27
Tess, perched on the couch, didn’t blink once. “I don’t want your pathetic money. I want your heart, your brain, and your soul.”
Rimbaud, curled on her shoulder, snoozed in blissful contentment. In a matter of hours they’d become inseparable, like a pair bound by a secret decades-long pact.
When the broadcast shifted to other stories, Tess switched off the TV and turned to me. “Okay. It’s time. ”
She grabbed her phone and dialed the Vellum. “I just saw the news. I think I’ve found Rimbaud. He’s at my place.”
The voice on the other end, brisk but polite, explained they’d been flooded with calls—false alarms, wannabe heroes, straight-up scammers. First, she’d have to prove it was really him.
“Where are you calling from?”
“Brooklyn. I spotted him on a branch in Central Park East. He looked scared, in trouble, so I brought him home.”
“Color?”
“Red-headed. Amazona autumnalis , to be precise.”
I gestured frantically for her to keep it short—because that sounded a lot less like “lucky find” and a lot more like “premeditated kidnapping.”
“Any distinguishing traits?”
“He never shuts up. And he only speaks in rhymes about Zane Ryder…” She delivered it with theatrical boredom, as if it were the biggest nuisance in the world. “Listen, I’ll give you my address. But I want Ryder himself. I don’t trust anyone else. Too many people looking to cash in on this story…”
“Says the kidnapper,” I muttered.
The second she hung up, reality hit me like a cymbal crash. “Oh. My. God. Zane Ryder is actually about to walk into my apartment! ”
“Calm your hormones,” Tess said. “We’re not like his brainless groupies. We have a method.”
“Okay, fine. But how exactly are we supposed to just casually bring up his idol—what was his name again?”
“Lev Mirov.”
“Right. We can’t exactly fake a casual conversation while he just happens to be standing in our living room. He’s literally about to knock on our door!”
“Exactly. Which is why the plan changes now.”
She knelt in front of the TV stand, yanked open the bottom drawer, and began rifling through a stack of vinyl records, flipping through them like someone who’s spent a lifetime collecting music that doesn’t exist on Spotify.
Finally, she pulled one out with a cover so ridiculous I would’ve sworn it was conceptual art: a skeletal man with curled mustache, draped in a peacock-feather cloak, standing on a windswept cliff while a salmon-pink hot air balloon drifted into the horizon behind him.
“Here it is. Lev Mirov’s very first record. It’ll be spinning when Ryder walks in…”
“Isn’t that a little on the nose? Feels too… staged.”
“Staged? Bea, I combed half of New York to find this. I finally dug it out of a flea market from a guy who was literally packing to move. Not even Ryder’s number one fan has this record.
Probably not even Lev Mirov’s own mother.
He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. That’s how underground we’re talking. ”
“Okay, boss. You win. Put it on. I’ll just tidy up the apartment a little—”
“Stop right there. Tidy up? No. If anything, we should make it look messier.”
“Why on earth would we do that?”
“Because in this grand story of love and deception, we have to ask ourselves one question: what is the one thing his fans would never do?”
“Never do?”
“Exactly. Picture his life. He wakes up in a silk king-sized bed, last night’s girl still wrapped around him like plastic wrap.
She purrs, she clings, she begs. He finally gets rid of her—maybe pays her off, maybe has a bodyguard walk her out—and boom, in comes the butler with breakfast and a hundred perfumed letters, all sealed with lipstick.
And they all say the same thing: I love you, I want you, you’re my god.
Then he opens Instagram, Facebook, TikTok…
and it’s the digital version of the same garbage.
Idol, soulmate, best in the world, blah blah blah. ”
“Then he leaves the house and every woman between fourteen and fifty-five wants an autograph or a selfie. The bold ones hit on him on the spot. The shy ones swoon, tell him he’s gorgeous, swear they’d lay down in puddles so his boots don’t get wet.
Then maybe he heads to the studio to record a duet with some other famous singer—famous, but never as famous as him.
One of those women known more for her cheekbones than her voice.
And of course, she flirts too. Maybe they’re even friends with benefits.
Who knows? Then he goes to lunch and the waitress with—”
“Okay, okay. I get the daily itinerary.”
“Good. So he’s drowning in adoration. He probably despises it by now. Which is why we’ll do the opposite. We don’t care about Ryder.”
“We only sabotaged one of the hottest hotels in Manhattan for him, but sure, we don’t care.”
“Fine. Then we’ll pretend not to care. Happy? And we won’t say it—we’ll show it. With our attitude. Which means this apartment is going to look like we’re waiting on a pizza delivery, not a rock god.”
“Got it, boss,” I sighed. “I’ll at least go put on something decent.”
“Nope. What you’ve got on is perfect.”
“We’re in pajamas.”
“Exactly. Do you think any of his countless lovers has ever opened the door in pajamas? Please. They’ve opened the door naked.
Or in La Perla lingerie. They’ve laid out rose petals to the bed.
We’ll open in flannel pajamas, with dirty dishes in the sink and pizza boxes on the counter. We’re superior. ”
I shrugged. “You’re the seductress.”
So we didn’t clean. In fact, Tess did a walk-through of the living room with the eye of a reverse art director. The couch looked too presentable, so she rumpled the blanket, tossed the cushions, made it look like a domestic brawl had just gone down.
Then, as casually as if it were step two on her checklist, she opened the entryway drawer and pulled out a cigarette and lighter.
“Wait. Since when do you smoke?”
She turned slowly. “If the Pope comes to your house… do you blow smoke in his face? No. But Ryder? I want to almost disrespect him.”
“You don’t smoke. Have you even practiced?”
“Don’t need to.” She wedged it at the corner of her mouth like a pro. “I’ll just let it dangle. Doesn’t mean I have to inhale.”
She lit it for effect, but after one accidental half-drag, her eyes watered and she hacked like a dying engine, doubling over with the cigarette pinched between two fingers like it was a trial by fire.
“My bad,” she croaked. “Slipped. But hey—if I cough in his face? Perfect. I could even blow my nose right after. Remember the mantra…”
“Yeah, yeah,” I cut her off, hand raised. “What’s the one thing his fans would never do?”
She held my gaze for a long beat, then her lips curled into a smug smile. “See? You’re absorbing it by osmosis. You’re becoming a mini-seductress already.”