Chapter 5 #2
The thought arrived before I could stop it, bringing all its complicated baggage with it.
Lis noticed the small things, adjusted without being asked, made space for my limitations without making them feel like limitations.
Every night he asked about water, food, sleep.
Every night he checked whether I'd taken care of myself, and when I hadn't, he didn't make me feel broken for forgetting.
The coffee detail felt like that. Like someone paying attention. Like someone who had looked at me for twenty minutes in a gallery and registered something about who I was, then adjusted accordingly.
I should not be making this comparison. Lis was one person and Maksim was another and just because they both noticed things didn't mean they were the same or that I should be conflating them or that—
I was thinking about Lis too much.
I was thinking about Maksim too much.
I was thinking about both of them in ways that felt tangled and confusing and slightly dangerous, and I didn't know what to do with any of it.
The guilt from earlier had evolved into something more complicated.
Not just betrayal but confusion. Not just shame but longing.
I wanted Lis to message me tonight, wanted his familiar questions and his careful patience and the safety of our established routines.
But I also wanted to see Maksim again, wanted to be in the same room with him, wanted to know if the warmth I'd felt when he caught me was real or just the disorientation of falling.
Two men. Two different kinds of wanting. One of them knew my face and name but not my Little side. The other knew my deepest vulnerabilities but not my face.
Neither of them knew all of me.
Maybe that was the point. Maybe I'd built my life this way on purpose—parceled out into compartments, pieces of myself distributed so that no one person held enough to really hurt me when they inevitably left.
The thought was exhausting. The kind of self-awareness that didn't actually help, just illuminated the problem without solving it.
I sent the studio address before I could overthink it.
The laptop closed with a soft click. I stared at it for a long moment, then slid off the armchair and onto the floor. The wood was cool through my leggings. Ghost immediately rearranged himself, pressing his warm grey body against my side, his long muzzle resting on my thigh.
I buried my face in his neck. He smelled like oats and home and unconditional acceptance.
"I'm in trouble," I told him.
He sighed in agreement.
H e arrived the following day at exactly 7pm with a paper bag from the good coffee place on Front Street—the one I loved but rarely visited because the line was always too long and too loud—and I tried not to read anything into the fact that he somehow knew.
I opened the door before he could knock, which meant I'd been standing behind it like an idiot, and found myself face-to-face with Maksim Besharov.
He looked different than he had at the gallery. Less armored somehow, despite the expensive grey sweater and dark jeans. His hair was slightly disheveled, and the evening light through my industrial windows caught the angles of his face in ways that made my mouth go dry.
"Miss Hart," he said. That small smile. "Thank you for—"
Ghost appeared at my side like a grey specter and pushed himself between us.
Seventy pounds of whippet suspicion, his dark eyes fixed on this intruder with an intensity that transformed him from elegant couch potato to something almost wolfish. His ears went flat. His body blocked my legs. He didn't growl—Ghost never growled—but the message was clear.
You don't get past me.
My heart rate spiked. Not from fear—I'd never been afraid of Ghost—but from the sudden awareness of what was about to happen. This was my test. This was my boundary. People who couldn't handle Ghost didn't get past the front door, and people who tried to push past him didn't get a second chance.
I'd lost three potential clients this way.
Two dates who'd lasted approximately ninety seconds before deciding I wasn't worth the trouble of an anxious greyhound.
One contractor who'd made the mistake of reaching out to pet Ghost without permission and had spent the rest of our interaction pressed against my far wall while Ghost watched him like prey.
Maksim didn't move.
He stood completely still in my doorway, the paper bag held loose at his side, and let Ghost assess him. No pushing forward. No retreating. No impatient sighs or attempts to charm his way past.
Then, slowly, he crouched down.
The movement was deliberate and unhurried. He made himself smaller, lowering his center of gravity, removing the height advantage that made anxious animals feel threatened. His eyes dropped—not staring, not challenging. Just waiting.
He extended his hand at knee level, back of the knuckles down. Patient. Unhurried. Willing to wait as long as it took.
"Hey," he said softly. His voice dropped into something low and gentle. "I know. New person. Scary. Take your time."
