Read eight by Ulyana Sobolev. Read the book "Eight"

Makeup. Hair care. Skin care » Shampoos Read eight by Ulyana Sobolev. Read the book "Eight"

Read eight by Ulyana Sobolev. Read the book "Eight"

ULYANA SOBOLEV
EIGHT. INFINITY SIGN

ANNOTATION:

Everyone talks about the seven circles of Hell, but in reality there are eight
the eighth never ends.
One two Three…
Go to him quickly
Three four five
He wants to play
Five six seven
Not funny at all
Eight... eight... eight...

Sixteen-year-old Anita is found in New York's Central Park with her veins cut, and an Italian stiletto lying next to her corpse. Katherine Loginov, a child psychologist from a family of Russian emigrants, cannot come to terms with her own mistake in treating a young patient. During the investigation, Katherine meets a mysterious Italian millionaire and realizes that Anita wrote about him in her diary. Dante Lucas Marini is a sexy, depraved devil to the core, prone to sadism. He plays a sophisticated game with Catherine, according to his strange, incomprehensible rules. Carries her beyond sensual and dangerous emotions, refined and sophisticated pleasure. Meanwhile, a series of strange deaths among schoolgirls continues, like a carbon copy. The investigation concludes that these are murders. Dante Marini becomes the main suspect in the terrible crimes. So who is he really: a skilled seducer addicted to forbidden pleasures or a deranged killer? Katherine doesn't know the answers to these questions, but she's already bogged down, immersed headlong in this obsession. A game that lasts forever, in which you can lose not only yourself, but also your life.

CHAPTER 1

Entry No. 7
– Is this what worries you? These strange dreams?
- No. It's not the dreams that bother me, it's the reality.
– Did you have problems with drugs?
“I only smoked weed once.” Do you think this is a problem, doctor?
– No, I don’t think this is a problem. We are now talking about what exactly you consider to be the problem.
A sharp sound and then silence... the voice is heard from afar.
“The problem is that he comes to me not only in my dreams. The problem is that I see him in reality. He's playing with me... Do you understand? He's playing cat and mouse with me. I can not go on.
- Calm down. Sit down. Here, drink some water. So you think that a certain man comes to you at night and mocks you?
“I don’t think so... you think I’m crazy.” You and my sister want to lock me in a mental hospital, you...
– Anita, no one wishes you harm. Nobody wants to lock you up somewhere, we want to help you. You're in trouble with the police. Four arrests for trespassing. Your sister is worried about you, but first we need to understand what's really going on. Why did you come to Mr. Dante's house? Why did you paint the fence with pictograms?
- Because he drives me crazy... he comes and then disappears. It attracts and repels. Beats and caresses. It cuts and shreds me... you won’t understand. You do not believe me. Look. This is what he does to me.
Noise... sobbing, interference.
“Your sister was talking about these cuts.” What are they applied to?
- With a stiletto blade. Italian. Dante always carries it with him. When we have sex, he cuts my skin and licks the blood...his eyes, they turn black, his nostrils flutter and...
- Anna, what about the burns? How do burns occur?
- Hot wax…
– Does everything happen by mutual consent?
- Yes, but... he steals my soul. Don't you understand that he's killing me? You still don't understand anything? This man is the devil. He plays his games with you until you die. Until life begins to seem more painful to you than death, until you feel like dirt.
- Anna, we will figure it out, I promise you. Our next meeting will be on Friday morning.
For now, try sleeping in another room, walking for a few hours before bed, and...you can draw, right? Draw me something before Friday. Draw me your dream, okay?
- Will you help me? Can you help me? I want to forget about him... please help me. I'm suffocating. I'm scared…
- Of course, I will help you. Necessarily. And you must go back to studying. Your friends miss you. Wait for me, I'll be right back, okay?
Footsteps, the sound of a door opening and closing. Noise. Interference. Low whisper. Interference again.
“I brought you and myself a Pepsi.” Do you want a straw or a disposable glass?
– I don’t drink Pepsi, I only drink water. How can you help me if you don't know anything about me?
- I recognize you. You can tell me everything if you want, and we will help you together, okay?
- Fine. I believe you. You have very beautiful and bright eyes. When I look at them, I believe you.

