Chapter 6
CASSANDRA
Ishouldn’t be here.
The train spits me out at the edge of Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, my breath coming out in white clouds.
The air smells like engine oil, fried food, and something sweet from the bakery on the corner.
Murals of saints, rappers, and a butterfly stretching its wings paint the brick walls.
Neon hums from the bodega while “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” drifts across the street from a lone saxophone player.
This is my neighborhood—hip, nostalgic, but still a little dangerous.
I tell myself I’ll only stay at the apartment for ten minutes.
Grab some clothes, my phone charger, maybe a sketchbook.
But really, it’s the photo album I’m after—the one filled with pics of Clara and me from when she first got custody of me.
I don’t know when I’ll be back again, not with Damien’s rules almost certain to tighten by the day.
It’s worth the risk. Even if it means cutting it too close.
The five-minute response window thrums in my head. The new phone still sits in its box on the desk back at my suite, waiting to tether me.
I feel a buzz in my coat, probably spam. I don’t look. I just want to enjoy my old neighborhood.
I feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck, an alert to danger. I try to ignore it, the way the city teaches you to tune things out or you’ll never leave your apartment. But it sharpens, digs in.
I fuss with my scarf and sneak a sideways glance.
A dark sedan idles at the fire hydrant across the street, windows deeply tinted. Maybe it’s waiting on takeout. Maybe it’s waiting on me. I think I see a rectangle glow before it vanishes—the lift and drop of a phone.
If I were a different woman living a different life, I would call this paranoia. But I’m not. As of last night, I’m a woman wrapped up with a Bratva kingpin.
I keep moving.
My building is three and a half blocks down, past the deli with the best sandwiches and the laundromat with the cranky machines that eat quarters for sport. I start walking at a steady pace.
The sedan doesn’t pull away. I can feel the weight of it from across the street as surely as I can feel the weight of my coat.
Don’t be dramatic, I tell myself. It’s probably nothing.
I pass a church with a hand-lettered sign on the door announcing a Christmas pageant and a storefront dispensary with a neon snowflake promising holiday specials.
I keep walking, the fight-or-flight sensation keeping pace. I glance in the dark glass of a closed café, using it as a mirror. I see the sedan creeping forward a car length, not enough to be outright noticeable but more than enough to be real.
Could this be Damien? Is he tracking me? The idea doesn’t sit right in my mind. He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who needs to stalk.
I decide I’ve had enough. I lift an arm and hail a cab, because this is still New York. It pulls up to the curb, battered and heroic. I slide in, slam the door, and give the driver the cross streets near my building.
Then I add, “Can we go up Bedford and cut over on Pacific? I want to avoid Eastern.”
He side-eyes me in the rearview. He’s Dominican and in his forties, with the eyes of a man who has probably seen everything twice.
“You running from someone, mami? You need the police?”
“No. I just want to take the scenic route, you know?”
He shrugs, then noses the cab back out into traffic. I glance over my shoulder, watching as the sedan pulls out and makes the same turn we do. The cab rattles over a shallow pothole. The driver catches my eyes as I turn back around, and he nods.
“I see him,” he says casually. “Relax. We’ll lose him.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, embarrassed I’m so easy to read. My heart thuds hard in my chest. All I want is that sedan to be gone.
We head up Bedford, past the barbers and bars.
It’s that blue hour, when every lit window looks like a stage—people cooking, laughing, drinking, scrolling on their phones.
The cab windows fog up, and I wipe a circle clear.
The sedan turns at the light behind us, smooth and just close enough. My mouth goes dry.
“Want me to keep going?” the driver asks.
“I don’t know if he’s actually following me,” I respond. “Just… take the back streets.”
He zigzags us through Pacific, St. Marks, Bergen.
The sedan floats with us, two cars back, patient.
On Atlantic, a delivery van wedges itself neatly between us.
At the next light, it stalls just long enough to trap the sedan.
Our light turns green, and the driver guns it.
I slam back against the seat, half from the launch, half from relief.
Three turns later, no sedan. I release a huge sigh of relief.
“I can circle around and see if he’s still there,” the driver offers.
“No,” I say quickly. “Home, please.”
He nods. We roll by a mural I love—a girl with a honeycomb crown, bees buzzing eternal.
By the time we turn onto my block, things feel right again—kids bickering over a scooter, a woman in a pink parka standing outside smoking.
The cabbie idles at the hydrant just outside my building. I pay, tipping too much. The driver studies me for a beat. “Want me to wait?”
I think about it. Witness or wasted money. “No. Thank you.”
“Then get upstairs quick. Don’t look back unless you have to.”
I offer a weak smile. “Thanks.”
I climb the stairs, key fighting in the lock like always before it gives in. The scent of garlic and tomatoes from Mr. Gutierrez’s salsa fills my senses, lingering in the air.
Maybe I lost a tail. Maybe I imagined one. But I know the feeling of being watched now, and I won’t unlearn it anytime soon.
The apartment greets me with its stubborn little comforts—the thrifted couch, the crooked lamp Clara insisted would give the room character, the struggling plants I’ve been bullying into thriving for Clara.
But it’s quiet. Too quiet. The silence isn’t peaceful, it’s absence.
Just knowing Clara is at the hospital and not here, not humming in the kitchen or scolding me for leaving shoes in the hall, nearly breaks me.
I drop my bag by the door and drift into her room.
The blankets are rumpled, the pillow still carrying the faintest trace of her shampoo.
On the nightstand sits the photo album I came for.
My throat closes as I pick it up, flipping through page after page of us—me in crooked braids, her all of eighteen and forced to try and be a mother.
I trace my finger over one of the pictures. It’s of the two of us at Coney Island, sand on our legs and sugar on our mouths, both of us pretending we weren’t scared of the ride behind us. My vision blurs. I press the heel of my hand to my forehead, tears cascading down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the empty room. Sorry for the lies, for the bargain I struck with a silver fox devil in a suit. But if it buys her another Christmas, another chance, I’m willing to keep lying until it kills me.
I grab a small duffel from my closet and start filling it with the things that matter most. A sweater that still smells faintly of her, the photo album, my sketchbook, the monogrammed pen Clara gave me when I got my first paycheck.
Odds and ends that make me feel less like a guest in my own life.
The bag isn’t heavy, but it carries weight all the same.
When I’m done, I glance at the clock on the wall. Almost five-thirty. My stomach flips. If I don’t leave now, I’ll be late getting back to the villa.
I move to the window, push the curtain aside, and scan the street. No sedan. Just the usual mix of kids dragging scooters inside and car headlights of neighbors getting home from work.
Still, I don’t trust it. I pull out my phone and call an Uber. I’m safer that way. My thumb shakes against the screen.
I shoulder the duffel and take one last look at the apartment, at our home. Then I shut the lights and lock the door, already picturing Damien’s face when I walk into the villa. He’ll know I tested the edges of his rules.
I can only hope he won’t be furious. But deep down, I know better.
The only question is how he’ll choose to punish me.