by Lana Sky
“I scored these from a cop on my way out,” she tells me as she lets two limp cigarettes fall onto the table. “Told him that he had a cute face.”
“You beautiful, beautiful girl.” I snatch up one, ignoring the slight dampness, and reach into my pocket for a lighter.
This café’s old school, thank fuck. They even have a complimentary ashtray beside the ketchup bottle. I light up quickly and take a hit.
Yellow’s still watching me, her brow furrowed. With her beside Domi, the similarities between them add up. They both sit hunched over and sneak glances at the door as if waiting for the moment a Russian will come barging through. Strip away the different hair colors, and you’d have the same battered woman.
“How long are we going to stay here?” Domi’s getting anxious, but the moment the question leaves her mouth, the first plate of food arrives. The next second, she’s too busy stuffing eggs and pancakes down to care about leaving.
I let her have the lion’s share. Even Yellow caves and samples a piece of toast. At least one of us can loosen up.
Two hard pulls on my cig don’t ease the ache in the pit of my stomach. Half a cup of coffee doesn’t chase it away, either. I’ll need whiskey tonight. Maybe the rest of the damn bottle. It’s like I’m turning into Arno.
I’m nearly finished with the cig when Domi sets her fork down, having cleared four plates. Yellow copies her, and I fish a fifty from my pocket to cover the meal. When we leave the diner, good old reality comes back with a vengeance. Somehow, I’ve got to get back to Arno’s territory without arousing suspicion or being tailed. That’s hard enough on a good day.
“You think you can keep her safe?” Yellow speaks against my ear. Her breath smells like blood.
I take another hit of the cig to drown out the stench. “Maybe,” I say, eliciting a skeptical sigh from her. “Look.” I turn around, yanking the rest of the cash from my pocket. I slap most of it into her hand without bothering to count the bills. “I’ll take it from here. Here’s your cut.”
“And then what?” She withstands the contact of my palm against hers with the money in between, but she doesn’t try to take it. She eyes me instead before turning to watch Domi over my shoulder. “Let’s say you get her to wherever you plan to. Then what?”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.”
“You think it’s really that easy?”
“I’ve gotten this far.”
She frowns and tries to pull her hand away, but I don’t let go until her fingers finally curl, snagging the bills.
“My place. You remember how to get there?”
She nods. “Why?”
“Stick around here for an hour at least. There’s a convenience store on Fifth. Get some hair dye. Some scissors. Whatever else you think our friend needs. Meet me back at the house. Don’t come in through the front—only the back. Got it?”
She’s still holding the money. The wind tears at it, threatening to snatch the whole lot from her hands. “And if I don’t?”
“Get those stitches out in ten days.” I turn back to Domi and grab for her arm.
She’s already swaying on her feet, and I feel something that might be pity—she’s in for a rough trip. I’ll have to take the long way back through the city. We’re only a few steps away when Yellow’s voice reaches me.
“You would really trust me?”
I stop walking. Trust? “This is the part where I threaten you to keep your mouth shut, I guess.”
Arno would.
I sense rather than see her nod.
“Typically,” she says.
My cigarette’s almost out. I’ll need another. “Buy me a pack of smokes while you’re at it. If not…see ya around.”
She should be able to find her way out of the Russians’ reach on her own. If there’s one thing Yellow seems to be an expert at, it’s running.
Chapter Eleven
Chloe
I should take the money and run. I keep telling myself that, even as my feet carry me farther from freedom. My arms ache, weighed down by several grocery bags. Juggling them takes most of my energy as I set my sights on my destination and choke down my doubt.
The house at the end of the block looks deserted, but when I circle around it, I find a rickety gate unlocked. A concrete stoop leads to the back door, nestled beneath a worn awning. I mount the steps and knock once. Not even a second later, it opens from the inside.
“I see you decided to join our little party after all.” Espisido appears in the doorway, and I bite my lower lip at his expression. His narrowed eyes betray suspicion, and they probe the shadows at the edge of the property before he steps aside. “Come in.”
