except this, her name doesn't come out of your mouth again. Not to me. Not to Viktor Volkov. Not to anyone in your organization." He held Alexei's gaze with absolute steadiness. "That's not a negotiation. That's a courtesy I'm extending once."

The warmth in Alexei's face didn't disappear. It just became something else underneath.Something colder, calculating, the real face behind the performance.

"Nikolai," he said, almost gently. "You know how this ends."

"Yes," Nikolai said. "I do."

He turned us away from Alexei with the unhurried finality of someone who has said everything worth saying, his hand firm at my back, guiding us toward the other side of the room.

I waited until we were out of earshot.

"He's not done," I said quietly.

"No," Nikolai agreed.

"That went exactly the way he wanted it to."

A pause. "I know."

"Then why—"

"Because now he knows I know." He looked down at me briefly, and his eyes in the chandelier light were unreadable. "And now you've seen his face. What he does with his expression when he's recalibrating. What his tells are." A pause. "You'll need that."

I stared at him.

He'd brought me here partly as a message to Alexei. But also — to let me see the enemy clearly, up close, with time to read him.

Really great.

He was thinking about my usefulness to the operation. That's all this was.

I looked away before my face could decide something without my permission.

"There's an open bar," I said.

"There is."

"I'm going to need it."

"Probably," he agreed, and steered us toward it.