"Anna Serova. Twelve years. He mutilates himself with a razor blade, burns his skin with cigarettes, and suffers from depression and hallucinations. Prone to masochism. She is fond of heavy music, withdrawn, unfriendly...”

I turned off the recorder and put it aside, closed my eyes, tapping the ballpoint pen on the table. Then she looked at the laptop monitor, scrolled down the pages of the file and quickly typed:
"Closed. Death of a patient. Suicide"
I grabbed the file “Anna Serova” with the cursor and dragged it into a separate folder without a name.
I should have understood, felt, but I didn’t understand. My loss and the price is too high.
I looked at the desktop picture for a few more seconds - a winter landscape. Then she opened the search engine and slowly typed in the name: “Dante Lucas Marini.” The search results immediately appeared.
I scrolled down and up. Then she clicked on the Wikipedia link and looked carefully at the man’s photograph. Beautiful. Brutal, I would say. The eldest son of an Italian shipowner and the daughter of a Russian immigrant actress. Five Marini brothers, heirs to the gambling business, several chains of Italian restaurants and real estate in Russia. All have dual citizenship. I was interested in Dante himself. Thirty five years. That age when women spend money on plastic surgery, and men are just beginning to feel the taste of life, their own power and experience. What could connect a girl from an average family of Russian emigrants, living in our provincial quarter, and this rich playmaker? Where could they intersect? Absurd.

My cell phone rang and I answered without even looking at the display screen.
“I need to talk to you, I just have to talk to you.”
She winced painfully, felt for a pack of cigarettes and lit a cigarette.
– Of course, Yulia, we will definitely talk. I'll make an appointment for you.
- I need today, today...
I exhaled and threw the lighter away. Yes, most of my patients are Russian speakers. They come to me because I work with them in their native language.
“You need to rest today and come to your senses.” We'll talk another day.
“The police said she... she was under the influence of drugs when she cut her wrists.” I don't believe. She could not. You talked to her. You assured me that this was due to age, that it would pass, and that with the right course of treatment... Anya did not take drugs. Never before... she loved to live so much. When she returned from you, she wanted to start drawing again...I...
– Julia, I know that it’s very difficult for you now. I understand. I sincerely sympathize with you.
“It seems to me that the police are hiding something.” We talked with Anya in the evening, I left and... she disappeared. They searched for her for four days. Four. Why did she have to leave, she could have done it at home, I don’t understand... I don’t understand anything.
I swallowed convulsively, an unpleasant feeling arose in my soul, as if I was being accused of something.
- I'll meet you tomorrow, okay? Tomorrow afternoon we will discuss everything. Necessarily. Agreed? My secretary will contact you and set up a time.
She closed her cell phone and exhaled, squeezing her temples with her fingers. I urgently need a rest, at least for a week.

***

“I hated this place, I hated my life, which reminded me of a stringy and viscous routine.
But most of all I hated the fact that I was not like everyone else, but I would never show this to them, I would rather gnaw my veins with my teeth. To some, my depression will seem like madness with fat, but then it was a disaster. At the age of fifteen, when life already seems like complete rubbish, you are torn out of your usual environment and thrown into an alien world, where you learn to swim and are poked from side to side like a blind kitten. At first, when my parents told me that we were moving, I was happy. I was even proud that I would break out of this routine, send photos to my friends via the Internet and walk along the azure beach full of dark-skinned guys. I envied myself, especially seeing how proud my father was of his new assignment, and how my mother and sisters were feverishly packing their bags, giving away their belongings and anticipating the move.
The euphoria lasted exactly a few days - until I realized that they hated me. They hate everything about me. God, what a fool I was. My life was just paradise before I met him. Although, I no longer know where heaven is and where hell is. Have you ever seen a beast in human form? No, without the mystical crap that my friends watch. A real beast, in which there is nothing human except appearance. I saw, felt, knew to the fullest. This is not a person. It devours your will, binds you mentally, brings everyone who comes close to it to their knees. Covers you with dirt, tears your heart until it bleeds. This is the Devil. Not a single prayer will help you... and the worst thing is, I love him madly.”

