Chapter 33
BOGDAN
Ireach the fitting-room door as Ethan brings Peggy around in front of him.
Tessa is low against the wall, one hand holding a towel to Matvei's arm. Her other hand grips his radio. There's blood on the towel, but none on her face, and she's looking at me with her mouth open as though she can't get enough air.
I touch her shoulder as I pass. “Stay down.”
Then I put myself between her and the gun.
The corridor is white beneath the emergency lamps. Beyond the lounge, Ethan has his back almost against the wardrobe recess, with Peggy held across him. A pale mask dangles from his ear. I can see the orange comb on the floor near his shoe.
Klim is at the lounge wall on the opposite side. Another man lies facedown near him, away from a discarded pistol. At the rear turn, Kirill's voice carries from the loading wing, ordering somebody to keep their hands visible. The gunfire has stopped, but nobody has put a weapon away.
Ethan looks at my pistol, then at me.
“Leave it there.”
His gun digs harder into Peggy's side. She flinches, and the movement puts more of her body in front of him. My finger stays clear of the trigger. There isn't a shot I can take without gambling with her life.
I lower my weapon and put it on the floor just inside the empty reserve store, behind me. When I straighten, both my hands are visible.
Klim holds his position. He has the same blocked view I do.
“Let her go,” I say.
Ethan's mouth moves into something that tries to be a smile. I've seen him use it on customers while he checked their photographs. Now his lips are dry and one corner keeps twitching.
“You don't get to tell me what to do.”
Peggy's lace collar has torn where his arm caught it. Her feet are planted awkwardly beneath her, one boot turned against the lower bar of the rack. She keeps trying to take a full breath without moving enough to hurt herself against the gun.
I want to kill him for making her stand like that. The thought is plain, complete and useless. She's still in his hands.
“You're surrounded,” I tell him. “Put it down.”
“Because of her.” His eyes move past me toward the fitting room. “I broke your camera, and she kept that fucking video.”
Behind me, Tessa makes a small sound. I stay where I am. Whatever he wants from her face, he can try to get it through mine.
The building is quiet enough now for me to hear Peggy's breathing. Klim's radio sounds once and he lowers its volume. I can't make out the words. Ethan hears it too, and his arm tightens around her.
“Luka isn't getting you out,” I say.
I don't know where Luka is yet. I know Kirill's voice no longer sounds like a man being driven back, and the people Ethan came with haven't reached him. He glances toward the rear turn, finding no help there.
Peggy's eyes drop to her boot.
I follow the look without turning my head. The rack's lower bar sits beside her heel. Tessa and Peggy have moved that thing through this passage for weeks, steering it with their hips while their arms were full of costumes.
Ethan notices her movement and jerks her closer.
“You should've come when I asked.”
Peggy looks up at him. Her face is wet, but she forces the words out without looking away.
“So you could take more pictures?”
His expression changes. I move one step away from the fitting-room opening, drawing his attention with me. He follows with his eyes, keeping the gun against Peggy.
“Look at me,” I say. “I'm the one standing here.”
He shakes his head. The loose mask knocks against his collar.
“I spent weeks with her because Tessa kept sticking her nose into everything. Then she tells me she's finished.”
Peggy's mouth opens. The hurt reaches her before the anger, and I see the effort it takes her not to fold around it. His arm has trapped one of hers, but her free hand closes around the rack's upright.
From the fitting room, Matvei's breath scrapes against the quiet. I can't look back. Tessa is behind me, and I need her to stay there.
Ethan sees the doorway again.
“Come out, Tessa.”
I move with his gaze, blocking it. The space between us is shorter now. He could reach me in a few strides, but he'd have to bring Peggy with him, and she isn't letting go of the rack.
He pulls her forward.
Her heel braces against the rack's base. He curses when the coat tail catches under her other boot. He tugs again, impatient to get around me, and shifts the gun away from her ribs to point toward the fitting-room door.
Peggy drops her weight and shoves the rack across him. Its locked wheels hold for an instant, tipping the upper bar toward his arm.
The bar strikes his wrist. His arm opens, and she tears free as hangers scatter between them.
I hit him before he can bring the gun back up.
We slam against the edge of the recess. His elbow catches my mouth, and pain flashes through my lip. I hold his weapon arm away from the women while the rack falls onto its side with a crash that fills the corridor.
He tries to turn toward the fitting room. I drive him down.
The gun strikes the floor and slides beneath the rack. Klim moves it out of reach while I force Ethan onto his stomach. He keeps fighting, reaching for something he no longer has, and I put my knee between his shoulders until he stops gaining ground.
My hand is shaking against the back of his neck.
He says Tessa's name into the floor.
I want to hurt him until he can't say it again. I can taste blood inside my mouth, hot and salty, and the pressure of his body beneath me makes the choice feel horribly easy.
Then Peggy starts crying.
Not a scream. A broken, exhausted sound from behind me, where Tessa is saying her name. I look over my shoulder and see Peggy folded against Tessa's right shoulder, held by her free arm. The radio lies beside them. Tessa's left hand still presses the towel against Matvei's wound.
All three of them are alive.
I keep Ethan down. That's all I do.
