You Don't Own Me (The Russian Don 1)

His face remains watchful, but he is now also guarded. ‘You have a wonderful amendment in your country’s constitution that I’m rather fond of. The Fourth, I believe.’

‘You’re very casual about it,’ I murmur.

‘Is it cruel when a cheetah outruns an impala and kills it?’

‘The cheetah does it because it’s hungry.’

‘There are many kinds of hunger,’

My senses flash like the warning light on a car’s dashboard. Not dazzling. Just insistent. Beware, your little heart. Beware, your little heart. ‘So you feel nothing for your victims. Not even a tiny twinge of guilt.’

‘Be assured, little fox, anyone who might have perished at my hands will have richly deserved it. I don’t knock on the doors of ordinary people. Everyone in my world understands the rules on the day they enter it.’

‘Why did you enter this world?’

‘Because I knew it was the fastest way to get everything I wanted, and I knew I could be more ferocious than anyone else.’

‘And it never occurred to you to do something legitimate?’

‘I have legitimate businesses. You are sitting in one.’

‘Is it really worth it to have to guard yourself day and night?’

‘I never think about it. You have greenish-gold eyes. I have bodyguards.’ He shrugs lightly.

‘Will you ever walk away from it?’ I realize I am holding my breath.

‘The chances are I will be gunned down long before I get a chance to leave it.’

My mouth opens in a gasp. ‘Knowing that you still stay?’

‘If I die in the gutter so be it, but I will not live in it like a rat.’

‘Are you trying to say that my life equates to living in the gutter like a rat?’

He smiles lopsidedly. ‘My choices were slightly more … stark than yours.’

‘What about the people who love you? Don’t you care that they must be worried sick all the time?’

His eyes flicker. ‘There is not a single person on this earth who cares if I live or die, and that is exactly how I like it.’

I open my mouth to reply to such an epic statement and, to my shock, I see a tiny hole about two inches in diameter suddenly appear on the tablecloth close to my plate. I blink in astonishment. Hell, how much champagne have I had? Out of that tiny hole a little chef, the size of Thumbelina, emerges and bows to me as if he is about to start a performance. Other than his size he is completely lifelike.

Oh my God! Have I been drugged? Or am I just hallucinating because I’m going crazy?

‘What the hell?’ I exclaim.

The little chef is now opening a bag. I reach out a hand and try to touch him, but only catch thin air. The chef goes on about his business opening the bag and taking out a tiny fishing net.

I look up at Zane. ‘What’s going on?’

He grins like a schoolboy. The seriousness of our earlier conversation feels as if it belongs in a different lifetime.

‘It’s a hologram.’ He points to the ceiling and I look up. Two projectors are mounted over the table. ‘It’s called 3D projection mapping. Le Petit Chef is preparing your dinner for you.’

A hologram! So this is the new fangled thing Molly was talking about. The illusion is so real I had to try and catch the digital chef with my fingers. Completely awed by the technology, I watch the tiny Chef use an electric saw to cut a hole into the tablecloth and start fishing for my prawns in the water below. As he catches them he flings the giant prawns still wriggling and struggling onto the tablecloth. They land twitching and twisting realistically.

The little chef then reaches under my plate and starts cranking a lever. It causes my plate to become a sliding surface. A metal dish shaped like champagne coupes rises from beneath.

With comic difficulty he drags the prawns one by one onto a spoon, and expertly slings them so they end up curled over the lip of a metal dish. He starts up his chainsaw again and cuts down a red chili from a chili tree. Cursing and swearing to himself like a real chef, he pulls the other ingredients out of the tablecloth and catapults them all into the metal dish.

He then finds a bottle of alcohol and squirts it in an arc; like water from the hosepipe onto the prawns. Muttering to himself he conjures up a firecracker and directs it to the prawns. The prawns start flaming, he falls backwards, a spark catches on his clothes, and he runs, hands flapping back into the hole he originally emerged from.

I laugh, delighted by the little show. As if rehearsed, the waitresses arrive with our flaming prawns. The dish looks exactly like the one the little chef had so amusingly prepared.

‘How am I going to eat this?’ I ask looking at the marvelous creation.