She slammed Anita's diary shut and looked out the window. I understood her. This is a disgusting feeling when you are different from everyone: the color of your hair, eyes, skin, mentality, stupid Russian name. Yes to everyone. A white crow in the full sense of the word. I also went through this, not so acutely, of course, but I went through it, and then I got used to it. I dyed my blonde hair black, the way dark girls with dark skin were in fashion, I tanned until I blistered and dreamed of wearing brown contacts. I didn’t want to be Russian, but I still always was and there’s no getting away from it. They called me “matryoshka” for my fair skin, blush and roundness. I was chubby in college and I hated myself...
“Do you keep a diary?
– Sometimes I write down my thoughts.
– Does this help you?
She laughed, and I saw Ani tuck a strand of blond hair behind her ear. Her light brown eyes were not touched by a smile.
“It’s distracting me, and no one can help me, not even you, Katherine.”
She never called me Katya and rarely spoke Russian to me. Although it would help to open up more. It’s just that she, like many immigrant children, tried to merge with the masses, not to be different from them, denying her ethnicity.
“I’m trying very hard, and together we will succeed. You will see. Sometimes it happens that young girls are attracted to older guys, actors, celebrities, they fantasize and their feelings are not mutual, but this is not a tragedy, Ani, this is an experience.
She grinned again.
– You think these are my fantasies, right?
– Has your sister read the diary? Did you show her?
- For what? I hid it. She will never find him THERE.”
And I found it... By chance. In her room, to which Julia led me after the funeral. I remember opening the window, suffocating from the overwhelming melancholy. Someone else's grief sometimes weighs more heavily than your own. These sobs, whispers, wakes, quiet steps outside the door and a room in which everything remained the same as the last time Anita left here, never to return. She hid the diary in the opening between the window frames, in a kind of recess. I just imagined Ani sitting on the windowsill, her legs dangling onto the street, writing. She told me about this.

The cigarette smoldered in the ashtray, and I looked out the window at the dark sky. It bothered me that she was gone. It was killing me. Lee said that this happens to everyone with the first personal deceased, then, over time, you stop taking it to heart. I'm not a surgeon or even a nurse, I'm a school psychologist, I shouldn't have personal dead people. They don’t bring me crippled patients bleeding, I patch holes in the souls of teenagers and always do it successfully.
She put down the thin notebook and exhaled noisily. A few days ago the police came to me, asked a couple of standard questions and left. None of them asked about Dante.
I leaned over to the laptop and moved the mouse; the screen illuminated the darkened office.
Dante Lucas Marini... I remembered The Divine Comedy. His face fills the entire screen. For the umpteenth time this week. Vicious beauty. The one from which beads of sweat appear above your upper lip, and your palms involuntarily sweat from the awareness of your own wretchedness. The imperious gaze of blue eyes, slightly sullen, self-confident and ironic. A cynical, handsome son of a bitch who believes that he has fucked the whole world and bet his fortune doggy style and has had her as a cheap port whore for several years now.
I leafed through a few more social gossips. The type of man who imagines himself to be a demigod. With a beautiful face, grandmothers, girls, snorting lines of cocaine and washing them down with a mojito. A scandal within a scandal. A string of abandoned lovers.
Photos with the most popular stars, high-profile romances, dirty details of personal life. I studied Dante for a week. From morning to evening. I spent hours reading information and searching. I think I could draw his face and Hollywood white-toothed smile with my eyes closed. I don’t know what I wanted to find, at least a hint of addiction to the “Subject”, something compromising. In the evening, my head hurt again, and I swallowed two aspirin tablets.
She opened a new browser page and reached for a cigarette, looking at the luxurious five-story mansion.
“Dante Lucas Marini celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday today. The party was in no way inferior to Independence Day. We've gathered..."
I looked at the date: “November 13th...”. Scorpion. She grinned and leaned back on the sofa, pulling her legs under her. What could connect them? What? Where is he and where is she? The difference in age, social status and in general.
Yesterday I was in Woodside, drove by his mansion. I ran in circles and feverishly thought that Anya, Anita...would never have ended up in this palace, just like me. This is all her fantasy. One thing haunted her: you could fantasize about an actor, singer, model, athlete, after all, but about a businessman, seventeen years older than her, whose photos were on the pages of Forbes, and not in youth magazines... The only inconsistency. However, maybe she came up with a fantasy about a rich prince on a white horse and, seeing photographs on the Internet or in newspapers, made this dream more real? But is Anita really looking at Forbes instead of COOL magazine? Yes, exactly, Anita, a girl with nails painted black, with dark blue eyeliner on her huge eyes, listening to Marilyn Manson, exactly the type who watches a business magazine... I smiled crookedly... or am I a worthless psychologist who I didn’t understand the young patient.

