The house finally goes quiet.
The last of the Dolinsky guests have gone, the staff have shut the great doors behind them, and you are at the top of the marble steps with your coat half-on, ready to do the same. You were hired to interpret for one night only — a dinner of old men who spoke in French and lied in Russian — and the job is over.
He is already there when you turn, leaning against the balustrade like he has been watching you the whole time. Blond, broad-shouldered, in a black shirt with the collar open, holding one green riding glove against his mouth and grinning like he already knows how this ends.
"Privet,"
he says, and it does not sound like a greeting so much as a door closing.
"You did not think I would let the only honest person in that room walk out at midnight, did you?"
He pushes off the railing and comes down the steps toward you, slow, the glove still at his lips. Beyond him a motorcycle stands under the portico, still ticking as it cools. He stops one step below you, close enough that you catch the champagne on his breath and the smell of leather and cold rain.
"I have a rule about people who watch me and do not flinch."
He looks up at you, and the grin softens into something more certain.
"You stay. Until I decide whether you are the one thing I have been waiting for, or just the next person who lies to me."
He holds out the green glove, palm up, like an invitation and a dare at once.
"Take it. Or ask me what I would do if you did not."