Chapter 33 #2
If I wanted victory more than accuracy, I could use that admission as a weapon.
Because distributed responsibility offers no single target to punish, grief wants one person to carry Niko’s final breath.
Betrayal came from Ivan, the order for shooters from Pasha, and the advancing operation from me.
Katie’s silence cost time; it did not create the murderers.
The surveillance belongs to me just as completely, and although Lidia sold the address and Igor invaded the apartment, neither act excuses the monitoring I continued after clearing Katie. Her error cannot purchase innocence for mine.
The fairness of the exchange makes it worse; neither of us can escape through martyrdom, and no single apology can cover what remains.
Katie places the report on the bed. “Do you trust me now?”
I want to say yes, but Niko’s covered body makes the word a lie.
“I trust your intentions,” I say. “I cannot trust your security judgment after you concealed evidence tied to an active operation.”
Her face becomes quiet.
“You never trusted my judgment unless it confirmed yours,” she says. “When I spotted the casino evacuation, I was useful. When I read the clinic tail, I was clever. The moment I decide differently, you call it dangerous.”
“This decision was dangerous.”
“So was rushing the warehouse because Ivan mentioned me.”
“I accepted responsibility for that.”
“Acceptance after three deaths does not make your judgment superior.”
Pride urges me to answer with every war I have survived, but the warehouse proves experience doesn’t prevent manipulation when fear points toward her.
“No,” I say. “It does not.”
Katie stares as if agreement has made the fight harder to continue.
The anger between us contains attraction with nowhere acceptable to go.
Her shirt shifts when she breathes, revealing one lace edge near her breast, while my body remembers bending her over the study desk before either of us knew three children had begun.
Desire would offer temporary silence, followed by a deeper fracture once morning returned.
I refuse to use it.
I retrieve a pillow from the bed, moving slowly because the ribs remain bound beneath my shirt. “You take the bedroom.”
“Where will you sleep?”
“Outside the door.”
“There is a sofa in the main room.”
“Ivan knows this address, and Igor remains outside. I will not leave you unguarded.”
“I didn’t invite you inside either.”
“That is why I am taking the hall.”
I carry the pillow through the doorway without touching her. The short hall outside the bedroom is narrow enough that my shoulder rests against one wall when I lie down, placing my body between Katie and every exterior door.
The position aggravates my ribs within minutes, and although I could take the sofa in the main room, distance would leave a route to Katie without my body across it. Entering the bedroom would repeat the assumption at the center of every report spread over the bed.
I hear her gather pages: drawers open before closing, followed by the bathroom tap running long enough that she may be crying where I cannot see. My hand lifts toward the door once, then falls because comfort offered without invitation can become another demand to forgive the person providing it.
The thought of Boris finding me asleep in a fortified hallway with a decorative pillow almost makes me smile. It dies beneath the quiet closing of the bedroom door.
Sleep comes in fragments broken by rib pain, hearing distortion, and the remembered weight of Niko in the drainage channel. Whenever I wake, light shows under the door, and Katie moves softly inside as pages shift across our bed.
At three, she places a folded blanket outside without opening the door.
I pull it over my legs, recognizing care that has survived without becoming reconciliation.
An hour later, nausea wakes her, and I hear the bathroom door, water, then the rough breath she makes after vomiting, yet she doesn’t call for me.
The babies have no visible presence except the changes I have learned through her body, from tender breasts to exhaustion and the sudden hatred of coffee.
I built security plans around three lives, yet withheld the history of the house meant to protect them, giving Katie reason to question whether even my care contains another concealed purpose.
I want to tell her I love her through the closed door. The word remains behind my teeth because speaking it now could sound like another instrument designed to keep her inside the marriage.
I remain in the hall because respecting a closed door feels useless compared with holding her hair, but usefulness has excused too many choices already.
Near dawn, her phone rings.
The door opens before the second sound, revealing Katie barefoot in the long shirt, holding the phone against her ear while Cherry speaks loudly enough for me to hear.
“A new dancer called from Ruby’s phone,” Cherry says. “She says a client took her bag, her keys, everything. She’s hiding near the side entrance at Velvet Fortune.”
I push myself upright as pain tears across my ribs, forcing one hand against the wall.
“Call your driver,” Katie says.
“Already did. He’s taking me there, and he’ll come inside.”
“Wait for more guards.”
“The girl says he’s coming back.” Cherry’s breath moves quickly through the receiver. “I can’t leave her alone.”
The kindness that makes Cherry impossible to dislike also makes her predictable to anyone who has watched her.
“Cherry, do not enter the alley,” I say.
“I’m at the side door now.”
Metal strikes something beyond her, and a man shouts, followed by the scrape of the phone against pavement.
Katie grips the receiver with both hands. “Cherry?”
Breathing replaces words for several seconds.
Then a man lifts the phone.
“Katie,” he says.
The line goes dead.