45. Delilah
DELILAH
After Kane leaves, I stand at the counter for a long time.
The sugar is still there. So is the wet spot where my tear landed. I wipe both away with a rag, rinse it in the sink, and hang it over the faucet.
Then I go into the kitchen and start working.
There’s nothing that needs doing. It’s Palm Sunday. We’re closed. But there’s a bin of croissant dough in the walk-in that I laminated on Friday, and if I don’t shape it before tomorrow, it’s going to be garbage, so I pull it out and set it on the steel table and start rolling.
The work is good. I can do it without thinking.
I get through half the bin before I realize my face is wet again. I wipe it on my shoulder and keep going.
I think about calling Priya, but it’s Sunday and Zara’s home and the poor woman has one day a week when nobody needs anything from her. I’m not going to be the person who takes it.
The fact that Skye is the next person I consider phoning is kind of sad. What kind of pathetic person picks their divorce attorney as their second-best friend? For that reason—and because she would probably bill me for the conversation—I don’t call her, either.
I just work my feelings away.
A few hours later, I’ve got four trays of shaped croissants, but I still can’t stop thinking. I take the trash out to the alley. Josef is still standing there in the cold, rigid in his peacoat.
“You can go home,” I tell him.
“I’m on until eleven, Ms. Dorsey.”
“I fired your boss.”
He just shakes his head. “I’m on until eleven, Ms. Dorsey.”
I’m too tired to deal with this shit. I go back inside.
I hear the front door around seven.
The bell rings, and for about a second and a half, I’m stupid enough to hope.
He came back.
Which tells me everything I need to know about the state of my judgment, because just a few hours ago, I explicitly told him not to.
I set down the bench scraper, wipe my hands on my apron, and walk out to the front, already rehearsing what I’m going to say.
I said leave me alone. I meant it. Get out.
But it isn’t Kane.
There’s an old man standing in the middle of my shop with his hat in his hands.
He’s gray from head to toe. Gray overcoat, gray scarf, gray hair combed back off a wide forehead. Reading glasses hang on a frayed cord against his thin, sunken chest. He looks like somebody’s grandfather waiting for a prescription.
The door is locked. I know for a fact that it’s locked, because I locked it behind Kane. But this old man couldn’t possibly have broken in.
He gives me a soft smile. “I apologize for the hour.”
“We’re closed.”
“Yes.” He nods, agreeing with me. “I know. On Sundays, you close at three, and on holidays you don’t open at all, but you are always here anyway.
That is a hard habit, I think. My wife had it.
They say no one dies wishing they had worked more while they were alive, but she was the exception that proves the rule. ”
Behind him, past the glass, there’s a black car double-parked with its hazards on and a man leaning against the front fender, not looking at anything in particular.
I stay where I am, behind the counter. My sense of alarm is prickling at the back of my neck. “How did you get in?”
“The door was unlocked.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Then perhaps I am mistaken.” He gives me another polite nod. “May I sit? My hip does not enjoy the cold.”
“Who are you?”
“My name, Ms. Dorsey, is Osip Vetrov. I believe you may have heard of me.”
I’ve heard that name from the other side of an office door on New Year’s Day when Niko was talking too loud in a hallway. I didn’t know what it meant then, but I know a little more now.
Alisa Vetrova’s father. Owner of the chop shop in Brighton Beach. Puppet-master behind the rented truck that took out my curb. And the health inspector, the two dozen cancellation emails, the men in suits with the folder offering to buy my bakery for an insulting price.
Something else that Mr. Vetrov here must have been responsible for suddenly occurs to me.
“You gave it to my sister,” I say. “All that stuff. The information.”
He pulls out one of the little café chairs, sets his hat on the table, and lowers himself down with a small grunt. “Yes. I did that.”
“Get out of my shop.”
“In a moment.”
“No, not ‘in a moment.’ Now.”
“Ms. Dorsey.” He folds his hands on the table.
His knuckles are enormous and knotted. “You are angry at me. That is correct. You should be. I broke your curb and frightened your customers and many other unfriendly things besides. I did all of that because I wanted this building, and I could not have it, and I was impatient.”
My jaw drops. “You’re admitting all that?”
“There is no point in denying facts to a woman as bright as yourself.”
I refuse to let him charm me. I lock my hands around the edge of the counter and squeeze.
“Say what you came to say, please, so we can fast-forward to the part where you leave.”
“Thank you.” He reaches into his coat, takes out a slim envelope, and sets it on the table, then leaves it there.
He doesn’t push it toward me. “First, an accounting, so that you know I am not going to lie to you. I have wanted this waterfront for a long time now. I was in no particular hurry, so I moved slowly. It was foolish on my part, certainly. Because a mystery man began to buy my parcels out from under me. It was like a ghost moving your things around in a haunted house. All these shell companies… Harrow Nine, Bright Anchor, the list goes on. I was bamboozled, and all my research couldn’t quite prove what was happening.
