Chapter 3
KATIE
Iwake on top of my blanket wearing Artur Dymov’s jacket and one sock.
Through bent blinds, morning light reaches the bed in narrow gold bars and warms the black wool covering my thighs.
Cedar soap clings faintly to Artur’s jacket under the club’s smoke, a private, expensive scent trapped inside something broad enough to cover most of me.
Dried blood darkens one cuff, though none of it belongs to him.
Before we left Velvet Fortune, I checked first with my eyes, then by pressing both hands over his shirt as he tolerated the examination with insulting amusement; now the remembered heat against my palms survives more clearly than the gunfire.
I remember the hard width of his chest too clearly.
The jacket has twisted around my bare legs during sleep, its lining cool against my thighs as the lapels meet over the tank top I wore home. I reach for the nearest sleeve ahead of Cherry’s inspection.
Cherry stands in my doorway holding antiseptic, gauze, and two mugs of coffee. “Good morning, future Mrs. Dymova.”
I close the jacket over my chest. “I refused him, and I was cold.”
“You own a zip-up hoodie, but apparently his jacket made a more convincing argument.” She sets the mugs on my dresser. “Move over. Your knee looks disgusting.”
Cherry sits beside me and cleans the rug burn with more enthusiasm than necessary.
“You’re enjoying this,” I tell her.
“I’m furious with you for tackling an assassin in my shoes. The survivor can’t even retire because George needs it for evidence.”
George kept both heels at the club, one cracked through the platform and the other wet with Igor’s blood. Before sending us home under guard, he gave Cherry an envelope containing my guaranteed Diamond Draw fee and Artur’s tip.
The envelope waits on the dresser.
I empty the envelope onto the blanket: crisp hundreds form a pile between us, matching the ten-thousand-dollar total George wrote outside. Even with cash on my knees, ten thousand dollars looks like a clerical error.
Yesterday my accounts held sixty-seven dollars; today one private dance can keep our apartment through winter. I hate owing that relief to a man who proposed marriage before learning my surname.
Rent, the late charge, food, and several months of breathing room fit inside that pile. My shoulders lower when I set aside the overdue balance.
Cherry sips her coffee. “George says the club will replace my shoes.”
“Good. I’m covering your power bill and replacing the certification money you spent on groceries.”
She wipes a drop of coffee from the mug. “No. My makeup certification is my responsibility, and I’m not taking half your first decent payday because I bought pasta.”
Cherry has been taking online theory classes for seven months, practicing bridal looks on dancers before their shifts. The in-person certification course starts in six weeks. She saved most of the tuition herself before our expenses began eating it.
“You used your tuition to keep me housed,” I say.
“The course starts in six weeks. I’ll replace what I borrowed before then.” Cherry reaches into the pile, removes enough for the rent, and pushes the rest toward me. “This came from your almost-death experience. Spend it on something festive, such as continued shelter.”
I divide the cash anyway, and she moves her share back. After the same notes cross the blanket three times, we compromise on rent and groceries with Cherry’s course fund kept separate.
By noon, I’ve showered away the club’s smoke and put Artur’s jacket on a hanger. I bend to the collar and breathe until the cedar scent reaches me again.
Cherry watches from the hall. “That looked scientific.”
“Laundry,” I say. “We need detergent.”
The laundromat occupies a narrow storefront two blocks from our building. Half the dryers display handwritten warnings, and the television above the change machine plays a courtroom show without sound. We claim three washers before the afternoon crowd arrives.
I recognize the man near the window when Cherry loads our sheets. He stood outside Artur’s office last night, broad through the shoulders under the same dark jacket. Today he holds a newspaper open without turning a page.
He looks at me once, then returns to an article he hasn’t been reading.
I cross the room and stop beside his plastic chair. “Does Artur provide dental?”
The man lowers the newspaper. “Excuse me?”
“You’re following me after I told your boss no. I want to know whether the job compensates you for the risks.”
His attention moves toward the front window, where a black sedan waits across the street under a sycamore tree.
“I’m doing laundry,” I continue. “Unless you plan to fold my underwear, leave.”
He reaches inside his jacket, and I brace for the sight of a weapon before he produces a phone. “You should discuss that with Mr. Dymov.”
