Gold Digger by Aleksandr Voinov

MBA.”
    “There’s no reason to get crass here,” LeBeau snapped.
    “What I said to him?” Nikolai stared at LeBeau Senior and pointed at Henri. “Same to you, but twice. Thanks for the meal. We’re going now.”
     

     
    “What just happened?” Tamás asked as they trudged down the long, long private street that led up to the house. They might be walking for an hour before they made it to anywhere near civilization.
    Nikolai rubbed a hand over his face, then turned back to the house. “I swear, if he comes after me in that ridiculous car, I’ll punch him out.”
    Tamás almost audibly shut up before he could say anything, and Nikolai hated being so angry. It so rarely happened that when it did, he almost frightened himself. Truth was, he didn’t know what he was capable of in that state, and he really, really didn’t want to find out. He didn’t want to end up killing somebody, so that “gentle giant, protective brother” thing was what he focused on. He forced himself to be always calm and reasonable, and normally that wasn’t hard. But anybody attacking his friends had it coming.
    He breathed deeply, tried to make the anger go away, but knew full well that he was on the verge of turning back and punching whichever LeBeau showed his face first.
    “I’m sorry. Shit, and I knew he’d try that!”
    “You knew they’d want to get rid of Ruslan?”
    “Not the details. But I did talk to Henri when we met. Maybe he tried to warn me.”
    Tamás frowned. “Why would he do that?”
    Why. Why. Nikolai pulled his phone out. No reception meant no taxi. “Fuck! Sorry for the late-evening walk.”
    Tamás shrugged and looked around, but didn’t say anything much. Nikolai kept his eyes on the dark road in front of them. “I’ll talk to Ruslan about this. I think we might end up needing a white knight.”
    “White knight?”
    “It’s a stock trading expression. Somebody friendly who buys us before LBM can. Makes Cybele sound like a damsel in distress, which is so fucking weird.” Nikolai shook his head. “I think it’s time to unleash some bankers. Seriously. This is a fucking pile of shit. And I’ll make Ruslan listen to me this time round. All this bullshit is just distracting us from any real work, and there’s plenty of that.”
    “Car,” Tamás said.
    Indeed. Headlights up front. Nikolai pulled a bit to the side, aware that in the darkness, a drunk or otherwise occupied driver might not see them in time, despite the headlights. He pushed Tamás to the side along with him, but the car had already slowed. It was a taxi.
    The driver rolled down the window. “For Krasnorada?” he asked.
    “That’s me.”
    The driver waved them inside. “Had a call to pick you up.”
    Henri?
    “Thanks. That’s perfect.” Make it sound less confused and less random, like they’d expected it. “Just get us back to the Drake Hotel.”

“I’ll leave talking to Ruslan to you, Nikolai. You have the full story,” Tamás said while they were keeping an eye on the departures board.
    “Yeah, thanks.” He was widely considered Ruslan’s best friend among the “Attis boys.” Maybe because they both came from oil or maybe because they were both technically Russians, though Nikolai had grown up in Hungary and never served in the army and didn’t intend to ever tell Ruslan that. He had a vague idea that Ruslan wouldn’t look kindly on a man whose mother had bought him out of the draft thanks to a corrupt official. He’d never expected that to turn into a stigma with other Russians—he despised the idea of military service in theory and on principle. There was no romance in it, and he’d seen what it had done to his father.
    Your father was a pilot who crashed in Afghanistan and died.
    Well, to Vadim, then.
    There were things he’d kept even from Ruslan, and the man knew more about him than pretty much everybody.
    “There’s your gate, Tamás—have a good flight.”
    Tamás hugged him tight for a moment,