It took a very frightened man to put the pieces together for me. I believe you know him. Your husband.”
“Ex-husband,” I correct without thinking.
“Ex-husband. My apologies.” He touches his chest sympathetically. “If that all sounds like a preamble to a threat, I assure you it is not. I’m coming to you with a mutually beneficial solution.”
I snort. “I’ve heard that before. I won’t fall for the same garbage twice.”
“Hear me out before you render judgment, please.” He taps the envelope he pulled out with one thick finger.
“You have been the victim of a crime, Ms. Dorsey. Your name is on a guaranty you did not sign. I’ve seen it myself.
It is a good forgery, but it will not survive an expert.
If you could afford one, you’d already be clear of all this nastiness. ”
I squint at him. “You’ve been in my business.”
Vetrov turns his water-colored eyes up at me. “Please, please, let’s not be hasty. I promise you will like where this all leads.”
“Cut to it, then.”
“Very well. Here is what I am offering: My lawyers will go to court to void the guaranty and discharge the lien.
I will pay for all of it. You will not see a bill.
While the case runs, I will make certain that our mutual friend, Mr. Makov, cannot enforce against this property.
There are ways to do that which are legal and there are ways which are not, and I will use whichever ones are required.
“And while the case runs, nothing happens to this building. I assure you your loading docks will stay quite intact, and no suppliers will get sudden and inexplicable cold feet.” He pauses, purses his lips, and looks up at me. “How does all that sound?”
He knows it sounds good.
No more Kane.
No more problems.
He’s giving me what I’ve wanted on a silver platter: one thing that’s mine, safe from a world that keeps trying again and again to rip it out of my arms.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last weeks and months, it’s that silver platters are only ever offered by a devil with a knife in his other hand.
So I ask the obvious question.
“And what do you want in return?”
“The building.”
“Ah.” My heart sinks. “There it is.”
“After the lien is void and the deed is clean, you will agree to sell it to me at a very flattering price. You will walk away quite rich, Ms. Dorsey, and free to start over wherever you may choose.”
I come around the counter, but I still keep my distance from this small gray man who broke my curb and is now offering me the only way out I’ve had since December.
“You want me to help you win in a war against Kane,” I say.
“That is true,” he concedes. “Your good fortune is that you win when I do.”
“And Kane loses?”
“Kane Makov loses everything,” he says with a sudden burst of viciousness I never thought a man this frail would be capable of.
“I thought you might enjoy that. He spent twenty years and I do not know how many millions assembling this territory. But it’s an all-or-nothing game.
Without this lot, the developer walks. Without this lot, he holds a great deal of expensive dirt with a hole in the middle of it.
And then he will have to sell, and I will be the one buying, because there will be nobody else. ”
I look at the envelope on the table.
“Don’t you want that?” Osip leans in. “You’ve been a pawn in his game, Ms. Dorsey. He pushed and pulled and lied and teased. He seduced you mind, body, and soul based on falsehoods. Shouldn’t he pay for that?”
“How do I know you aren’t trying to do some of the same stuff?” I counter.
He lifts his knotted hands off the table an inch and sets them down again. “I want the same thing he wants. The difference between us is that I have come in through the front door and offered you something in return.”
“You came in through a locked door.”
“Well, I suppose that’s true.” He inclines his head. “I’ll admit the metaphor is imperfect.”
Oh, how did I come to valuing an honest crook over a beautiful liar? It was so easy to fall for everything Kane offered. This thing Osip is laying on the table isn’t pretty. It’s brutal, savage, cold, and efficient.
But at this point, I find myself yearning to say yes.
If I have something she wants, she takes it. That’s how my whole life has worked, and every single time, the taking came dressed up as something else. As practicality. As grace.
Your sister deserves it. I did it for you, Lilah.
This man at least has the balls to call this what it is.
Osip stands, slowly, one hand on the table. “Let this much be clear: I am not offering you a gift. I am offering you a transaction. You will be poorer in one way and better off in many others.”
He puts the hat on.
“You do not have to answer tonight, of course. Take your time.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.” He nods once. “That would have worried me. The envelope has a number to reach me directly. I hope to talk to you soon, Ms. Dorsey.”
He walks to the door and stops with his hand on it. “Oh. I should have added: Someone will be along tomorrow morning to fix this lock. It’s getting quite a workout these days, isn’t it? Ah, well. Good to keep the locksmiths in business, right?”
Then he steps outside.
The driver helps him into the car, and then they disappear into the guts of the city.
The envelope is still on the table.
I sit down in the little café chair he was in, which is still warm, and I brace my hands on either side of it.
I don’t open it.
Not yet.
But I don’t throw it away, either.