Chapter 18 Kir
KIR
“Why were you digging? / What did you bury?”
— “Like Real People Do” by Hozier
The penthouse is quiet on Thanksgiving. My holiday gathering consists of me, a bottle of Beluga Noble, and a powered-down TV that functions like a black mirror reflecting my own face back at me. No one else will be joining—my mother is dead and my father isn’t exactly the turkey-and-gratitude type.
I’m on the black leather couch with my feet up on the marble coffee table I flipped two nights ago.
I put it back myself. There’s a crack running through the marble now, a clean split right down the center that I covered with a book so I wouldn’t have to look at it.
The book is Dostoevsky. Crime and Punishment.
My father’s idea of a joke birthday gift when I turned eighteen.
I never read it. Probably should. Though I doubt even dear old Fyodor had any good advice for what to do with the clusterfuck of a situation I’ve found myself in.
I pour another glass and drink it the way Lukas taught me—no chaser, no wince, straight down the gullet. The vodka is cold and clean, but I feel no better after it’s gone than I did before I drank it.
Across the city, Jillian Pierce is doing whatever Jillian Pierce does on Thanksgiving. Eating with friends, I’d assume. Probably Rae Everett, if Rae isn’t currently tangled up in whatever web my father is spinning around her.
Or maybe Jillian is alone, too, just like I am. Maybe she’s at that kitchen counter where I left her, with a glass of whiskey, same as me, staring at the same wall I had her pinned against.
I shouldn’t be thinking about her. I know that. The math hasn’t changed: Kill her or Afon does it for me. Those are the only two outcomes Lukas will accept, and every hour I waste sitting here is an hour closer to the second one.
But I keep going back.
For two nights running, I’ve gone through that window and put my hands on her and heard the sounds she makes when she stops pretending she doesn’t want this. It took everything I had not to laugh in her face when she delivered her little speech about “the rules.”
Rules won’t keep us safe, little fox, I almost purred. Because I’m already damned… and I intend to drag you down with me.
But she either doesn’t know that or refuses to believe it. She thinks the mask keeps her safe. She’s wrong about that, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her.
Not yet.
As I’m staring out over the rim of my tumbler out at the Manhattan skyline beyond, it takes me a moment to realize that the irritating buzzing sound is my phone vibrating from where it’s fallen between the couch cushions.
I fish it out and wince when I see who’s calling.
But if I don’t answer, he’ll just keep ringing until I do—or worse, show up here in the flesh.
“Happy Thanksgiving, you miserable bastard,” Mat says when I click Accept. “What are you doing right now?”
“Drinking.”
“Alone?”
“Dostoevsky’s here.”
“Christ. That’s worse than alone.” I hear noise behind him—music, voices, the dull thump of a bass line. “Listen, I’m heading to Sapphire with Dima and a couple of his guys. Come out. It’ll be good for you.”
“A strip club on Thanksgiving,” I drawl. “How classy of you. And people say you aren’t family-oriented.”
“It’s festive! They’ve got a turkey special. Two-for-one dances or something. I don’t know, I didn’t read the fine print.”
“I’m good here.”
“Ha!” he snorts. “Judging by that miserable, self-loathing note in your voice, you’re the farthest thing from ‘good.’ You sound like you’re about to write a manifesto. When’s the last time you left your apartment?”
I don’t have to think hard about it. Last night. Jillian’s window. The counter. Her legs around my waist and that desperate little whimper she made when I—
“Yooo, Kir!”
“What.”
“You went somewhere just now. In your head. Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere.”
“Mm.” Mat sighs. The bass thumps on behind him. “This is still about the girl, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“It’s definitely about a girl.”
“It’s not about a girl, motherfucker.”
“Okay. Let’s say I believe you. Come to Sapphire and prove it. Plenty of beautiful women, zero emotional complications, and I’ll even buy your first drink.”
I don’t want any part of what he’s offering. Dim light? Heady perfume? Some stranger grinding her ass on my crotch, a woman who isn’t her? The idea of another woman’s hands on me feels about as appealing as chewing glass.
“I’m not in the mood,” I say.
“That’s what concerns me.”
“Since when are you my therapist?”
“Since your actual therapist quit after writing you off as a loss cause. Come on, you sad sack piece of shit! One hour. You sit in the booth, you drink, you don’t touch anybody if you don’t want to, I don’t give a rat’s ass either way. Just get out of that fucking penthouse. It’s a death trap.”
“Mat.”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck off.”
He exhales long and loud. “Fine. Sit in the dark with your vodka and your Russian literature. See if I give a shit if the maid finds you with cockroaches eating your brains out or whatever.”
I’m already pulling the phone away from my ear, more than done with this conversation. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Will you, though?” he questions. “Or will you just brood for another twenty-four hours and then text me something cryptic at 2 A.M.?”
“Probably the latter.”
He chuckles. “At least you’re honest.” I hear more noise behind him. “Alright, I gotta go. People who actually like fun want me to join them.”
“You do that.”
“Happy Thanksgiving, Kir. Try not to do anything stupid tonight.”
“No promises.”
The line goes dead. I drop the phone on the coffee table and reach for my glass. But at the last second, I veer off-course and grab my laptop instead.
I balance on my knees and boot it up. My fingers start flying eagerly across the keyboard like they’ve been waiting for me to commit this little indulgence. I cue up the encrypted feed before the rational part of my brain can talk me out of it.
