11. Delilah
DELILAH
There’s probably a correct thing to say when a man informs you that you are collateral.
Huh is probably not it.
But huh is all I got.
So…
“Huh?”
Kane just eyes me.
“Sorry, it’s been kind of a traumatically full evening. I’m going to need a minute to clear some shelf space, like, mentally speaking.”
In response, he lets go of my wrist. Given what he just said—I’m taking you as repayment instead—I was braced for the hand to tighten, and then pick me off my feet and hurl me into the back of an unmarked van.
But instead, it just opens. Set free, my arm drops back down to my side like it was never anybody’s business but mine.
I rub the spot anyway. It almost feels like a burn. The kind you get from touching ice for too long.
“You know,” I say as I look at him, “I’m starting to think you were serious just now.”
He nods. “Deadly.”
“Ha. I assume that was a pun.”
He doesn’t laugh, so I guess not. But information is at a premium right now, so I plow ahead into the Q&A part of this bizarre encounter.
“Alright, so let me make sure I’ve got this all straight,” I say. “Connor borrowed four million dollars. He put my building up for it. He’s defaulting on the loan. And your solution is… to take me?”
“Correct.”
“That’s not how banks work.”
Kane spreads his arms wide. “I’m not a bank.”
“No kidding. Your customer service sucks.”
I take a step back and my heel finds a patch of ice. I’d have fallen if Kane hadn’t reached out just then to catch my elbow and steady me.
Nice of him. I assume he’s just protecting his newfound merchandise.
I pull away from his touch just to be safe.
“Okay. Second question,” I say. “When you say ‘take me,’ what exactly are we talking about? Because I have a business to run and a divorce to file and I’m not really built for a dungeon lifestyle.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“See, this is why nobody trusts you people.” I fold my arms, mostly because they’re freezing. “You could just tell me. Words are free. Say a sentence.”
He looks at me for a long moment. Behind me, voices are rising in the house.
More glass breaks. I don’t know who’s fighting or why, but I’m glad to be out of there.
I’m sure that a horde of angry Dorseys with pitchforks and torches will be bursting through the doors to chase me down any second. I need to make an exit, ASAP.
I would do it right now, if there weren’t a tall, stubborn, cryptic Bratva boss in my way.
“Let’s go,” Kane says.
“With you? No thanks. I’m not a fan of kidnapping.”
“If I were kidnapping you,” he says, “we wouldn’t be talking.”
That is, unfortunately, a very good point.
“I’m walking to the water,” I insist anyway. “That was my first plan and I’m sticking to it.”
“You’ll get frostbite in twenty minutes.”
“It’s not like that’s going to make my evening much worse, is it?”
He sighs. “You weren’t this stubborn earlier.”
I tilt my chin up. “I’d say ‘Get used to it,’ but you won’t be around me long enough for that.”
“Suit yourself.” He touches my elbow again, lightly and yet somehow enough to pull me alongside him. “Then let’s start walking.”
But that makes me dig my heels in. “‘Let’s,’ you said. What did you mean by that?”
“I mean that I’m coming with you.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Thanks, but no thanks, and really not any thanks at all. I’m good. This is a solo mission.”
He shakes his head and a lock of dark hair falls across his broad forehead. “Not anymore.”
And then he starts walking.
Not with a hand on me or a nod to some unseen goons to drag me along in his wake. He just turns and goes down the middle of the street, looking so ridiculously out of place in this quiet neighborhood that my brain short-circuits trying to make sense of him.
I’m left marooned behind him at the end of the driveway, lips and fingertips already turning blue from the freezing temperatures.
I look behind me. There’s a house full of people who hate me now, with good reason. And, well, likewise. I just ruined their lives and mine along with them.
But in front of me is a man who has made it clear—well, not super clear, since he seems highly partial to cryptic sentences—but at least somewhat clear that he is a dangerous man who runs dangerous businesses, and that I am somehow ensnared in his schemes now.
Am I really gonna choose him over my viper of a sister and traitor of a husband?
My feet make the choice for me.
Bratva boss it is.
“You know that’s nuts, right?” I call, catching up. “Just strolling off. You didn’t even wait to see if I’d come.”
“And yet here you are.”
“Yeah,” I mutter to myself, “but you didn’t know that.”
He’s a fast walker, courtesy of the longest legs I’ve ever seen, but he shortens up his steps so I can fall in beside him at a comfortable pace. It’s rudely thoughtful.
We get half a block before he stops and looks at me.
“What?” I say. “Do I have something on my face?”
“You have no coat.”
“We covered that. You did the whole concerned Mom bit already.”
