Realizing I’m staring at him like a star-struck groupie, I force my vocal cords into action. “Hi.” My throat is still a bit raw from smoke, but I’m hoping he ascribes the raspiness in my voice to the late hour. “How was your flight?”
His sensuous lips curl in a warm smile. “Uneventful. Why are you still awake? It’s past midnight over there.”
“Just… not sleepy.” Especially now that I’m talking to him. Getting this call was like downing five shots of espresso; even my tiredness is gone, replaced by a jittery sort of excitement—one that’s only partially related to what I was reading.
As I suspected, the Molotovs are filthy rich and a huge deal in Russia. “One of the most powerful oligarch families” is a Google-translated quote from one Russian article, and there are plenty of mentions of Nikolai and his brothers—and before that, of Vladimir, their father—in the Russian press. I even found a photo from last year in which Nikolai is sitting next to the Russian president at some black-tie event in Moscow, looking as cool and comfortable as at his family dinners.
What I didn’t find, to my huge relief, is anything about the Molotovs being mafia or having criminal affiliations, though maybe I just didn’t dig deep enough. Even with the help of web translation tools, it’s hard to come up with the right search terms in Russian, and there’s surprisingly little written about Nikolai’s family in English—a passing mention on CNN of a pipeline in Syria laid by one of their oil companies, a paragraph on Bloomberg about a new cancer drug developed by one of their pharmaceutical companies, a line about Vladimir Molotov in a New York Times article discussing the enormous wealth in Russia. There are no Wikipedia entries on them, nothing in the tabloids. They don’t even appear on any Forbes lists, though several Russian billionaires do, and the Molotovs sound even richer.
Of course it’s possible I couldn’t find anything because of all the Molotov cocktail references clogging up search results. I’ll have to ask Nikolai or his sister if they’re any relation to the Soviet foreign minister the homemade explosives are pejoratively named after.
At my reply, Nikolai frowns into the camera, looking concerned. “You didn’t have another nightmare, did you?”
I shake my head with a smile. “I just haven’t gone to sleep yet.”
Maybe it’s the lack of any alarming discoveries in my search, or the simple reality that he’s not here to make my body hum with physical awareness, but I feel calmer talking to him tonight… safer. After all, it’s possible that my experiences over the past month have shredded my nerves, leading me to see danger where none exists, and all the supposed red flags—his bullet wound scar and busted knuckles, the guards and all the security measures—have innocuous explanations. In fact…
“Were you ever in the military?” I ask impulsively, and more tension leaves my shoulders as Nikolai nods, a faint smile dancing on his lips as he leans back in his chair.
“My family has a long history of distinguished service to the country, and my father insisted my brothers and I follow the tradition. All three of us enlisted at eighteen and served for several years.” He tilts his head, regarding me thoughtfully. “Were you wondering about this?” He touches his left shoulder.
“I was,” I admit sheepishly. I’m beginning to feel like an idiot for letting my imagination run wild before. “What happened? Were you shot?”
He nods. “A sniper sent a bullet my way. Luckily, he missed.”
“Missed?”
His white teeth flash in a grin. “I’m not dead, am I?”
“No, thank God.” Still, my chest squeezes as I picture that scar and the pain he must’ve experienced as the bullet tore through his flesh. “Did it take you long to recover?”
“A few weeks. I was only twenty at the time, which helped.”
“Still, I can’t imagine it was fun.” Unable to resist the temptation, I ask, “Do you keep up with your training to this day? Like… fighting and stuff?”
I’m trying to be subtle, but he sees right through me anyway.
Grinning wickedly, he holds up his hands, turning them to show the bruised knuckles to the camera. “You’re asking about these, I assume? That’s from sparring with a few of my guards. They’re from my former unit, and we go at it once in a while—at least when Pavel can’t oblige me.”
I grin back at him, so relieved I could cry. Of course his guards are his army buddies; that makes so much sense, and speaks volumes about his character. “Was Pavel in the army with you as well?” I can easily picture the man-bear in army fatigues, toting an M16 and maybe carrying a tank on his shoulders.
To my surprise, Nikolai shakes his head. “He actually served with my father. He enlisted at fourteen, and they let him, since he was already his current size and looked all of twenty-five.”