***

Lee called me in the afternoon, or rather she rang non-stop, and after a dose of sleeping pills, with a heavy head, I could hardly raise my hand, let alone drag myself out of bed, but from the twentieth call I still answered her.
“Katka, sleep well, matryoshka, come on, wake up, I have amazing news for you,” I was always amused by the way she pronounced my name, with the softness characteristic of foreigners.
We've been friends since college, it's strange that life hasn't thrown us in different directions, but overall it's Lee's merit, not mine. She clung to our friendship like a lifeline. Lee is Italian, and, in fact, not Lee at all, but Anna Lisa, and only she could call me matryoshka with impunity.

Everyone talks about the seven circles of Hell, but in reality there are eight - the eighth never ends.

One two Three… -
Go to him quickly.
Three four five -
He wants to play.
Five, six, seven -
Not funny at all.
Eight... eight... eight...

Chapter 1

Catherine

Entry No. 7

– Is this what worries you? These strange dreams?

– No. It's not the dreams that bother me, it's the reality.

– Did you have problems with drugs?

– I only smoked weed once. Do you think this is a problem, doctor?

– No, I don't think this is a problem. We are now talking about what exactly you consider to be the problem.

– The problem is that he comes to me not only in my dreams. The problem is that I see him in reality. He's playing with me... Do you understand? He's playing cat and mouse with me. I can not go on.

– Calm down. Sit down. Here, drink some water. So you think that a certain man comes to you at night and mocks you?

– I don’t think so... it’s you who think I’m crazy. You and my sister want to lock me in a mental hospital, you...

– Anita, no one wishes you harm. Nobody wants to lock you up somewhere, we want to help you. You're in trouble with the police. Four arrests for trespassing. Your sister is worried about you, but first we need to understand what's really going on. Why did you come to Mr. Dante's house? Why did you paint the fence with pictograms?

– Because he drives me crazy... coming and then disappearing. It attracts and repels. Howls and caresses. It cuts and shreds me... you won’t understand. You do not believe me. Look. This is what he does to me.

Noise... sobbing, interference.

– Your sister was talking about those cuts. What are they applied to?

– Stiletto blade. Italian. Dante always carries it with him. When we have sex, he cuts my skin and licks the blood... his eyes, they turn black, his nostrils flutter and...

– Anna, what about the burns? How do burns occur?

– Hot wax…

– Is everything by mutual consent?

– Yes, but... he steals my soul. Don't you understand that he's killing me? You still don't understand anything? This man is the devil. He plays his games with you until you die. Until life begins to seem more painful to you than death, until you feel like dirt.

