Chapter 14 #2
I take a potato from Artur’s plate and hold it to his mouth. He looks at me before biting it from my fingers.
“Quality control,” I explain.
The waitress notices my wedding ring at last. “I’ll come back.” She leaves with the coffee pot held too tightly.
Artur’s thumb moves under the edge of my sweater. “Was that necessary?”
“The potato required testing.”
“You climbed into my lap to defend a potato?”
“Your safety is my priority.”
Cherry studies us over her mug. “I give the performance an eight.”
Boris shakes his head. “She failed to check the second exit.”
“That’s why it isn’t a nine.”
Artur turns his face into my neck, hiding a laugh against my skin as the warmth of his mouth sends a small shiver under my sweater, and I stay on his lap through dessert.
By the time we leave, earlier rain has turned the parking lot into a wavering mirror beneath the yellow awning.
Neon stains the puddles red, and wet asphalt carries fryer grease from the roof vent into the cool air.
Cherry walks beside Boris, still explaining how contour changes the way a camera reads bone structure, while Niko follows with his stained cuff held away from his coat.
Behind us, the diner windows glow over abandoned plates and crooked coffee cups, a little island of warmth we are reluctant to leave.
The owner steps outside carrying her sleepy son under a kitchen towel, and Artur holds the door for them while Cherry calls the syrup Niko’s first confirmed casualty.
Boris laughs for real as Niko begins a formal objection, carrying the warmth of the diner with us into the dark.
Headlights move at the far end of the lot, then go dark.
A sedan rolls past the laundromat without lights, its right rear panel carrying a pale silver crescent under dark paint. My skin turns cold so quickly that my teeth hurt.
“Down!” I shout.
Artur moves before anyone else, taking the child from the owner’s arms and driving both of them behind a brick planter beside the entrance. His shoulder covers the boy’s head as his other arm pulls the owner under him.
Boris draws as the sedan’s rear window lowers, but the first shot breaks the glass door behind us.
Noise slams through the parking lot, and Cherry catches my sleeve, but Niko reaches her first and drags both of us behind the front wheel of our SUV. My knees strike wet pavement, and cold water soaks through my trousers as glass rings across the sidewalk.
Gunpowder cuts through the smell of rain as my heart hammers high in my chest and each breath catches before my lungs can fill.
Boris fires from behind the engine block, drawing an answer from the guards across the street one second later as muzzle flashes tear white holes through the dark car.
The sedan accelerates, forcing me to look at the plate under the damaged panel despite the dirt along its left edge. I catch three letters and the final two numbers before the car reaches the driveway.
Its driver begins turning left toward the wider road, but the sedan hesitates halfway through the angle as brake lights flare. The driver turns his entire head toward the damaged side, then jerks the wheel right instead, mounting the curb before escaping through the laundromat exit.
Igor avoids the left turn again.
“Partial plate,” I tell Niko. The numbers come out too fast, so I repeat them as he speaks into his radio. “Driver favors right turns. His left-side vision is limited.”
Another shot cracks from the retreating car, striking the Dally’s sign and spilling red plastic across the awning before the sedan disappears.
My ears keep the gunfire after the parking lot goes quiet, with rainwater tasting dirty where it splashed my lower lip. I grip the SUV wheel well until the metal edge presses crescents into my palm.
“Katie.”
Artur’s voice reaches me from the planter, where he is crouched over the owner and her son. The child’s face is buried against his chest, small fists twisted into Artur’s shirt, but neither of them is bleeding; I cross the distance on shaking legs.
Artur looks over my face before touching me. “Hit?”
“No. Cherry?”
“Alive and angry,” Cherry calls from behind the SUV.
Niko keeps one arm in front of her as guards clear the neighboring lots, and Boris approaches with his pistol lowered beneath glass dust shining across one shoulder. The owner holds her son again, though her hands shake so hard that Artur keeps one palm behind the child’s back until she steadies.
The boy lifts his face. “Was that a bad guy?”
Artur looks toward the shattered door. “Yes.”
“Did you stop him?”
“Not yet.”
His voice offers a promise rather than comfort as Boris receives the plate search before police sirens reach the block. Boris reads the message once, then turns the phone toward Artur.
The partial plate matches a vehicle recorded outside a Saranov-owned fight venue three weeks ago. Its registration traces through the same electrical contractor that worked inside Dymov Casino.
Artur’s gaze finds mine, and I understand that the contractor who entered his casino has now led us to Pasha’s door.