They’ve eaten again. A box of pizza contains two remaining slices. There’s no sign of Domi in the narrow kitchen, but a faucet is running deeper inside the house.
“I see someone went shopping,” Espisido remarks, drawing my attention back to him.
I press the bags into his hands.
He rummages through each, one by one. When he spots a new pack of cigarettes, his lips split into a genuine grin. “You’re a lifesaver.”
I shrug the gratitude off. “Those things will give you cancer, you know.”
If anything, his grin widens more. Pearly-white teeth serve as the basis for the breathtaking expression. I almost can’t tell where it ends and the wariness he hides so well underneath begins.
“Cancer, maybe,” he says. “But not an aneurysm any time soon, and that’s all that matters to me.”
He might be onto something. There are worse vices he could choose—if he hasn’t already.
“Domi!” he calls, raising his voice. “Let’s get you pretty.”
A door opens down the hall—the one to the bathroom, I presume. A woman steps out, wearing only an oversized T-shirt, with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She sizes me up in a single glance. “You came back.”
“Fire Engine Red,” Espisido reads from a box of hair dye before I can say anything in return. “What do you think?” He tosses the box to Domi as she pads closer.
“Pretty.” She fights to keep her expression blank as she eyes the box—but I know that look. She’s picturing a new life tucked inside next to the bottle of dye. Will it bring her better fortune than the last? She sighs, uncertain of the answer. “Let’s get it over with.”
After steering her to a chair near the table, Espisido cuts her hair first. Short. She’s left with barely enough length to scrape into a ponytail. Her expression is stoic as she eyes the shorn, dark strands falling into a heap at her feet. When he starts to open the box of dye, however, she squeezes her eyes shut.
“Short hair I can work with, but just…just don’t leave me bald.”
Espisido chuckles. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I don’t know what makes me creep closer to him. My fingers won’t stop shaking until I snatch up the directions and listlessly flip through the pages. Somehow, I find myself wearing gloves and helping to smear the dye over every inch of the girl’s head.
We work quickly, cleaning up the hair on the floor while the dye sets in. Afterward, Espisido makes her wash it out in the sink. Unsatisfied with the color, he opens another box of red and repeats the process before sending her off to shower with a bottle of shampoo fished from one of the shopping bags.
He waits until the bathroom door closes and the water starts to run before he turns to me. “Thanks. I don’t think I could have gotten her here without your help.”
It doesn’t seem worth pointing out that, in this case, self-preservation and “help” are two very different things. To make use of the awkward silence, I move past him, positioning myself near the opposite end of the kitchen.
“I’m glad you got her away,” he adds. “But it’s funny.” The lowered octave of his voice sets my body on edge even before he comes up behind me. “I know you haven’t brought anyone with you. But I still can’t help wondering why you would cut through Ivan Ivanov’s territory, of all
places. Especially given your feelings for dear old Vlad.”
Alarm stiffens my spine. So he’s not as unfamiliar with the map of hell as I’d hoped. “It’s hard to plot a course when you’re running for your life—”
“Uh-uh.” He shakes his head and takes a step in my direction. The act moves him out of the path of the light, draping his face in shadow. “Don’t play dumb with me. First, you know Vlad, and now, Ivan.”
“Is that so?” I address the question to the wall. My palms are slick. Thoughts crash through my head in disjointed bits and pieces.
It was stupid to come here. Stupid to stay in this goddamn city. With Piotr looming overhead, trying to ignore him at all was just fucking stupid.
“What do they call it? Pobratim. Blood brother. That’s what all the big-name Russians in the Syndicate refer to themselves as, isn’t it? It’s a little strange that you would run toward one after you just killed the other—”
“Milo Olenov. Ever heard of him?” My throat aches in the wake of that name, but I can’t seem to lock the words back. “He was Ivan Ivanov’s true pobratim. Before Vlad. After Vlad.”