– Anna, we will figure it out, I promise you. Our next meeting will be on Friday morning. For now, try sleeping in another room, walking for a few hours before bed, And… you can draw, right? Draw me something before Friday.

Draw me your dream, okay?

– Will you help me? Can you help me? I want to forget about him... please help me. I'm suffocating. I'm scared…

– Of course I will help you. Necessarily. And you must go back to studying. Your friends miss you. Wait for me, I'll be right back, okay?

Footsteps, the sound of a door opening and closing. Noise. Interference. Low whisper. Interference again.

– I brought you and myself a Pepsi. Do you want a straw or a disposable glass?

– I don't drink Pepsi, I only drink water. How can you help me if you don't know anything about me?

– I recognize you. You can tell me everything if you want, and we will help you together, okay?

– Fine. I believe you. You have very beautiful and bright eyes. When I look at them, I believe you.

I turned off the recorder and put it aside, closed my eyes, tapping the ballpoint pen on the table. Then she looked at the laptop monitor, scrolled down the pages of the file and quickly typed:

"Closed. Death of a patient. Suicide."

I grabbed the file “Anna Serova” with the cursor and dragged it into a separate folder without a name.

I should have understood, felt, but I didn’t understand. My loss and the price is too high.

I looked at the desktop picture for a few more seconds - a winter landscape. Then she opened the search engine and slowly typed in the name: “Dante Lucas Marini.” The search results immediately appeared.

I scrolled down and up. Then she clicked on the Wikipedia link and looked closely at the man’s photo. Beautiful. Brutal, I would say. The eldest son of an Italian shipowner and the daughter of a Russian immigrant actress. Five Marini brothers, all heirs to the gambling business, several chains of Italian restaurants and real estate in Russia. They have dual citizenship. I was only interested in Dante. Thirty five years. That age when women spend money on plastic surgery, and men are just beginning to feel the taste of life, their own power and experience. What could connect a girl from an average family of Russian emigrants, living in our provincial quarter, and this rich playmaker? Where could they intersect? Absurd.

My cell phone rang and I answered without even looking at the display screen.

“I need to talk to you, I just have to talk to you.”

She winced painfully, felt for a pack of cigarettes and lit a cigarette.

– Of course, Yulia, we will definitely talk. I'll make an appointment for you.

- I need today, today...

“You need to rest today and come to your senses.” We'll talk another day.

“The police said she... she was under the influence of drugs when she cut her wrists.” I don't believe. She could not. You talked to her. You assured me that this was due to age, that it would pass, and that with the right course of treatment... Anya did not take drugs. Never before... she loved to live so much. When she returned from you, she wanted to start drawing again... I...

– Julia, I know that it’s very difficult for you now. I understand. I sincerely sympathize with you.

“It seems to me that the police are hiding something.” We talked with Anya in the evening, I left, and... she disappeared. They searched for her for four days. Four. Why did she have to leave, she could have done it at home, I don’t understand... I don’t understand anything.

I swallowed convulsively, an unpleasant feeling arose in my soul, as if I was being accused of something.

- I'll meet you tomorrow, okay? Tomorrow afternoon we will discuss everything. Necessarily. Agreed? The secretary will contact you and set up a time.

She closed her cell phone and exhaled, squeezing her temples with her fingers. I urgently need a rest, at least for a week.

* * *

“I hated this place, I hated my life, which reminded me of a stringy and sticky routine.

But most of all I hated the fact that I was not like everyone else, but I would never show them this, I’d rather gnaw my veins with my teeth. To some, my depression will seem like madness with fat, but then it was a disaster. At the age of fifteen, when life already seems like complete rubbish, you are torn out of your usual environment and thrown into an alien world, where you learn to swim and are poked from side to side like a blind kitten. At first, when my parents told me that we were moving, I was happy. I was even proud that I would break out of this routine, send photos to my friends via the Internet and walk along the azure beach full of dark-skinned guys. I envied myself, especially seeing how proud my father was of his new assignment, and how my mother and sisters were feverishly packing their bags, donating things and anticipating the move.

