7. Delilah
DELILAH
Brooklyn Methodist is a twenty-minute drive from the bridge.
When we pull up to the emergency entrance, Kane gets out first and comes around to help me. His hand is firm on my elbow as we walk through the automatic doors.
The waiting room is crowded. Despite that, Kane walks straight to the triage desk, and whatever he says to the nurse there gets us taken back immediately.
They put me in a small examination room with a bed covered in paper and posters about hand-washing on the walls. Kane sits in the plastic visitor chair while Priya paces by the window.
The doctor who comes in looks fresh out of med school. She introduces herself as Dr. Patel and has me sit on the examination table while she listens to my chest with a stethoscope.
"Take a deep breath," she says.
I do. The whistle is quieter now than it was a few days ago, but it's still there.
"And out."
She moves the stethoscope around, listening from different angles, then has me lie down so she can press on my ribs.
"Any pain when I do this?"
"A little."
"Here?"
"Yeah."
She straightens up and pulls off the stethoscope. "I'm going to order a chest X-ray, just to be safe. From what you've told me about the smoke exposure and the respiratory symptoms, I want to rule out pneumonia or fluid buildup."
Ten minutes later, I'm standing in front of an X-ray machine in a hospital gown, holding my breath while a technician takes pictures of my lungs.
Another ten minutes after that, Dr. Patel is back with the results.
"Good news," she says, clipping the films to a light board. "Your lungs are clear. No pneumonia, no fluid. You've got some residual inflammation from the smoke inhalation, which is why you're still coughing, but nothing that won't resolve with some over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medication."
The relief is immediate and overwhelming. I sink back against the pillow and close my eyes.
"So I'm okay?"
"You're okay. I'm going to prescribe an inhaler to help with the cough, and I want you to follow up with your primary care doctor in a week, but there's no reason you can't go home today."
After she leaves, I get dressed while Kane and Priya wait in the hallway. When I come out, Kane is leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, staring at the floor.
"All good," I tell him. "Clean bill of health."
He looks up, and I see some of the tension leave his face. "Good."
"So," Priya says, "what now? You want to go home? Get some food? Sleep for a week?"
I think about it. What I want, more than anything, is to sit in my own kitchen and drink coffee that doesn't taste like it was made in a prison cafeteria. I want to shower with my own soap and put on clothes that don't smell like basement and fear.
But I also want answers. I want to know what Kane gave up for me. I want to know what happens next. I want to know if there's still an us to salvage from the wreckage of the last month.
And I want to tell him about the furnace pipe and Marat Kolchin and the conversations I overheard about my building.
But maybe that can wait.
"Priya's," I say. "I want to go to Priya's."
Priya looks surprised. "My place?"
"If that's okay with you." I glance between them. "I need some time to think, and I want to do it somewhere that feels... neutral."
Kane's face doesn't change, but I catch the way his jaw sets. He understands what I'm really saying. That my house is too tied up with memories of him. That his house is his territory. That I need space that belongs to neither of us.
"Okay," he says. "Priya's it is. If that's alright with her."
"Of course," Priya says. "I just—can I meet you guys there? I haven't cleaned in, like, a week."
My chest gives a squeeze. Priya has been so worried about me, she didn't think about anything else, did she?
"It's fine," I assure her. "I don't mind."
"Well, I do." She crosses her arms. "I won't have you leaving some dude's torture dungeon just to step foot in a pigsty."
"I'll take you," Stepan offers, looking at Priya.
Kane nods. "We'll go the long way. Give you guys some time to do whatever you need to do."
"Thank you," Priya says, relieved.
I give her a quick hug goodbye. Even though it's only been a few minutes and we'll be seeing each other again in less than an hour, I don't like the idea of being separated from her. I find it hard to let go.
But I do need to talk to Kane. And Priya being gone is admittedly better for what comes next.
Once Stepan and Priya hop into a cab, Kane steps into the driver's seat. I take the passenger's.
"Ready?" he asks.
"Yeah."
We merge into traffic.
For the first five minutes of the ride, I don't speak. I look out the window instead, watching Brooklyn pass by, thinking about everything I learned in that basement.
"Kane," I say.
"Yeah?"
"I need to tell you some things. About what I heard while I was there."
He takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at me.
"I was walking twice a day for my lungs," I continue. "Doctor's orders. And there was this furnace pipe that ran up through the ceiling where I could hear conversations from upstairs."
Kane goes very still. "What kind of conversations?"
"Names, mostly. Dates. Business stuff." I close my eyes and pull up the mental list I've been rehearsing all week. "Marat Kolchin was one. He works for Vetrov, I think. Something about Halyard Group and zoning meetings."
"Marat Kolchin," Kane repeats. "You're sure?"
"Positive. There was a woman too. Lyudmila. She was talking about coding payments as consulting fees, and she mentioned someone called Berger."
"What else?" Kane asks.
"Vetrov keeps files at Thirty-Ninth Street. Off-site storage, he said. And..." I pause, because this is the part that makes me angriest. "He's already promised someone called Fletcher the complete corridor. Including my bakery."
Kane's hands curl into fists in his lap. "He said that?"
"He said Fletcher could have the whole stretch, Thirty-Ninth to the water, every parcel. He told Fletcher not to worry about my building because it burned down and I'm desperate. That I'll sell to the first person who makes an offer because women like me don't have the stamina for a fight."
The silence in the SUV is thick and dangerous.
"He said I was already broken," I add, the admission tumbling out of me.
Kane's voice, when it comes, is deadly quiet. "He used those words?"
"Those exact words."
