Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Charlotte
The water hadn’t been hot enough. I’d stood under the spray far longer than usual, hoping it would burn something clean—something Karpov and Whitaker had left behind on my skin. The stench of moral compromise, maybe. Or just cowardice.
I still felt it, though, that weight in my gut. Not even the eucalyptus soap helped.
I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in a towel, pausing for a moment in front of the mirror, fogged with steam. My reflection was a ghost—blurred, shapeless. Fitting. I wiped it clear with the edge of my towel and looked myself in the eye.
“You’re a fraud,” I said to my reflection, voice low, flat. Then I turned away before I could answer myself.
The closet was worse than usual. Row after row of tailored suits, pencil skirts, and silk blouses in muted tones stared back at me, judging.
I pushed them aside, searching for something that didn’t scream ambassador.
Something that wouldn’t make me stick out like I’d wandered in from a UN summit to order a latte.
Katya’s world was looser, freer—less curated. I admired that. Envied it. I wanted to belong in that world, or at least not look like I’d come to gentrify it.
Eventually I found a pair of dark-wash jeans tucked behind a dry-cleaning bag, still faintly scented with lavender. They fit well enough. I paired them with a simple pink Lacoste polo and leather sandals. Casual, a little preppy, but I could blend. Sort of.
Back in the bathroom, I sat at the vanity, towel now twisted around my hair. I leaned close to the mirror, applying foundation with a practiced hand. Concealer under my eyes. A little blush to fake something close to healthy. I reached for my eyeliner.
That’s when the thoughts started.
She’s going to see right through you.
The tip of the pencil trembled slightly in my hand.
You stood there and lied to a room full of people. Lied to the world. And for what? A seat at a table where they serve nothing but shame?
My fingers tightened. I tried to draw a clean line.
I failed.
The line slipped, dragging an uneven streak across my lid like a drunk child’s crayon. I cursed and grabbed a cotton swab, trying to fix it, but the more I dabbed, the worse it got—smudging into a bruise-like haze beneath my eye. I looked like I’d been punched.
Maybe you should’ve been.
Tears stung unexpectedly at the corners of my eyes. I blinked them back, furious.
Katya deserves someone brave. Someone who doesn’t fold under pressure. Someone who doesn’t say all the right things just to keep a title that means nothing anymore.
I tried again. The other eye. My hand jerked. Another crooked line.
“Goddammit,” I snapped. The eyeliner dropped to the counter with a clatter.
And then I hit it.
My fist came down hard on the cold marble, the sound sharp and brutal in the enclosed space. Pain shot through my knuckles and up my arm, but I welcomed it. At least it was real. More real than anything I’d said at that podium.
I stared at the counter for a long time, breathing heavily, eyes blurry. My reflection stared back at me, the ruined mess of my makeup smeared like ink tears across my cheeks.
Who was I angry at?
Not Karpov, or Whitaker. Not the whole damn system.
Me. Just me.
I was the one who stood there and pretended like everything was fine. And I was the one who didn’t fight for what’s right. I was the one who put my job first—again.
I sighed and reached for the bottle of makeup remover, unscrewed the top with shaking fingers, and soaked a cotton pad. The cool liquid stung as I wiped it across my face, taking the war paint with it.
The second time I applied the eyeliner, it came out cleaner. More precise.
But it didn’t make me feel any better.
Still, I capped the pencil, put on a coat of mascara, and stepped back.
If I couldn’t be proud of what I’d done, I could at least try to look like someone Katya might want to see again.
I dropped the towel from my hair and reached for the blow dryer.
There was still time to fix something tonight.
Even if it was just… showing up.
I stepped out of my building and into the humid press of a Manhattan evening. Across the street, two men in suits glanced toward me from behind their sunglasses—Secret Service, or maybe just State Department babysitters. Either way, I didn’t want them. Not tonight.
I turned on my heel and walked toward the curb, ignoring the sleek black SUV idling nearby. It wasn’t subtle, and neither was the irritation rolling off the driver as I waved him off.
Let them be pissed. Let them file their stupid reports. I was done being ferried around like precious cargo. Done being managed.
A yellow cab rolled up almost instantly, its brakes squealing like it had a grudge. I raised a hand, and it veered over. The window rolled down just enough for a bloodshot eye to squint at me.
“Greenwich Village,” I said. “Cafe Wha?”
