Gold Digger by Aleksandr Voinov Page A

gave him a shoulder-slap, then got his sports bag with his clothes and rushed off toward his gate. Nikolai settled in a corner of the terminal and waited for the San Francisco flight to come up, playing idly with his phone until he was bored with Tetris. He had avoided listening to the messages in his voicemail. Unknown caller. Could really only be Henri, maybe to check whether he’d gotten back to the hotel all right. He wasn’t ready to think about it, or Henri, or what that damned takeover meant for his friends and his own life or when it would happen.
    He dialed Ruslan’s number. “Hi Ruslan. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything, but LBM’s going to screw us.”
    “What happened?”
    “They were interested, but they wanted to use their votes to get you replaced by the junior. Henri LeBeau. Said he’d done something similar in Mali.”
    “Malawi. The Saturn prospect.”
    “Okay, you’re up to date.”
    “No, but I did research on this Henri.”
    “Well, he’d have been your successor. They were going to put you in as a senior adviser and Henri would have taken over Cybele.”
    “And what did you tell them?”
    “I told them both to go fuck themselves. Which wasn’t really my place. I should have waited for your call on that. I mean, it’s your baby. I should have respected that, too.” He rubbed his forehead, itchy with nervousness and residual anger. “But I was just so angry about the whole thing.”
    “Why angry? Anything that made it personal?”
    Well, I fucked the junior and then he turned around and stabbed me in the back. “No. Yes. I went out to dinner with Henri and he seemed like a nice guy.”
    “You bond in the very old-fashioned way, Kolya.”
    I’m not sure anal sex counts as old-fashioned there. Nikolai suppressed a grimace. Ruslan was the only guy on the planet who used the affectionate diminutive of his name, which oddly only cemented their bond. “I like to know who and what I’m dealing with. Why is everybody in the world out to screw each other?”
    Screw? Interesting world choice.
    “I mean, shit. If you’d been here, things would have gone totally differently. They’d have seen what a genius you are.”
    “Yes, maybe you’re right. What do you suggest now?”
    “We need to get a white knight in. They’ll buy us, Ruslan, whether we want to or not. I don’t think the silverback is going to live down that I told him to go fuck himself. Personally, I wouldn’t. Anybody said that to me in my own house, I’d make them regret it. So, I fucked up.”
    “You keep saying that.” Ruslan sounded amused, despite everything, and despite what Cybele meant to him. “I can try talking to some people who approached us earlier, but LBM was our first choice. It doesn’t matter now. Maybe we do have to throw some corporate finance people at the problem.”
    “Which is expensive.”
    “We’re sitting on a big pile of gold. We’ll be fine. So, you’re off to meet your father?”
    No, he’s dead. “Yes, looks like it. Keeping my head down, I guess. At least I’ll be safe from LBM’s hired killers. My old man was Spetsnaz .”
    “Haha. Good luck. If you want to vanish from the face of the earth, New Zealand is a good place to begin. Safe travels!”
    “Thanks.” Nikolai ended the call and leaned back, closing his eyes for a long moment. Just why was he feeling so miserable? Ruslan would take care of it, and he’d owe him again, and what was it about Ruslan that made him think the man actually, honestly, really cared about him? But he’d thought that Henri liked him, too. And there was no competition between a friend and a fuck.
    Wow. Henri. Can of worms. Despite that fuck-up, despite that nasty last scene in that ostentatious house, there was also this other guy, who laughed and joked and liked stupid cars. The banter. Yeah, that had been easy. The sex, pretty damn fantastic.
    And that was the problem.
     

     
    Nikolai picked up his bag and straightened. Vadim