I stopped breathing.
This was exactly what you were supposed to do with fearful dogs.
Exactly what the rescue organization had taught me, what the behaviorist had reinforced, what I'd learned through three years of trial and error and gradual trust-building.
Most people didn't know. Most people reached out with grabby hands and loud voices and forced interactions that set Ghost's recovery back by weeks.
Maksim knew. Or he had instincts that aligned with Ghost's needs in ways that felt almost too good to be true.
Ghost's nostrils flared. He stretched his long neck forward, the muscles along his shoulders quivering with tension.
He sniffed Maksim's knuckles once, twice, three times.
The assessment lasted forever—ten seconds, maybe fifteen, while I stood there with my heart in my throat and my hands clenched at my sides.
Then Ghost leaned his whole trembling body into Maksim's palm and sighed.
The sound was unmistakable. That particular exhale of a greyhound who had decided, against all evidence and history and trauma, that this new person was acceptable. That this new person could stay.
I made a noise. I'm not sure what kind—surprise, relief, something dangerously close to a sob. Ghost pressed closer to Maksim's hand, his eyes half-closing with pleasure as strong fingers found the spot behind his ears that I'd discovered three years ago.
Maksim looked up at me with that small smile. "He's beautiful. How long have you had him?"
My voice came out rough. "Three years. He was a rescue—former racer, badly neglected. It took six months before he'd let me touch him."
"He's a good judge of character." Maksim continued scratching behind Ghost's ears, and my ridiculous dog leaned into it like he'd known this man his whole life. "What's his name?"
"Ghost."
"Because of the color?"
"Because of the way he moves." I stepped back from the doorway, a silent invitation. "He's completely silent. You never hear him coming until he's right beside you."
Maksim rose smoothly, and Ghost moved with him—not retreating to my side the way he usually did with strangers, but staying close to Maksim's legs, his long tail giving a single tentative wag.
Impossible. Three years, and I could count on one hand the people Ghost had accepted this quickly.
"He knows," Maksim said, stepping into my studio with the coffee bag and my dog trailing behind him like a shadow. "Animals always know."
"Know what?"
His eyes met mine. That warm brown, that unsettling intensity, that quality of attention that made me feel seen in ways I wasn't sure I wanted.
"Whether someone's safe," he said simply.
I didn't know what to say to that.
“My brother has cats,” Maksim added. “Not the same, but they’re rescues, too.”
“You have just one brother?” I asked, just for something to say.
“Two,” he said with a wry grin. “But let’s not get into that now. Come—we have things to discuss.”
W e sat at my worktable with the coffee between us—oat milk latte for me, black americano for him—and I tried to remember how to act like a normal person.
It wasn’t easy, though. I almost never had people in my studio, and I was struggling to understand why I’d brought him here. We could have met anywhere.
Yet here we were.
Ghost had settled himself beneath the worktable, his long body curled around Maksim's feet like they were old friends.
The betrayal should have bothered me more than it did.
Instead, I found myself relaxing in increments, my shoulders dropping from my ears, my hands unclenching around my coffee cup.
"So," I said. "Tell me what you're actually looking for."
Maksim set down his cup and met my eyes. The humor that had been there with Ghost faded into something more serious.
"I'm tracking art connected to money laundering," he said. "Pieces that have been authenticated and sold through legitimate channels, but that I believe are part of something larger. A pipeline."
"Pipeline to where?"
"To clean money that started dirty." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "The man I'm investigating uses the art world because it's perfect for his purposes. High-value objects with subjective pricing. Private sales. A culture of discretion that doesn't ask uncomfortable questions."
I nodded slowly. "Fraud?"
Something flickered across his face—approval, maybe, or respect. "Exactly. What I need is someone who can identify inconsistencies. Someone who can spot the tells that distinguish genuine authentication from convenient fiction."
He didn't name the man he was tracking. Didn't explain who was funding this investigation or what would happen to the information I provided.
But I'd spent ten years in the art world, authenticating works that passed through the hands of collectors who didn't want to explain where their money came from.
I could read between the lines well enough.