Chapter 11
KATIE
The city has condemned our apartment in red paint.
The notice crosses the front door from frame to frame, bright against the peeling blue, and a second page warns that entering may result in injury or arrest. Two Dymov guards have persuaded the building inspector that arrest would be inconvenient. Injury is still possible.
Cherry stands beside me in borrowed jeans with the split in her lip nearly healed. “I always wanted our home to attract official attention.”
“The watermark was more tasteful.”
Neither of us laughs for long.
The hallway still smells of burned wiring under the damp plaster opened by firefighters.
Inside, our couch has been pushed against the wall, one arm dark with blood nobody managed to remove.
The bedroom door hangs from its lower hinge, and powdered glass glitters along the floor whenever morning light passes through the bent blinds.
The kitchen survived better: beside the sink wait our two chipped mugs, moved there by a crime-scene worker; one bears a faded peach, while Cherry’s lipstick stains the other rim.
Near one leg, the scarred table has split, probably when the attackers crossed the room.
Across the damaged wood, a city inspector marked it for disposal in orange paint.
I run my thumb over the shallow groove where Cherry used to tap her makeup brushes clean. We ate there as her certification videos played on a laptop balanced between our plates. None of those nights made the table valuable until someone else decided it was trash.
My throat tightens before I reach the room where a man put his hand around it.
The mattress is gone; above the broken lamp, a black outline marks the wall, while the carpet bears the rust-colored shape left under the attacker shot by Artur’s guard.
Although the body was removed days ago, my skin doesn’t believe it.
Under my shirt, sweat gathers as my heart beats too hard for an empty room.
Cherry touches my elbow. “We can leave everything.”
I make myself breathe through my nose. Dust dries the back of my tongue, carrying a faint copper taste that may exist only in memory. “I’m not letting him keep my good bra.”
My answer makes Cherry snort, and the sound pulls my attention away from the bloodstain.
A contractor supervises us, checking the ceiling after every vibration, while smoke clings to most of my clothes.
Inside the closet, water from the fire crew stained the hems, leaving pale tide lines through cotton and denim.
Whatever can survive a washing machine stays; two café uniforms stiff with dirty water go into the discard pile.
With the café closed and the apartment condemned, there is nowhere left to wear them.
A guard brought my black duffel from the safe house and set it on the chair before we entered.
I packed the bag long before men forced our front door, convinced that keeping my life small and portable would prevent anyone from taking it again.
Now half the apartment lies ruined around me, yet what matters still fits inside.
Medication goes beside my identification; three photographs slide into the zippered pocket, their plastic sleeve clouded by smoke. I add underwear and two pairs of jeans, taking the last space.
Cherry fills two plastic bins with cosmetics supplies from our table. She pauses over the milk crate that held her mirror, then leaves it beside the wall because one corner has split.
“The new place has furniture,” I tell her.
“Furniture selected by armed men.”
“They may have strong opinions about throw pillows.”
Cherry closes the first bin. The Dymov contract has placed a secure apartment in her name, within walking distance of her certification course when guards approve the route. She inspected it yesterday with Nadia, rejecting the first option because every window faced another building.
“I’ll take the apartment,” she says. “Temporarily.”
Relief loosens the muscles between my shoulders. “Good.”
“I’m not moving into your criminal husband’s pocket. I’m accepting reinforced glass until the men who broke our door stop breathing near my address.” She meets my eyes. “When you choose a real home, I get a key.”
“Before Artur.”
“Obviously. He can knock.”
I hold out my hand, and Cherry takes it. Her grip is warm, her nails still rimmed with the pale concealer she tested before we left. For four years, this apartment made us family because we kept returning to it. The next door will have to learn us without the scarred table or mismatched mugs.
A guard speaks sharply in the living room.
Every muscle in my back locks, and the contractor lowers his clipboard as another guard crosses the doorway with his hand under his jacket.
“Vehicle on the east corner,” the first guard says. “Dark sedan, second pass.”
I move to the window before Cherry can stop me.
The sedan turns at the far end of the block without signaling.