The euphoria lasted exactly a few days - until I realized that they hated me. They hate everything about me. God, what a fool I was. My life was just paradise before I met him. Although I no longer know where heaven is and where hell is. Have you ever seen a beast in human form? No, without the mystical crap that my friends watch. A real beast, in which there is nothing human except appearance. I saw it, felt it, knew it to the fullest. This is not a person. It devours your will, binds you mentally, brings everyone who comes close to it to their knees. Covers you with dirt, tears your heart until it bleeds. This is the Devil. No prayer will help you...

And the worst thing is, I love him madly.”

– Do you keep a diary?

– Sometimes I write down my thoughts.

– Does this help you?

She didn’t laugh for real, it was forced – the girl’s light brown eyes were not touched by the smile, I saw how Ani straightened a strand of her blonde hair, tucking it behind her ear. After thinking, she replied:

– It's distracting me, and no one can help me, not even you, Katherine.

She never called me Katya and rarely spoke Russian to me. Although it would help to open up more. It’s just that she, like many immigrant children, tried to merge with the masses, not to be different from them, denying her ethnicity.

– I try my best, and together we will succeed. You will see. Sometimes it happens that young girls are attracted to older guys, actors, celebrities, they fantasize, but their feelings are not mutual, but this is not a tragedy, Ani, this is an experience.

She grinned again:

– You think these are my fantasies, right?

– Has your sister read the diary? Did you show her?

– For what? I hid it. She will never find him THERE.

And I found it... By chance. In her room, to which Julia led me after the funeral. I remember opening the window, suffocating from the overwhelming melancholy. Someone else's grief sometimes weighs more heavily than your own. These sobs, whispers, wakes, quiet steps outside the door and a room in which everything remained the same as the last time Anita left here, never to return. She hid the diary in the opening between the window frames, in a kind of recess. I just imagined Ani sitting on the windowsill, her legs dangling onto the street, writing. She told me about this.

She put down the thin notebook and exhaled forcefully. A few days ago the police came to me, asked standard questions and left. None of them asked about Dante.

I leaned over to the laptop and moved the mouse; the screen illuminated the darkened office.

Dante Lucas Marini... I remembered The Divine Comedy. His face fills the entire screen. For the umpteenth time this week. Vicious beauty. The one from which beads of sweat appear above your upper lip, and your palms involuntarily sweat from the awareness of your own wretchedness. The imperious gaze of blue eyes, slightly sullen, self-confident and ironic. A cynical, handsome son of a bitch who believes that he has fucked the whole world, bet his fortune doggy style and has been having her as a cheap port whore for several years now.

I leafed through a few more social gossips. The type of man who imagines himself to be a demigod. With a beautiful face, grandmothers, girls, snorting lines of cocaine and washing them down with a mojito. A scandal within a scandal. A string of abandoned lovers.

Photos with the most popular stars, high-profile romances, dirty details of personal life. I studied Dante for a week. From morning to evening. I spent hours reading information and searching. I think I could draw his face and Hollywood white-toothed smile with my eyes closed. I don’t know why I did all this, perhaps I wanted to find something that would connect him with the topic that occupied me, something compromising. In the evening, my head hurt again, and I swallowed two aspirin tablets.

She opened a new browser page and reached for a cigarette, looking at the luxurious five-story mansion.

“Dante Lucas Marini celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday today. The party was in no way inferior to Independence Day. We've gathered..."

I looked at the date: “November 13th...”. Scorpion. She grinned and leaned back on the sofa, pulling her legs under her. What could connect them? What? Where is he and where is she? The difference in age, social status and in general.