But he’s already shrugging out of the overcoat. Under it, the black shirt is open at the chest. I get a look at ink running up under the collar before I make myself stare intently at the sidewalk instead.
“No,” I say. “Not happening.”
“Take it,” he insists, thrusting it at me.
“I’m not taking your coat. That’s how you end up owing somebody.”
“You already owe me four million dollars.”
“I don’t think I agree, but I’m really not in the mood to argue. Fine. Do your worst.”
He whips it out like a cape and settles it on my shoulders.
It’s so heavy that I stagger for a second before I right myself.
The sleeves go a good four inches past my hands and the hem sweeps the slush on the sidewalk, muddying it.
His dry cleaner is gonna have a hell of a time getting this thing right again.
It’s also warm from his body heat and smells like his cologne. Something in my stomach squirms in delight.
“Well,” I say, “not quite my style, but I guess it’s better than death by Brooklyn winter.”
“You look better in it than I do,” Kane says.
“That’s not true and you don’t have to say it.”
“I don’t say things I don’t have to say.”
We turn down toward the water. Sunset Park at nine on Christmas Eve is deader than dead. Every window has lights in it and nobody is outside. There’s a plastic Nativity on a stoop with a floodlight aimed at it, in which one wise man has fallen over to faceplant in the snow.
“So,” I say. “Repayment. What does that mean?”
“Do you want a dictionary definition?”
“See, no. Now, you’re just being an asshole. I’ve had a big night, okay? I’d like to know just how much worse it’s about to get.”
Kane’s face is half-lit by the streetlights on his right-hand side. He’s got a beautiful profile. Long, proud nose, strong chin, full lips.
“Ask me tomorrow,” he says.
“Why not tonight?”
“Because tonight you’d only argue.”
“I’d argue tomorrow, too,” I tell him. “I’m consistent like that.”
The corner of his mouth ticks upward.
We cross Fourth Avenue. My shop is up that way, twelve blocks north, dark and locked with four trays of unsold gingerbread in the case. I wonder how much he knows about it.
“I could go home,” I say. “And we could forget about all of this. I’ll just turn around, get in my car, drive to my house, get in my own bed, and you’ll never see me again.”
“The bed your sister used?” he asks.
I cringe. “Okay, cheap shot.”
“It’s still yours, no matter what she’s done. If you want, go sleep in it.”
I eye him suspiciously. “You’re not going to stop me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you won’t do it,” he says.
Oh, goddamn him.
For being an asshole.
And also for being right.
I stop walking. Dead stop, right in the middle of the sidewalk, hands in the sleeves of his coat.
He takes two more steps, notices, and turns around. He tucks his hands in his pockets and slouches against the lamppost, long and lean. He shows zero sign of being cold.
“Now what?” he asks in exasperation.
“I’m resisting you,” I explain.
“Pardon?”
“Something’s supposed to happen. You said you’re taking me as repayment. So, ipso facto, this is the part where you put a bag over my head and hogtie me and throw me in a car.”
“Is that what you’d like?”
“I think it’s what you’d like!”
“It’s too cold for this, sladkaya,” he says impatiently. “Walk or don’t walk. I don’t care either way.”
He starts to push back to his feet, but I stop him. “What if I called the police?”
He pulls out his phone and offers it to me on his open palm. It’s unlocked. The screen light comes up under his jaw and I can see he doesn’t care even a little bit.
“Be my guest.”
I don’t take it. “That’s very theatrical of you. Has anyone ever told you that you have a flair for the dramatic?”
Shrugging, he tucks it out of sight again. “Let me know if you change your mind. But I’m going to start walking again now. If you don’t want to get mugged, I suggest you follow.”
With that, he resumes his stride. This time, he’s not quite as nice about matching my speed. But I’m kind of grateful for it, because between the coat and the brisk pace, I’m starting to feel a little bit warmer.
On the inside, though, my suspicions are at a ten out of ten. Four times now, I’ve challenged him, and four times now, he’s yielded instantly, without argument.
It’s the weirdest kidnapping and blackmail I’ve ever heard of.
I’d feel safer if he’d said no once.
“You’re very quiet,” Kane says.
“I’m having a realization. It’s unpleasant. Give me a block.”
“Take as many as you’d like.”
We come out at the water a little before ten.
I’ve walked this stretch a hundred times, mostly at hours when normal people are asleep as I head into the bakery to begin the midnight shift.
It’s always beautiful at night. The harbor sparkles like onyx and diamonds. A container ship moored at the port is lit up from stem to stern. Across the water, Jersey glitters and glows. If it weren’t for the frigid wind ripping from the west, I could stand here forever and admire it.
That’s when I notice the man.