Page 64 of Black Castle

“I don’t know,” she murmurs. “Just come and get us, please.”

“Us?” he asks.

“Yeah, um, Kenji and I.”

A string of curses—some in Russian, some that sound a lot like Japanese—hiss through the receiver. Then, a beat of silence.

“My house is far away from the town.” She hears the slam of car doors, clipped Russian commands. Orders. “But I’ll try to be there in thirty minutes. When you look adjacent to the payphone stand, about five minutes walk ahead, there’s a coffee shop, Sataraya Obzharka. Two words, the first one starts with an S and ends with an A, the second word starts with an O and ends with an A. Go in there and wait. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t order anything, and for the love of God, don’t go anywhere other than there. Just…wait for me.”

Vivienne glances across the street, scanning and she sees it. The coffee shop. “Okay.”

The line goes dead. Either he hung up or her coin has extended its value.

Sighing, she places the receiver back on the hanger, stepping out of the booth. And she can swear the smell of cigarette clings to her body now.

“Well,” Kenji prompts, his eyebrow raised.

“We wait,” she says, curling her hand around the handle of her travel bag. “His house is far away from the city. But he will be here in thirty minutes. In the meantime.” She swings her arm around his shoulder, pulling him closer to her. “We wait at that coffee shop.”

“I don’t want coffee,” he says, his expression flat.

She raises her hand to his head, playfully ruffling his hair as they cross the street and walk to the shop. “Still angry?”

His face stays flat. “We’re in Russia. And we are about to spend the next, I don’t know, three days with a guy we barely know.”

“But I know him.”

“You don’t.” He points out, his tone clipped.

And she doesn’t argue. Because deep down, he is right and she knows it.

She doesn’t really know Lucan Raskovic.

“That’s not scary as shit, at all,” Kenji comments, his voice laced with sarcasm as his gaze locks on the same sign post Vivienne is staring at.

MILITARY ZONE. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT.

“Will you guys actually do that?” Vivienne turns to Lucan, who is sitting next to her in the backseat, while Kenji takes the passenger’s seat next to the brooding soldier behind the wheel.

Her gaze on Lucan is expectant. She refuses to believe the sign is more than a scare tactic—that they will actually shoot.

“That’s the rule.” His response is quick, detached. He isn’t here with her. His mind is tangled elsewhere, and she knows part of that tangle is her. Why she is here without prior notice, why she flew across the world to come and see him even though they haven’t reached out to each other for over three weeks now.

“If I had your address, I would have just shown up at your doorstep, you know,” she says. “Would I have been shot?”

“I have never been saluted before, definitely not by a soldier.” Kenji’s voice cut through the silence, shifting her attention from Lucan, who, she is sure, has no intention of answering her question, anyway.

“I hope you realize it isn’t you they’re saluting but their marshal,” she corrects, her soft chuckle filling the car.

“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugs. “I’m sitting in the car with the marshal. I am an important person, too.”

“Whatever.” She shakes her head, the smile still lingering on her lips as she turns her gaze to the window, taking in the view.

“I can’t believe this is actually your house, Snow white,” she murmurs, her forehead pressing against the tinted window while her mind spiral back to the many times he has flown away from this palace to see her, a girl who lives in a house that though, quaint, is a cabin in the woods compared to this. A palace sprawling across hundreds of acres. And with comparison comes the cruel realization; they are truly worlds apart.

Men like him don’t belong with girls like her. She should have listened to Kenji and moved on.

Her eyes rest on the estate, its glass walls reflecting the sinking sun. The grandeur begins to mock her. And all of a sudden, she feels small, insignificant.

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