He glares. "Mudak."
I'm familiar enough with Kane's casual Russian swearing by now that I get the gist of what he means.
And maybe—just maybe—hearing him swear on my behalf makes the knot at the base of my throat loosen a fraction.
"There's more," I say before I let myself go places I swore I wouldn't yet. "He told Fletcher the deal would be complete in a week or two. That I'd take whatever I was offered because I'm desperate."
Kane gazes out the window for a stretch. When he speaks again, his voice is controlled, but I can hear the fury underneath it.
"Fletcher is Monroe Fletcher. He's a developer. Big projects, mostly residential towers." Kane turns to look at me. "It looks like Vetrov's been promising him your building."
"Because of the corridor?"
"Yes. The corridor was never Vetrov's to give. Or anyone's, really. As things stood, it was incomplete. But now he has the deeds to my properties. And your bakery is…" Kane trails off, his brow darkening. "Struggling."
It's a diplomatic way to say burned to the ground. "So now he can make good on his promise," I finish.
"Yeah."
We sit with that for a moment. Then, the second we hit a red light, Kane pulls out his phone and starts typing.
"Who are you texting?" I ask.
"Niko. He needs to know about Kolchin and the Thirty-Ninth Street files."
I watch him type, his fingers moving quickly across the screen. When he's done, he puts the phone away and looks at me.
"Anything else?"
"That's all I could make out clearly. But Kane..." I turn in my seat to face him. "I'm not selling. I don't care what Fletcher offers or how desperate Vetrov thinks I am. That building isn't going anywhere."
Something shifts on his face. Something like pride.
"Good." His hand brushes mine. "And for the record, neither am I."
I don't say anything to that. I blame the smoke and the cough for it.
But the truth is so much more complicated.
Priya's apartment is in Park Slope, a fourth-floor one-bedroom in a prewar building. Kane takes the long way round, using every red light, every traffic hiccup, to follow up on his text chain with Niko.
He didn't even question my information. Didn't ask me if I was sure I heard right or that I wasn't in a feverish delirium. Or even if I wasn't too broken to remember correctly. He just took me at my word and trusted me.
That hits harder than anything else.
"You were brave," he says after a while. "For gathering this intel. But also reckless. If Vetrov had sniffed out what you were up to—"
"But he didn't," I cut him off. "And I can make my own choices, Kane. If I want to be brave while I'm being fed stale bagels in a torture dungeon, then I'll be brave in a torture dungeon, no matter how fucking cold or humid it gets at night."
He shoots me a sideways glance. "That's your issue with this?"
"Oh, believe me, I had issues with all of it."
A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. He doesn't let it out. But by now, I know Kane. I know what his face looks like when he's holding back his humanity.
I just wish I hadn't missed it so goddamn much.
When we finally pull up to the curb, Kane gets out first and comes around to help me. I want to say I'm too proud and independent to let him, but the truth is, my legs still aren't used to all this walking.
On the sidewalk, he hands me my phone.
"I had Gershon retrieve it from the bakery," he says. "It's been sitting in evidence bags all week, but it should still work."
I turn it on. The screen is cracked from when I dropped it during the 911 call, but it powers up fine.
Seventeen missed calls from Priya, twelve from my mother, eight from Skye.
A few dozen texts from numbers I don't recognize, probably reporters or people who saw the viral footage from my Christmas reveal.
And one text from Kane, sent the morning after I was taken: I'm going to bring you home.
I look up at him. "You kept evidence?"
"Photos of the scene. Audio from the 911 call. Security footage from the street." His face is grim. "Everything we'll need when this goes to court."
The thought of testifying, of reliving all this in front of a judge and jury, makes my stomach turn. But I nod anyway.
"Thank you."
We stand there on the sidewalk, not quite looking at each other. Priya has already headed up to unlock her door, giving us some privacy.
"So," Kane says finally.
"So."
"What happens now?"
It's the question I've been dreading. The one I don't have a good answer for.
"I don't know," I admit. "I need some time to think."
"About us?"
"About everything."
He nods, but I can see how much the answer costs him. "How much time?"
"I don't know that either."
Kane looks down at his hands, then back at my face. "I fucked up, Lilah. Before. With the secrets, with the corridor. I know I did."
"Yeah. You did."
"If I could take it back—"
"But you can't."
"No. I can't. But I can tell you that everything I gave up this week? It was worth it. Every single piece of paper in that briefcase. I'd do it again tomorrow if it meant getting you back."
"Kane..."
"I know you need time. I'm not asking you to forgive me right now. I'm just asking you not to give up on us completely."
I look at his face, at the exhaustion and the hope and the careful way he's holding himself, like he's afraid I might shatter if he moves too fast.
Before I can answer, he takes a step back.
"Call me if you need anything," he says. "Anything at all."
I nod, my voice too thick for words.
He turns and walks back to the SUV. I watch him get in, watch Stepan join him and reclaim his rightful place at the driver's seat.
The SUV pulls away from the curb. The taillights disappear around the corner.
I go upstairs to Priya's apartment.
As the elevator rides up, I pick up my cracked phone and scroll through the photo album Kane and I started sharing months ago. The one with pictures from our holidays together.
New Year's Eve at the Bratva party.
Russian Christmas at his house.
Valentine's Day at the restaurant.
The last photo is the one of us in his bedroom, the Polaroid he took of me blindfolded and cuffed. The one he gave me as a birthday gift, the one I kept instead of destroying.
I trace my finger across the screen, looking at my face in the picture. Vulnerable but not afraid.
Trusting.
I close the photo album and put my phone away.