‘How would you know that?’ Emir asks.
‘These guys travel in packs. He’s rich, but he’s out of his depth. An entourage provides validation.’
‘Interesting range of expertise you have.’
‘Oxana’s right,’ Defne says. ‘He’s way out of his league. I mean, those white jeans. Please.’
‘How about some drinks?’ Emir suggests. ‘We can’t just sit here staring.’
They decide on Siren’s Kisses. Champagne with fig nectar. Defne downs hers in half a dozen gulps. ‘I think I’m gonna dance now,’ she says, rising unsteadily to her feet.
Oxana nods. ‘I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Buse.’
‘I’ll come with you, Def,’ Emir says.
Brother and sister depart, and Oxana shifts to a less conspicuous position. It’s not long before the guy chatting up Buse is joined by two others. Much loud, performative banter ensues. The men speak to Buse in English, but to each other in Russian. Oxana, slowly sipping her Siren’s kiss, guesses that they’reminigarkhi, lower-echelon fraudsters and money launderers.
Buse is revelling in their attention. She’s laughing. Accepting the drinks they buy her. Throwing her head back and shrieking at everything they tell her. And not understanding much of it, because the next thing that one of them says, prompting a round of high fives, isdavayate vse yeye trakhnem. Let’s all fuck her.
Oxana listens, exasperated. Technically, she’s not here to keep Buse out of trouble, she’s here to safeguard Defne’s supposed virginity. But Emir’s with Defne, and if Buse gets herself into trouble it’ll be blamed on her. Perhaps she should approach those dimwits. Tell them in Russian that she knows exactly what they’re up to, and to back off. And then they’d laugh in her face and go right back to having their fun with Buse. At which point she, Oxana, would have a choice. Intervene, and risk blowing her cover, or throw Buse to the wolves.
Emir reappears and sits unsteadily beside her. His face is shining, and he smells faintly of women’s perfume.
‘Was she cute?’ Oxana asks.
‘Cute enough.’ He grins. ‘Why?’
‘Where’s Defne?’
‘Dancing,’ Emir answers, with the careful articulation of the nearly drunk. ‘Dancing the night away with anextremelygood-looking…’ His voice tails off.
‘Can you keep an eye on Buse? I don’t much like the look of her friends.’
‘Sure.’ His brow furrows. ‘Where?—’
‘Over there. Watch her, please.’ Oxana slips out of the cocktail bar and makes her way to the dance floor, where fifty or sixty people are dipping and swaying to the now-familiar remix of Declan McKenna’s ‘Brazil’. She blinks, taking in the spectacle. As the music and the lighting pulse in unison, mist jets emit a perfumed haze, and violet laser threads spiral above the dancers’ heads like constellations in slow orbit. It takes her a minute or two to spot Defne in the throbbing near-darkness. She’s dancing with a tall, dark-haired guy. Or something like dancing.
Oxana begins to thread her way through the crowd towards her. The guy is lithe and smiling. He has his hands on Defne’s waist and his hips pressed to hers, and she’s leaning back, slowlywaving her long arms. But there’s something blank about her. She’s out of it. Drunk, or worse.
Oxana beckons to the guy, who inclines his head towards her irritably. ‘My friend’s seventeen,’ she shouts into his ear. ‘She’s off her head. Let me take her home.’
The guy frowns. ‘No speak English.’
‘I saidshe’s seventeen.’
‘No understand.’
‘I think you do. And I’m taking her home.’
‘Fuck you, bitch.’
Oxana smiles. Everything has suddenly got so much simpler. She steps in close to the guy, blocking off Defne, and slips her fingers into his dark curls. He smiles in surprise, thinking Oxana’s trying some kind of counter-intuitive sex move, and he’s still smiling when she punches the oyster fork into his throat half a dozen times in very fast succession. As his eyes widen in shock, she tightens her fingers in his hair and turns his head away so that his carotid artery, by now jetting blood like a showerhead, is pointing away from her. A lot of the blood goes onto the back of someone’s Stella McCartney silk and lace jacket, causing Oxana a brief pang, but there’s no time to lose, and she grabs Defne by the arm and starts to drag her towards the exit. Looking back, she sees the guy flailing, and dancers pushing him away, and then she and Defne are out of there.
Defne’s not in a good state. She’s moving sluggishly, so that Oxana has to propel her forward. She’s trying to speak but doesn’t seem to be able to form the words. In the now-crowded cocktail bar, Buse and Emir look up in concern. They’ve separated themselves from the Russians, and hurry to Defne’s side.
‘Out of here, now,’ Oxana orders. ‘She’s been drugged, and we need to get her back to theMedusa.’
Emir stares at her. ‘Was it… that guy she was dancing with?’ He half-turns in the direction of the dance floor, eyes wild with fury.