The cabbie grunted and popped the lock. I slid in, pulled the door shut, and let my head fall back against the cracked vinyl seat. The car smelled like stale coffee and overworked air conditioning, but it was still better than the perfumed leather of the diplomatic convoy.
We pulled away from the curb with a lurch. A moment later, the driver jabbed at the radio dial and NPR filled the cab.
“This is All Things Considered,” the announcer said, voice smooth as lacquer. “First, in Texas today, federal agents arrested Joaquín ‘El Cazador’ Ruiz, the alleged leader of the Nueva Sangre cartel, ending a two-year investigation involving multiple agencies.”
The driver snorted. “They’re all mafia. Just wear different suits.”
I didn’t respond. My fingers drummed quietly against my thigh.
The announcer kept going. “In other news, at the United Nations today, U.S. Ambassador Charlotte Jason Tyler delivered a widely viewed address regarding the accusations of election interference in France’s recent elections by the Belaruskan government.”
I braced myself to hear my voice echo back at me with dread. Instead, they announced a political analyst, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“We turn now to Dr. Brennan Cole, senior fellow at the Langston Institute for Global Policy and former deputy advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
Dr. Cole’s voice was tight, clipped, like he’d been holding this in all day and finally found a microphone.
“Frankly, what we witnessed today was a low point in American diplomatic integrity. Ambassador Tyler’s speech was, at best, a masterclass in ambiguity—and at worst, a concession to authoritarian pressure. The subtext was clear: we’ve bartered away our moral authority to keep the peace with Moscow.”
I stared out the window, jaw clenched. The neon smear of a corner deli slid by.
Cole went on. “The administration is spinning this as strategic restraint. But Ambassador Tyler had an opportunity to take a stand—and she flinched. It sends a message that we’re more interested in preserving relationships than principles. And honestly, it’s appalling.”
My throat tightened. I felt like I was back at the podium, spine straight, heart thudding, that tightrope walk between truth and survival stretching beneath me. Only now I was hearing the fall in real time.
Cole’s voice dripped with finality. “In that moment, the United States didn’t just blink. It turned its back on justice, on democracy, and on everything we claim to value.”
I looked straight ahead, eyes locked on the streaky windshield.
The driver muttered something sharp in a language I didn’t recognize—at least not right away. The words came out clipped, angry, spiked with feeling. Then he slammed a callused hand against the radio knob, and the car dropped into silence.
“Bullshit,” he spat.
I glanced up at the rearview mirror. His eyes met mine for the briefest second, but he didn’t recognize me. Just a passenger. Just another face in the backseat.
“You believe this crap?” he asked, more to the air than to me. “America. All big talk until Moscow shows teeth.”
I said nothing.
“I’m from Chechnya,” he said, voice thick with something hard underneath. “I’ve seen this story before. The Russians come, and everything burns. Cities, families, futures—doesn’t matter. They roll tanks and call it peace.”
He shifted in his seat, drumming fingers on the wheel.
“So I leave. I come here. I wait tables, clean kitchens, drive this cab. All so I don’t have to hear the anthem of a country that sees my people as target practice.
And now?” He barked out a humorless laugh. “Now America bows just like the rest.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. What could I say to that?
The cab slowed for a red light, and he shook his head again, muttering under his breath. “Maybe I should’ve gone to Canada. Or Brazil. Somewhere that still has a spine.”
My mouth worked before I could stop it. “Some of us are trying.”
He turned slightly, surprised, but before he could ask anything more, the cab pulled up to the corner of McDougal and Minetta Lane.
“Cafe Wha?,” he said, pointing. “There.”
I nodded, reached for my wallet, and handed him a fifty. “Keep the change.”
He looked down at the bill, then up at me, brow furrowing. Maybe something clicked. Maybe not.
“Thanks,” he said, but it didn’t sound like gratitude. It sounded like disappointment.
I stepped out of the cab into the warm pulse of Greenwich Village, the sidewalks alive with music and people.
The brick fa?ade of Cafe Wha? loomed ahead, tucked beneath glowing signage.
I’d read about the place—Bob Dylan had played here once, back before he was Dylan.
Hendrix, too. Springsteen. A launchpad for legends, misfits, and voices too loud to be ignored.
Tonight, it was just another glowing doorway into a world I didn’t belong to.
I stepped inside, ducking slightly as I passed through the entrance. The room was dim, packed wall to wall with mismatched chairs and people who looked like they belonged—tattooed arms, frayed denim, vintage leather. The air smelled like beer and ambition.