Page 1 of Emerald

1

Sloane

St. Petersburg, Russia

Sometimes death lurks after them for days, weeks, or even months, waiting for their time...

N.B. Roberts

Istroll into the club, past the doormen who by now know me well enough to let me in with a nod. I’ve got my fur coat buttoned up to the neck, and my feet stuffed into some lovely new fleece-lined boots, because it’s bitterly cold outside. The snow is blowing in from the west, the flakes as tiny and granular as sand, biting every inch of exposed skin.

But that’s just an average November evening in St. Petersburg. It hasn’t deterred the patrons of the club, who fill the expensive leather booths and especially the seats around the stage. The heat of their bodies has almost made it too warm inside. I’m eager to get to the staff room to shuck off my coat.

I’ve been working here six weeks, long enough to become familiar to the regulars and the other girls. It’s longer than most people would have devoted to a job like this, but that’s why I’m the best at what I do. I don’t shirk on the details.

Even when the details are, shall we say . . . somewhat unpleasant.

I head to the change room, which is a mess of curling irons and lipstick tubes, discarded boots and glittery thongs. I open up my coat to reveal the outfit underneath, if it can be called an outfit at all—it’s more like three little patches of black leather, held onto my body by elaborate, crisscrossing silver chains.

Now I have to do what all the girls have already done and exchange my nice comfy boots for a pair of awful platform heels. Then I touch up my hair and makeup. The hair is a wig. Blonde, because Yozhin exclusively likes blondes. And the makeup—smoky eyes and pouting red lips—is about ten times more than I’d usually wear.

While I’m dolling myself up, a couple more girls come in—Marta, who’s from a little town in Belarus, and Angie, who’s American, like me. Marta goes by the stage name Star. Angie calls herself Montana, though she’s actually from Idaho. She came here as a backpacker, then started stripping once she ran out of money.

They think my name is Amanda Wallace and that I’m in a similar boat to Angie. Angie helped me pick my stage name, which is Roxie. I made sure to make friends with Angie the second I saw her, because she’s exactly the type Yozhin likes: blonde, fake tits, with a sweet girl-next-door smile.

I’ve only got one of those things, and the hair isn’t even real. But it’s fooled Yozhin so far. He’s paid for private dances with Angie and me every night that he’s come in.

I could have done the job the first time I had him alone in the private room, but first encounters are the enemy. Yozhin’s bodyguards were watching us. Yozhin himself was too riled up, his hands all over me—paying too much attention to the “new girl.” Even if I’d managed to slip something in his drink without anyone noticing, it would have drawn too much attention if he started foaming at the mouth within five minutes of meeting me.

Routine is what I look for. Complaisance.

That’s the time to take someone. When they’re perfectly comfortable and happy.

I want a man to die in front of the fire with his slippers on and his favorite cigar in his mouth.

I’m a very considerate grim reaper.

Yozhin’s favorite place is probably this strip club. He certainly doesn’t stop grinning from the moment he steps foot in the door. And he comes every Wednesday night, like clockwork.

If he really cared about staying alive, he wouldn’t be so predictable. He also wouldn’t have pissed off whoever it was that hired me.

But that’s his problem, not mine.

I just give him dance after dance. I let him put his pudgy little hands all over me, until I could kill him out of pure disgust, let alone for the $50K in bitcoin wired to my account.

The men at the club aren’t supposed to touch us. This is a high-end establishment, not some cheap speakeasy where the girls give out blowjobs at the tables for three thousand rubles a pop. But Yozhin is the minister of the Admiralteysky District, so there’s some leeway. He’s not the biggest fish to come in here, but he’s important enough to get what he wants.

He gets his pick of the girls and the same VIP table every time. He orders a dozen bottles of top shelf liquor for whatever entourage he’s brought along, and he’s generous with his tips. And yet, apparently, someone wants him dead.

And they want it to look like an accident.

Murder is easy.

Stealth is a little harder.

Of course, I already know what I’ll be using. I plan to poison him tonight, when he takes Angie and I back for a private dance.

He’s an important man, so I’ll have to assume that there will be an investigation, an autopsy.

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