“Hmph.” He’s smart enough to process the words without saying anything in return. All he does, in the end, is reach for one of the shopping bags. “I’m guessing this shade is for you.” He holds out another box of dye I only vaguely remember picking up.
I take it, but the motion draws his attention to my injured arm.
“Shit. Take the jacket off,” he commands, hissing between his teeth. “Let’s see what you’ve done.”
“W-what?”
He grabs my wrist and steers me closer to him. I suck in a breath. His grip is loose—I could break away if I wanted to. But I don’t, even as he takes the box from me and places it on the table.
“Let me see.” He has my arm out of the jacket’s sleeve in seconds. Warm fingers gently hold the limb out, displaying the row of gauze. His touch is electric, as if all of his nervous energy is eager to seep into my skin. “Just as I thought,” he grouses, gazing at patches of red speckling the bandage. “You must have ripped some open. I should have added no heavy lifting to those care instructions.” He meticulously peels the bandage back and sighs in relief.
None of the stitches are torn, though the area around the wound is bleeding and inflamed.
“I don’t care what you do or where you go from here on out, Yellow. Just don’t mess up my work.” He wets a rag beneath the faucet and returns to carefully dab at the wound the way a painter might touch up his masterpiece with a brush. He’s careful. Gentle.
I can’t stop myself from flinching with every touch. Maybe it’s the suspense. Or the next question lurking within his gaze. I’m waiting for it. My teeth sink into my lower lip as if imparting strength. I’m ready…
But, when Domi reappears from the bathroom with a damp mop of bright-red hair, either he’s distracted, or he saves that question for later. “You look cute,” he declares.
In a way, she does. She looks cute, for a battered, broken shell of a girl who can barely keep her eyes open and her guard up. I recognize the way she juts her chin into the air; she doesn’t want to seem weak.
But the artist apparently has x-ray vision. “Go crash in my bed,” he tells her. “It has fresh sheets. I’ll check on you in a bit, and we’ll go from there.”
She doesn’t argue. With one last searching glance in my direction, she enters the bedroom and then closes the door behind her.
“You’re really going to keep her here?”
“Not here.” He’s seated himself at the table and withdraws the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “I know a place where she’ll be safe. In theory, at least.”
“In theory.”
“There’s a friend I know,” he adds after a moment’s silence. “He has a bar where she can work for a few days. Lie low. It’s not ideal, but then again…”
I finish the statement for him. “It’s not being forced to work a street corner, either.”
“That too.” He lights the end of his cigarette with a jet-black lighter.
Hypnotized, I watch him inhale the first puff. He drags on it as though it’s more vital than oxygen, his lips parted and glistening pink.
“What about you?” he wonders, exhaling a cloud of smoke. It obscures his face, making it impossible to read him. “What does an informant do as her day job?”
“Keep her mouth shut,” I say, dodging the question. “How does an ‘artist’ come to rub shoulders with one of the main players in the Russian Syndicate?”
“Well, you don’t mince words, do ya?” He takes another drag on his cigarette and then lets it dangle between two of his fingers. “You tell me something. I’ll answer a question of yours in return. That’s how this game will go. Khorosho?”
“Okay.” I take a step closer to the table and meet his gaze directly. “I’ll go first. How did you meet Vlad?”
“I think it might be better if he told you that story.” He flicks the end of his cigarette into an ashtray. “My turn. Who are you running from? Really. Don’t feed me some line about Vlad.”
“Vlad’s dead—”
“And you’re even more spooked now than you were around him,” he declares, so damn smug. With one flick of his gaze, he strips me naked, but it’s not my body he wants. Just the pitiful soul shivering underneath. “Why?”
I can’t help the tired laugh that trickles out of me. Hell, maybe it’s genuine. He’s unknowingly pointed out the utter depth of my stupidity, and I don’t even have the energy to play pretend.
“If I told you, you wouldn’t want me here. Believe me.”
“Try me.” He takes another puff.
