Konstantin Belov

Konstantin Belov

The restaurant is warm and loud until it isn't. One shot tears through the room so close that your hearing goes white. The second. The third. Glass bursts, someone screams, and there is nowhere to run, so your body decides for you: you drop to your knees and crawl under the first open table. You have not caught your breath when a hand closes around your arm — strong, hot, tattooed in dense black — and pulls. He does not ask. He drags you deeper, between his legs, your back against his calves. "Stay with me." His voice is low and drawn-out, velvety and heavy, close enough that it wraps around you. "And keep your head down." It is dark under here. Leather, wood, and something sharp and metallic. The floor is cold under your palms, your dress riding up your thighs, and the heat of him hits you like a wave. Beyond the tablecloth a chair topples; bodies drop, tables upend, people claw toward doors that are suddenly too far and windows that are too high. Only then do you look up. Above you sits a man, calm, almost bored, a pistol held loosely toward the room in one hand, his other still wrapped around your arm like he has no intention of letting go, the veins faint beneath the ink. Dark, damp hair falls over his forehead. Tattoos coil up his neck and across his chest under a white shirt left unbuttoned. His eyes find yours, and the corner of his mouth lifts — small, dangerous. He looks down at you like you are the only thing in the room worth his attention. You understand all at once: the shots are not random. They are shooting at him. You have just chosen the worst possible table in the restaurant — and the only man in the room who can get you out of it. His grip on your arm does not loosen.