Klim takes control of his arms and secures him. I stand only when he tells me he's got him, leaving two dark marks from my knees on the dusty floor. The gun lies well away from Ethan beneath Klim's boot.
Somebody shouts from the main-room entrance. Police.
I raise my hands before I turn. Klim steps back with his own hands visible, giving a short warning about the weapons on the floor and the wounded man at the fitting room. The officers come through beneath the emergency lamps. I move where they tell me and watch one take Ethan from Klim.
He looks smaller with his hands behind him. The copied coat has torn at a seam, exposing a strip of cheap pale backing. He keeps trying to look past the officer toward the women.
They don't look back.
When I can return to the fitting doorway, Tessa has finally let someone else take the towel. Paramedics crouch beside Matvei. His gun is put aside, and his head rests against the frame while they work around his arm.
Peggy sits on the floor with Tessa beside her. Her bare knees have scraped against something in the struggle. There's a red mark high on her chest where Ethan held her, and the sight of it makes my fingers close before I force them open again.
I go down beside them.
“Did he hurt you anywhere else?” I ask Peggy.
She shakes her head, then changes her mind because she doesn't know yet. Tessa brushes hair out of her eyes, careful of the torn lace.
“We're getting you checked,” I say.
Peggy catches my wrist before I can move. Her grip is weaker than I expect.
“Don't let him come near me.”
“He won't.”
She holds on another moment. I stay until her fingers open, then turn to Tessa. Her gown is streaked with plaster dust. The necklace has twisted so its center drop rests against the side of her throat.
I straighten it because my hands need something gentle to do.
“And you?”
“He didn't touch me.” She looks at my mouth. “You're bleeding.”
I wipe my lip with the back of my hand. The sting brings the corridor into focus again, the fallen hangers and the orange comb still waiting where Peggy dropped it.
Tessa presses her forehead against mine.
For a moment I can't hear anything except her breathing. I keep one hand at the back of her head, the other on her shoulder, afraid that if I move too quickly she'll disappear from beneath them.
“You came,” she whispers.
“I was coming the whole time.”
She puts her arms around me. I hold her close enough to feel the shiver work through her, then ease back when the paramedics need room. Whatever I want to say has to wait until the people who know what to check have seen her.
Kirill meets me near the main-room opening after the women are brought forward. His shirt is streaked with gray dust. He has both his hands, both his eyes, and the look of a man who wants to sit down somewhere he doesn't have to watch a door.
“Luka's in custody,” he says. “He came with them. The rear team saw him beside Jennings before the breach.”
I turn toward the public entrance as two officers bring Luka through from the cleared service wing. His hands are behind him. There's a smear of blood at his temple, but he's walking, looking for somebody willing to meet his eye.
I do.
He stops for half a step before the officer moves him on. There's no speech left between us. His brokers are gone, his collector is already in custody, and the men who came to take my club are leaving it without him.
Kirill reports that the remaining attackers either surrendered or ran when police arrived.
The rear team has identified the local men they recognized and passed the names along.
Klim is giving the officers the arrival footage and access records.
Through the open entrance, I can see Luka waiting beside a patrol car. None of his men comes to help him.
I look past Kirill toward the service turn. Cold air reaches us from the loading wing. The impact and the shots have left the club open to the night.
“Our people?”
“All the supper staff are out. Matvei's going to the hospital. One of the rear guards needs stitches. They're checking everyone.”
I nod, unable to speak for a moment. Those words could've been different. I can feel the shape of every name he didn't have to give me.
The club stays in the hands of the police. I don't send men to make the broken door disappear or clear away the rack before anyone photographs it. The money to rebuild can wait in its account.
Tessa and Peggy cannot.
Alison arrives while the medical crews are preparing to move them. She goes to the women first, bending until Peggy can see her face.
“He's really going?” Peggy asks.
“Yes. He's in police custody.”
Alison turns to Tessa, keeping her voice low.
“We've matched your threatening messages with copies sent from his studio computer. The photograph from the cloak bag is among his originals too.”
Tessa shuts her eyes. I remember that phone in her hands after the ball. We'd been looking for a stranger while Ethan stood beside her best friend.
“It was him,” she says.
“Yes.”
Peggy begins crying again, quietly this time. Tessa keeps her hand.
I give Alison the short account she needs from me now. The gun in the reserve store is mine. Ethan had Peggy in front of him. The rack gave her a way free. I point out the comb without picking it up.
The longer account will take time. There are cameras, witnesses and frightened people with different pieces of the same few minutes. I won't fill the gaps for them because I want the night to end.
When I finish, Tessa is waiting near the open doors with a blanket around her shoulders. Cool air lifts the edge of it. Beneath the dust and the sharp smell from the corridor, I catch the rose cream she used before we left the hotel.
I know that smell. I can go close enough to breathe it again.
She reaches for me before I get to her, and I take her hand in both of mine. An ambulance light washes red across the diamonds at her throat, then leaves them white.
“Come with us,” she says.
I nod and follow her toward the medical crew.
My club is broken behind us. The women are alive, Ethan is in police hands, and Luka's men are being led away from the doors they forced open.
I can pay for glass and brick and every hour of work that was lost tonight.
I look at Tessa's fingers inside mine. Keeping her alive hasn't told me whether she still wants a life with me.