Yesterday I was in Woodside, drove by his mansion. I ran in circles and feverishly thought that Anya, Anita... would never have ended up in this palace - just like me. This is all her fantasy. One thing haunted her: you could fantasize about an actor, singer, model, athlete, after all, but about a businessman, seventeen years older than her, whose photos were on the pages of Forbes, and not in youth magazines... The only inconsistency. However, maybe she came up with a fantasy about a rich prince on a white horse and, seeing photographs on the Internet or in newspapers, made this dream more real? But is Anita really looking at Forbes instead of a magazine like COOL? Yes, exactly, Anita, a girl with nails painted black, with dark blue eyeliner on her huge eyes, listening to Marilyn Manson, exactly the type who watches a business magazine... I smiled crookedly... or am I a worthless psychologist who I didn’t understand the young patient.

“Katka, good sleep, matryoshka, let’s wake up, I have amazing news for you,” I was always amused by the way she pronounced my name, with the softness characteristic of foreigners.

We've been friends since college. It’s strange that life didn’t throw us in different directions, but on the whole this is Lee’s merit, not mine. She clung to our friendship like a lifeline. Lee is Italian, and, in fact, not Lee at all, but Anna Lisa, and only she could call me matryoshka with impunity.

- Liiiiiiight, I fell asleep at five in the morning, today is my day off...

“I know, and I also know why I didn’t sleep.”

I dragged myself out of bed with difficulty and padded barefoot into the kitchen, holding the telephone receiver between my shoulder and ear, turned on the electric kettle and opened the refrigerator.

- Come on, speak, I’m listening.

The headache was gaining new momentum. Damn the heat, the stuffiness always starts a migraine. Even the air conditioner doesn't help.

“Today I will get you out of your crypt.” This is a party you can't miss.

I moaned softly, bending over for the milk.

“Lee, my head is pounding, what the hell is this party?”

“We made a deal, an incredible crazy deal, and we were invited to a closed club. You can’t even imagine what kind of people will come there. Come on, don't be a bore. You haven't been going anywhere for a year. Forget your Russian bastard cop Alex and start living again. Your crazy kids will wait too.

She winced as if she had a toothache. Reminded me of him. What the hell is not clear. I already forgot about him.

- I'll think about it, okay?

– There’s nothing to think about. We're going there together, period. In the break. Yes. You and me. Like once upon a time, when you weren't a bore. Do you remember? We are drunk, half dead from drinking Russian vodka, walking barefoot along the highway and yelling your “Katyusha”.

I smiled involuntarily. Of course I remember. I remember the police station too.

- Matryoshka! I will be offended and blacklist you wherever possible, I will not come to your birthday, I will not wake you up on Mondays, and in general I will stop calling you matryoshka. You won't read any of my Facebook statuses anymore. And you won't know about my new boyfriend. Incredibly sexy boyfriend.

I laughed. A terrible threat. In fact, Lee was the only one I couldn't imagine tomorrow without. She was always there. Hell, if you tell people how many years we've been friends, they can easily figure out our age.

- Fine. I will definitely die without your statuses, without details about your sex life, and that’s why I’ll go to this stupid party.

She laughed.

- You will not regret. By the way, your mom called yesterday.

I nodded and poured milk into my coffee.

“She said she didn’t get through to you.”

I nodded to myself again. Naturally, she didn’t get through, I haven’t talked to her for several years, and Lee knows this very well.

I returned to the sofa and glanced at the notebook, an ordinary school notebook, slightly frayed with wrinkled edges, light blue, stained, and someone’s life in it. Someone else's life.

Chapter 2

Dante

Dante sat back on the burgundy leather back of the narrow sofa, slowly dragging on a cigarette, rings of smoke rising to the high ceiling with small red neon lights, cigarette smog mixing with artificial colored haze. In the twilight, his face was not visible, only short dark hair, stubble on his wide cheekbones and the outline of his lips.

His torso remained in shadow, and the slowly rotating light bulbs illuminated only his dark gray elegant trousers, mirror-polished shoes and the light spot of a shirt with a neatly tied tie. When he brought the cigarette to his mouth, a massive signet sparkled on his finger, and platinum cufflinks on the cuffs.

