Chapter 3 #2
A man speaks quietly in the living room.
Another answers near the front windows, followed by the soft press of a shoe against loose tile.
Panic rises through my chest and shortens my next breath.
The apartment still smells of garlic and clean laundry, but my mouth has gone dry except for a metallic taste along my gums.
They already know the apartment is occupied.
I cross to Cherry, take her wrist, and pull her toward my bedroom with sweat making my palm slide against hers.
She grabs the kitchen knife from the drying rack as we pass.
I close the bedroom door behind us as she shoves the narrow dresser across the floor, its rough edge biting into my fingers when I lift the corner caught on the rug.
The first impact makes the mirror above it jump, wood cracking against wood with a painful beat through my ears.
“Katie Alba,” a man calls from the hall. “Open the door.”
Hearing my full name strips away the hope that this is a burglary. They came for me, and Cherry is trapped because she shares my address.
My packed duffel waits under the bed, useless with the only exit blocked by men who came here for me. The old urge to grab it and run surges through my arms until the three-story drop below the window kills the thought.
Cherry grips the knife with both hands. “The fire escape?”
“Other side of the building.”
The second impact moves the dresser an inch, and I brace my bare feet against the floor and push until the rug burns my soles, with Cherry adding one shoulder as the doorframe cracks near the upper hinge. Each breath stops high in my lungs, too shallow to satisfy the next one.
A hand reaches through the gap, and Cherry slashes it before the fingers find the lock. The man curses, jerking back, and blood streaks the white paint. Its copper smell reaches me when the door opens another inch.
The next blow sends my bedside lamp to the floor. Its ceramic base breaks with a sharp crack, pulling the cord loose at the metal stem as the plug stays in the wall. Blue sparks snap against the rug, and the bitter smell of scorched dust replaces the blood.
I wrap the edge of my blanket around the intact section and lift the cord behind the exposed wire. Heat reaches my fingers through the fabric as electricity spits at the floor.
Cherry stares at me. “Please know what you’re doing.”
“I know not to touch the bright part.”
The frame splits, and the dresser tips as a man forces one shoulder through the opening.
Cherry drives the knife toward him, but he catches her wrist and knocks her into the wall.
The back of her head strikes plaster with a dull sound, and I stop fearing the cord in my hand. I want him away from her.
I strike his forearm with the sparking end of the cord. A violent jolt runs up my covered hand, numbing two fingers.
His body locks before he falls backward into the hall. The cord flies from my hand, leaving a black mark across his sleeve and the smell of burned cloth in the room. A second man kicks the dresser away from the broken door.
The breaker trips, darkening the bedroom except for the hall light through the broken doorway.
He comes through with a pistol. I see the barrel first, then his hand. Cherry shifts behind me at the edge of my sight.
Cherry pushes herself upright, blood at the corner of her mouth.
My heart hammers as panic squeezes my chest, stealing the bottom of each breath.
I stand between her and the weapon because there’s nowhere else to put my body.
She is bleeding in my bedroom because she shares my address, and I refuse to let him reach her again.
Gunfire breaks out in the living room, the shots battering the walls before shouted commands follow, none of which I can separate through the ringing in my ears.
The man inside our bedroom turns toward it.
I kick his wrist with my bare heel, driving the muzzle toward the ceiling as the pistol fires.
Light bursts across my sight, and gunpowder coats my tongue.
Cherry plunges the kitchen knife into his upper arm.
He strikes her across the face, then catches me by the throat and drives me onto the bed.
His weight pins my legs as his fingers close harder, crushing my breath under his palm. Black spots spread across my sight with my pulse beating against his thumb. I bite my tongue during the struggle, and fresh blood sharpens the metal already coating my mouth.
I claw at his wrist, unable to draw enough air to call Cherry’s name. When I see her crumpled near the wall, I care less about air than keeping his hands away from her. I drive my nails deeper because he’ll turn toward her next.
A shot sounds from the doorway, muffled under the roar inside my ears.
Warm blood crosses my sleep shirt. The man collapses over me, forcing the remaining air from my lungs until a guard from the laundromat drags him onto the floor. I cough until my throat burns; the room smells of ozone and blood, with every breath dragging gunpowder across my tongue.
“Clear,” someone shouts from the living room.
The guard checks under the bed before lowering his weapon. “Two alive. One down.”
Cherry crawls onto the mattress beside me. Her lower lip is split, but she still has the knife. I grab her free hand until each knuckle presses into my palm; the pressure tells me she’s conscious.
Footsteps strike the hallway at a run, and my shoulders lock until Artur fills the broken doorway.
His shirt is open at the throat, blood darkens his left cuff, and the violence in his face changes the air before he speaks; behind him, armed men keep moving, but he stands utterly still.
Relief weakens my knees with humiliating force.
Anger follows, hot and clean enough to hold me upright, and I use it to stand while his gaze takes in every mark the room has left on me.
He sees the marks on my neck, and his mouth closes before he speaks.
I get off the bed before he can reach me and catch his wrist. “Is this yours?”
“No. One of the men in the hall tried to stop me.” His gaze moves over my face, throat, bare legs, then returns to the blood across my shirt. “Is the blood on you yours?”
“It belongs to the man your guard shot.”
Only then do I let him touch me.
Artur cups the back of my neck while his other hand passes over my ribs and arms, checking each place the thin shirt covers. The contact is impersonal for perhaps two seconds, then his thumb moves once under my breast and my nipples tighten in the middle of a ruined bedroom.
“Your men were still outside,” I say.
“Yes. You told me to stop, and I chose not to obey.”
The guard who ignored my refusal has just pulled a dead man off my chest. Cherry is alive beside me because Artur watched the home I insisted was none of his concern. I want to slap him, then hold on to his shirt until my hands stop shaking.
Artur looks at the broken dresser, the blood on the door, and the severed lamp cord. His attention returns to Cherry’s knife before settling on my bare feet. “Boris, how did they get inside?”
“The outside team saw the false crew enter and called it in,” Boris says from the hall. “They used a building key. The van carried a copied maintenance logo, and they came directly to this room.”
I saw the white van and the men with clipboards waiting across the street, then supplied an innocent explanation because a cartoon wrench looked official.
Artur removes his hand from my ribs and closes it around mine. “My proposal is no longer theoretical.”
“It is still insane.”
“Then improve it in negotiation.” His grip remains loose enough for me to leave it. “You can negotiate the marriage terms before dawn, Katie, or wait for Igor to choose your future instead.”