Morning light exposes a wide repair above the right rear wheel, where the dark topcoat ripples over a smoother silver layer.
The boundary has the same uneven crescent I saw under the fake maintenance van’s white paint and on the car inside Dymov Casino.
My pulse climbs into my throat. “That’s one of them.”
The sedan slows beside the dumpsters, and its driver keeps the window lowered several inches despite the heat.
Igor’s scar appears first.
It cuts from his left cheek toward the eye my clear heel damaged at Velvet Fortune, still raised and red against his skin.
He turns his entire head to check the sidewalk on that side.
At the intersection, the left lane is open, but he circles right instead with his left shoulder held rigid against the seat.
I think he is watching the condemned building to learn whether I came back.
The realization narrows the street until I see only his window. My palms turn cold as the scar I gave him stands bright against his face. He could have stayed away, but I can’t stop believing he wants me to know he survived.
“Igor,” I say.
The guards move at once; one pulls Cherry away from the glass as the other signals the vehicles waiting behind the building. Two armed men emerge from the laundry entrance.
Igor sees them, and the sedan jumps forward, clips the curb, then takes another right turn so violently the rear end skids across the lane. A Dymov SUV follows, but our guard stays between the window and me rather than joining the pursuit.
“He won’t turn left unless he has time to look twice,” I tell him. “The injury limits what he sees on that side.”
The guard repeats the detail into his radio.
The chase moves beyond the block, while reports follow from the guard’s shoulder, compressed by static.
Igor runs a red light near the interstate ramp, forcing the Dymov SUV to brake around morning traffic.
By the time a second team reaches the highway, the sedan has disappeared among delivery trucks.
The failure should make the danger feel distant; instead, I expect to see his scar in every dark car below our window while my body remembers the hard stop of a clear platform against bone.
Cherry’s fingers close around the back of my shirt as she trembles, and so do I, though anger begins burning through the fear.
I don’t think Igor came to attack; he circled the block to look at what his men destroyed, perhaps hoping I’d stand inside it.
I close the duffel. “We’re done here.”
Velvet Fortune is closed behind temporary fencing, its gold sign dark in the afternoon and its tinted facade stripped of mystery.
Replacement glass leans inside the entrance, each flawless pane reflecting a broken piece of the street while splinters from the old doors glitter near the threshold like dirty jewels.
George meets us beside the staff entrance amid the chemical scent of fresh sealant, and two guards watch the roofline.
Artur stands with him.
He wears a charcoal suit without a tie, and his gaze moves over Cherry before settling on me, checking our faces and hands until he finds no new blood. Only then does his attention reach the duffel against my hip.
“Igor saw her,” Cherry says.
Artur’s expression empties of everything warm. “Boris told me.”
He touches the back of my neck, his thumb resting under my hair. The possessive contact irritates me, though I lean into the heat of his palm before pride can interfere.
George opens a tablet containing Velvet Fortune’s access records. “The staff credential file was exported at four twelve on Katie’s first day. Her identification wasn’t checked until eight thirty-six. The draw started after nine.”
The export included every active badge and the scheduled guard rotations. Someone copied the records more than four hours before I entered George’s office, then disabled the private-room service alarm as I completed my paperwork.
George opens a second screen: stamped eight eleven, the private-room photograph recovered from the dead casino captain’s phone predates every choice that brought me there.
My name didn’t appear on the available-dancer list until eight forty-seven, and the clear diamond didn’t reach my hand until nine eighteen.
More than half an hour before the room belonged to either of us, someone photographed Artur’s empty chair.
“They were preparing to kill Artur before I arrived,” I say.
George nods. “The staff door was taped before your name entered the system.”
Artur looks toward the smoked windows. “The first shooter had the corridor assignment. Igor had the service panel. Your draw changed which room required their attention, but it didn’t create the attack.”
The sedan at our apartment supplies the rest: I injured Igor, ruining a prepared assassination and giving him a civilian face to punish.
The men with the copied maintenance logo came for the witness who humiliated him.
Once Artur married me, hurting that witness became a way to reach the Dymov organization.
I wasn’t chosen by Pasha’s men.