I planted the camera last night. It’s a pinhole lens, smaller than a pencil eraser, wedged into the air intake vent above Jillian’s bedroom door before she got home and wired to a battery pack that will last months.
It took all of two minutes to install, and she’s none the wiser.
She’s got bigger things on her mind than a tiny little light in her vent that wasn’t there before.
The feed loads in high-definition color, bright and sharp.
Her bedroom is neat and tasteful. There’s a queen bed with a white duvet and too many pillows, all thoughtfully arranged.
The nightstand holds a lamp, a half-full glass of water, and a stack of books with cracked spines and dog-eared pages.
A framed print hangs above the headboard—Matisse, one of the cutouts, blue shapes on white.
Chic. The whole room looks like a magazine spread for a young professional woman who has her shit figured out.
Everything is still.
Then she walks into frame.
She’s wrapped in a towel, hair dark and wet against her shoulders, leaving damp prints on the hardwood with her bare feet.
She stops at the dresser and pulls open the top drawer.
I watch her rifle through it, tossing aside what she doesn’t want.
She settles on something dark red, holds it up, then drops the towel.
I should close the laptop.
I am not closing this fucking laptop.
Her back is to the camera, so I can see the full length of her spine, the freckles scattered across her shoulder blades, the dip of her waist before it flares out into her hips.
She’s not thin in the way that models are thin.
She’s soft in some places and firm in others and built in a way that makes my hands ache because I already know what she feels like under my palms.
She hooks the bra and adjusts the straps, pulling each one up in turn. Then she bends to step into underwear, matching, dark red, and pulls them up over her thighs.
When she turns toward the vanity, I catch her in profile. The curve of her breast pressed into that red lace, a perfect handful. The soft stretch of her stomach. She sits down on the stool and reaches for a bottle of perfume, then tilts her head to the side to spray it along her neck.
My jaw is tight. My pulse is in my ears.
I’m half-hard already and she’s barely dressed, just sitting there doing something she does every day, something she’s probably done a thousand times without anyone watching.
That’s what gets me. The privacy of it. This version of Jillian—unhurried, unguarded, towel-damp, and choosing red underwear for no one at all to see—is a version she hasn’t shown anyone.
Except for me.
She disappears for a while, then returns with blow-dried hair. I watch her put on makeup, then step into black jeans and a beige turtleneck. She tucks her phone and keys into a big purse before stepping out of frame again.
I watch the empty bedroom for a few seconds before I snap the laptop shut.
My body knows where I’m going before the rest of me has caught up.
Like Jillian, I snatch up my keys and phone, shrug on my coat, and leave my apartment.
I can feel the bulk of the mask inside the jacket pocket, but I leave it there for now.
I’m just going to watch, not interact. She won’t even know I’m there.
I pull on a black cap and sunglasses, even though the sun has almost fully set. It’s Thanksgiving, so the streets will be emptier than usual, which makes tailing someone harder but also means fewer eyes on me.
The elevator in my building always takes too long, so I go to the stairs instead and descend two at a time, even though it’s thirty-two flights down to the parking garage. I bypass the car and head for the street exit on foot.
When I reach the street, I start walking west.
It doesn’t take long to pick up her trail. After all, she’s easy to spot. I could ID that head full of red hair from a mile away. She’s moving fast, headphones screwed into her ears, but she keeps looking around, checking behind her every half block or so. Smart girl.
Not smart enough, though. I stay on the opposite side of the street, half a block back, matching her pace. She never sees me.
She takes a left on 72nd and heads into Riverside Park.
That surprises me. It’s getting dark and cold, not exactly prime park-going conditions, so I figured she was headed to dinner somewhere.
But she keeps walking along the path, hands shoved deep in her coat pockets, breath coming out in small, white clouds.
The park is mostly empty. I fall back farther, using the trees and the dying light as cover. She doesn’t look behind her anymore. Whatever alertness she had on the street has drained away. Her shoulders are down and her pace has slowed to something that barely counts as walking.
She stops at a playground.
It’s one of those newer ones with the rubberized ground and the bright plastic equipment.
There are maybe a half-dozen kids still out, bundled in puffy jackets, burning off energy while their parents hover nearby with coffee cups and phones.
A little girl in a pink hat is going down the slide over and over, shrieking every time.
A boy is hanging upside down from the monkey bars while his mother tells him to be careful.
Jillian stands at the fence and watches.
That’s it. Just watches. She simply stands there with both hands curled around the chain-link, watching the kids play.
I find a spot behind a maintenance shed about forty yards away and wait.
Five minutes pass. Then ten. The streetlights come on and couple of the families pack up and leave.
The girl in the pink hat throws a tantrum about going home and gets carried away under her father’s arm, screaming her head off.
Jillian still doesn’t move.
I don’t understand what I’m seeing. She’s not meeting anyone, or taking photos or notes as if this were something work-related. She’s just standing at a fence watching children on a playground on Thanksgiving evening, alone, and I have no framework for why.
After what must be twenty minutes, she finally lets go of the fence. She turns and walks back toward the path, and as she passes under a streetlight, I see her drag the back of her hand across her eyes. Once, then again.
She’s crying.
I press my back flat against the cold metal of the shed and let her pass without following. Something happened to this woman. It’s beyond what I already know, more than the thing that made her leave her body when I pinned her against the wall that first night. There’s a wound here I can’t see.
Who hurt you, little fox?