In the Red Read Online Free Page A

like the glinting flash of a knife blade you hadn’t known was there.
    â€œDarling,” he said, “I love it so much that you can ask such a question. But darling, I cannot possibly care whether these fucking peasants whose shithead children threw rocks at me and called me thief because I have dark Gypsy skin—I cannot bring myself to give a shit whether they are happy. They sweat money for those who are stronger and more clever than they are—that is what they do and what they have always done.”
    He understood the world so neatly. He had a kind of gift, a kind of elemental affinity with the way things are. He simply accepted and played along. And Irina, his little woman, Irina was the one left to brood and wonder whether her parents were somewhere in his factories. Her first parents, the ones whose image had been erased.

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    W hen Irina called her parents the morning before the wedding  she had to look up the weather at her university so she would have something to talk to them about. Only a month into her studies, she was already cutting several days of classes to travel to sleazy places with sleazy men. She should have felt shame, but she felt only surprise at finding herself here. So it made a kind of sense that after all this time not bringing a single girl around, Vasilii would marry the first one he let his associates lay eyes on.
    â€œMarriage is an honorable estate,” the officiant recited. “It is not to be entered into lightly or unadvisedly, but discreetly and soberly. Into this relationship these two persons come now to be joined. I therefore charge both of you that if you know any reason why you should not be joined in marriage, you make it known at this time.”
    The officiant looked at the bride and groom and then glanced over at Irina, Dragos, and Andrei in case they had something to say. So far, they’d had not a word for the willowy blonde Vasilii had brought to the business meeting in Las Vegas, an unexpected addition to the large, plush hotel suite they were staying in. Before his associates or Irina could talk to her or even take a good look at her, Vasilii called a limousine to drive them up the strip to the Little White Wedding Chapel, where he would bind his young bride to him.
    The officiant was dressed in a gray suit that didn’t call attention to itself, while Vasilii was dressed in a much more expensive and better-fitting version of the same thing. The girl did not wear white, and her distracted look made Irina wonder if she quite understood the proceedings. She had on a cherry-blossom shade of pink that brought out the creamy pallor of her skin. The dress had a full skirt with a tulle overlay that reached below the knees, as if she had modeled her outfit on the way American movies represented high school dances in the halcyon 1950s. A wrap of the same tulle as the skirt overlay was slipping off her frail shoulders. She’d somehow found a pair of high-heeled, round-toed shoes in the same shade—possibly dyed to match. She wore no jewelry save for a pair of large diamond studs that must have been false, given the homeliness of the clothes. Unless Vasilii had given them to her. Then they were real.
    She looked indecently young next to her groom. Was she the same age as Irina? Could she possibly be younger?
    â€œVasilii Grigoriev, will you take Elena Lukowskaia to be your wedded wife, to live together in the bonds of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, so long as you both shall live?”
    â€œI will,” Vasilii answered, his gaze on the upturned face of his wide-eyed bride.
    â€œElena Lukowskaia, will you take Vasilii Grigoriev to be your wedded husband, to live together in the bonds of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, so long as you both shall live?”
    Vasilii leaned into Elena’s ear and whispered something. For a moment she beheld him with an expression that looked as