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“I am sorry,” she said.
“Why do you not trust men?”
“What do you mean? Of course I trust men.”
“Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“You look around the room with your head swinging back and forth, trying to guess where we
are going next. If you close your eyes, you will trust me.” He smiled as they began to move again and
Emma allowed her eyes to flutter closed, just as he had asked.
“For I know something about women, you see,” he whispered, bringing his mouth close to her
ear. “They only trust men when they find they have no other choice.”
The Streets of St. Petersburg
4:35 PM
Davy and Vlad were sitting at the precise same café where he had braved coffee with Elliott
Cooper that morning, although this time the drink at hand was even more potent. They should call this
place the Café of the Revolution, he mused, but perhaps it was really not so strange that the members
of the Volya would choose to congregate there both before and after their meetings. Humans were
habituated and self-limiting creatures, Davy had noted. Even in a large city with innumerable
options, they tended to return to the same places over and over.
“Do you have brothers?” Vlad inquired.
“Three.”
“You are lucky. A couple of spares.”
“You’ll forgive me if I do not see it that way.”
“My brother Sasha was killed in the revolution,” Vlad said without emotion. “But I suppose
Cooper told you that.”