On a small round stage with a pole, a stripper wriggled, slender and flexible, like a Siamese cat. The rhinestones of her peculiar costume, which left little to the imagination, sparkled dazzlingly, and her long black hair scattered across the glittering stage as she jumped onto a pole and erotically slid off it upside down.

At that moment, two men dragged the violently resisting guy into the VIP room and threw him at Dante’s feet. He sobbed pitifully in Italian:

“I didn’t say anything, nothing.” This is Frank. Dante, you know me. I wouldn't talk about Chico. I would never...

Dante suddenly stepped on the man’s head and pressed it into the floor with the heel of his shoe, the unfortunate man howled in pain, writhed over, breathing heavily and wheezing.

The stripper groaned and took a step towards the step, but immediately hearing the imperious “continue” in English, she again began to squirm in the dance, trying not to look towards the man crumpled on the floor and two others who had twisted his arms behind his back

– I repeat my question, Ciro, was it Frank? You have a chance to tell the truth, you know how much I hate lies.

The man whined and groaned.

- Yes... This is Frank. It's him, the bastard son of a bitch.

Dante leaned forward:

“The bastard son of a bitch has been cooling down in the morgue for twenty-four hours with a round hole between his eyes.”

Marini nodded to the guys, and they lifted Ciro from the floor by his hair, holding his twitching body. Dante slowly took a stiletto from the inside pocket of his jacket and twirled it in his fingers, touching the blade.

“I told you I hate lies, Ciro.” Said?

The man was shaking with fear, tears flowing down his cheeks.

- Dante, don’t kill, Dante, it’s my fault, but they forced me, I...

Marini leaned forward sharply and pressed the unfortunate man's chin.

– Do you want to live, Ciro?

He nodded, closed his eyes, and a light puddle spread across the mirrored floor under his knees.

- Pull your tongue out.

- Danteeeee!

“I said, take your tongue out.” Choose: either your tongue, or I will cut your throat.

The stripper stopped and her pupils dilated in horror. She saw the kneeling man twitching helplessly and closed her eyes as Dante waved his hand. I moved from the stage, amid wild screams, drowned out by the music, and again heard in English:

- Dance, bitch!

She returned back, trying not to look at the two guys who were dragging the third guy by the hair across the floor, like a rag, a wrung out, dirty, finely trembling rag. I wanted to cover my ears with my hands so as not to hear him wheezing gutturally, as if something was gurgling in his throat and preventing him from screaming.

She continued to dance, and silently prayed, just to forget about what she had seen.

Dante carefully wiped his hands, then the blade of his stiletto, and leaned back on the sofa. He beckoned her with his finger, and the girl approached, swaying her hips, and stood with her long legs spread. She was scared. She heard other girls whispering about him - he was a ruthless monster, a terrible imitation of a man. A cold-hearted son of a bitch, an insanely handsome, crazy, perverted bastard. No one told the details after the private dance with the owner of the establishment, everyone was afraid, but no one ever dared to refuse when Dante nodded at one of them and took them away. They all wanted him, Sarah saw that feverish, painful gleam in their eyes when they said his name out loud.

– Did I ask you to undress?

She froze and swallowed convulsively, meeting his gaze.

- Get on your knees.

Slowly she lowered herself and closed her eyes. Dante touched her cheek with the cold blade of his stiletto, and she swallowed convulsively.

– You understand Italian, right? You're new to us. Have you learned the rules, girl?

She nodded and closed her eyes tighter. Suddenly he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her towards him.

– You already know what happens to those who talk a lot, right? Look at me. You know?

Sarah opened her eyes and quietly whispered:

She was fascinated by his gaze, light blue eyes with an icy shine, too light for his dark skin and black hair. All the muscles in my body tensed from fear. The stiletto blade passed over her neck, and he continued to hold her gaze.