Suddenly, it’s impossible to maintain eye contact. I break it and stare down at the table. He has his other hand pressed flat against it. For all of his bravado, he’s just as on edge as I am.
“You’ve stuck around for a reason,” he suspects. “At first, I thought it was because you wanted something. Maybe you really cared about Domi. But, now, I know there’s more to it—”
“Like what?” I look up, eyeing him through loose strands of my hair.
“You don’t have anywhere else to go. Do you?”
The truth hurts, they say.
Rather than respond, I reach for the box of unused dye, scanning the name printed beneath a smiling model—buxom brown. “Can I use your bathroom?” I hear his sharp intake of air and rush to cut him off. “I’ll play your game. I just need… I just need…”
I need to scrub. Erase. Drown my screams in the shower spray and try to fucking think. I need to think. I need to remember.
Piotr’s coming for me, but that familiar mantra of escape is surprisingly absent. A foreboding whisper has replaced it, running through my mind on a morbid, incessant loop—moya lyubov.
Espisido stands as if the act alone gives me permission. He stoops for one of the grocery bags and unpacks the items. Some of the things I don’t even remember buying. Toothpaste. Shampoo. Deodorant. Body wash.
He forms them all into a shapeless stack and holds them out to me. “Take this stuff while you’re at it.”
I obey, carrying the pile into the bathroom. It’s small, decorated in simple, dark shades—a black shower curtain, a navy rug, and a gray curtain shielding the only window. I strip my borrowed clothing, shivering once I’m naked in the center of the cramped space.
It’s like the smoke-laced cotton kept it all at bay—the pain, the fear, the guilt…
Not for Vlad. Oh, no. It’s him. I can’t get his fucking voice out of my head—“You don’t have anywhere else to go. Do you?” Something tells me he wasn’t talking about a home, either. He knew, peering deep beneath my skin without permission.
The most alarming part? He didn’t need my permission.
Snap out of it. I shake my head in an effort to. When that doesn’t work, I run the shower and assemble the dye kit. With every glob of black over gold, I breathe a little easier. It’s like every fucking strand
belongs to Piotr. I can still feel his fingers running through it. I can still hear his voice in my ear.
“My little Ksei…”
It won’t take him long to find me. No matter where I go. Where I hide. I should be tracking another gun down. I should make a new plan. I need to be ready for him.
I have to find Anna.
But I’m so damn tired… It takes all I have to scrub my hair clean and rinse my body beneath the scalding shower spray. I wind up lingering in the stall until the water’s gone ice cold and my teeth are chattering loudly enough to drown out the voices in my head. Far too soon, a louder sound cuts over the drone. Knocking.
“Hey. You all right in there?”
I jump and look at the window, gauging the passage of time. The sky looks a darker hue of indigo.
“You okay?”
The doorknob jiggles. I guess he left me alone for as long as he dared. Either I’d climbed out the window despite his advice, or I’d drowned myself—I can tell from his cautious tone that those are the two suspicions he’s torn between. I’m tempted to let him barge in and see the truth for himself.
“I’m…I’m still here,” I call out once it does really seem like he will open the door. “I’m still here.”
“Okay.” He retreats down the hall but returns a few minutes later. “I’ve got some clothes,” he tells me. “I’ll leave them right here.”
I don’t bother thanking him. I just give my hair one last rinse and then climb out onto a ratty, threadbare towel, ignoring the reflection in the mirror. A neatly folded stack of clothing waits for me just outside the door—a sweatshirt and oversized sweatpants. They smell like him. Smoke and mint.
I dress quickly, and when I leave the bathroom, I find him on the couch, taking in my damp, dripping frame.
He indicates his approval with a tilt of his chin. “I guess I can’t call ya Yellow anymore.”
“Huh?” I raise an eyebrow, but he doesn’t elaborate. Rather than pursue the issue, I cross the kitchen and grab one of the empty shopping bags from the counter, shoving my soiled clothing inside it. “If you have a washing machine, I don’t mind—”