“Excellent idea.” I take the phone from his hand and press the only starred contact.
Artur answers on the first ring. “Report.”
“Your employee has declined the underwear assignment.”
A pause follows. “Katie, my men are there because Igor escaped with your face in his memory and blood in his eye. They aren’t leaving the building unguarded.”
My name in his voice brings back the private room, especially his palm high under my shorts. I tighten my grip on the phone. “Remove him.”
“From the building and from my life.”
Artur speaks to someone away from the phone, then returns. “He’ll wait outside. I’m denying the rest of your request until Igor is found.”
The guard rises immediately and walks through the front door. He crosses to the sedan, proving obedience travels faster through Artur’s organization than basic sanity.
“You had me followed,” I say.
“My men are watching every entrance to your building. They aren’t entering your apartment or collecting your mail. Nobody reports a visitor unless that person carries a weapon.”
“I’m sure that distinction will comfort the judge.”
Cherry glances over from the washers, and I turn toward the vending machine, lowering my voice.
“Igor knows your face,” Artur says. “Someone gave him access to my club. Until I know who helped him, I’ll know who approaches your home.”
“You don’t get to install yourself in my life because I saved yours, no matter what I wore home.”
“Did you sleep in my jacket?”
Heat moves into my face. “No.”
Across the laundromat, Cherry calls, “She wore it until noon.”
A soft exhale crosses the phone, followed by a pause Artur stretches for my benefit.
“Traitor,” I tell Cherry.
“He sounds rich,” she answers.
Artur’s voice lowers. “What did you wear underneath it?”
I turn farther toward the vending machine. “A loaded weapon.”
“Then I regret not checking you personally.”
Bullets struck the wall as he covered me, yet what returns now is the pressure of his hips with the heat of his breath beside my ear.
“Move the car. I didn’t agree to guards or surveillance by men reading yesterday’s newspaper.”
“You could have accepted my proposal and negotiated all three. Until then, the car stays.” His amusement fades. “Stay alive. You can hate me properly afterward.”
He ends the call before I can answer.
I return the phone to the guard through the sedan’s open passenger window. He accepts it with the weary expression of a man whose work has become personal entertainment for his employer.
When I go back inside, Cherry holds up her own phone. “Lidia apologized.”
The message fills the screen.
I was awful last night. Seeing Katie hurt scared me, and I know that doesn’t excuse how I acted before the draw. Please tell her I’m sorry. Is she home safe?
“That sounds almost human,” I say.
Cherry types that I’m safe with her, then adds that we hope Lidia is alright too.
“She hated me yesterday,” I remind her.
“People can be ashamed after they calm down.” Cherry sends the reply. “If she’s lying, kindness still asks less of me than becoming her.”
Cherry has let people back through our door after worse apologies. She would rather risk being fooled than suspect everyone who reaches toward her.
After three, we carry the clean laundry home; at the distance Artur promised, the black sedan follows while a white maintenance van waits across from our building.
Blue lettering advertises Peachtree Residential Services beside a cartoon wrench.
Near the rear wheel, a rough patch shows silver paint under the white, with two men in gray work shirts sitting behind clipboards on the dashboard.
Our landlord has ignored the leak under the kitchen sink for two months. I assume another tenant finally threatened him with something more effective than email.
The van is still there when evening darkens the windows.
While I submit the rent through the landlord’s website, Cherry cooks pasta.
At the scarred table, we fold clothes and discuss the portfolio she needs for certification.
For comparison photographs, she wants different ages and complexions, including bridal makeup that survives Atlanta humidity.
I volunteer my face, but she reminds me I possess only one skin type.
By eleven, the sedan is gone from its place under the tree, but another dark car idles farther down the block with a guard visible behind the wheel. I check twice prior to closing the blinds, relieved and resentful that Artur made the shift change noticeable.
I change into a thin gray sleep shirt and underwear. Cherry wears shorts with an old concert tee, her hair tied high as she finishes an assignment on her laptop.
The front lock turns at eleven seventeen, its small metallic click cutting through the laptop fan and refrigerator motor.
My heart strikes once, pain flashes beneath my ribs, then the pounding begins as Cherry looks up from the screen. Neither of us moves when the apartment door opens without the usual scrape of our key.