27. Cady
Cady
Shopping is what I do when my head gets too loud, besides swimming at night.
Not because I need anything, but because expensive stores have a particular quiet that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
The carpet absorbs sound, and the lighting is always soft. The staff moves with a careful discretion that asks nothing of you except your credit card, and no one expects you to be anything other than a woman looking at beautiful things.
It’s the closest thing to peace I’ve found in the last week, and I’ll take it where I can get it right now.
I spend twenty minutes in Coach running my fingers over structured leather bags while Boulder and SB, my father’s two men, trail me again. Apparently, he’s decided I still need babysitters.
I’ve stopped noticing them. They’re just part of the room now, and I’ve learned to move around without thinking about them.
Prada is quieter, where the saleswomen don’t approach unless you make eye contact first. I pick up a pair of sunglasses I don’t need, hold them without trying them on, and think about Artem’s hand in my hair and the talk of “no expiration” said against my mouth in a dressing room.
I still don’t know how to manage being tied to him because he’s not as easily readable as Misha.
He’s… an asshole, but he’s good to me.
In the kind of good that doesn’t make me uncomfortable and cringey.
The department store is the last stop, large enough to get lost in, which is what I’m looking for.
I drift through the designer section on the second floor, past silk blouses and blazers, past a display of evening wear that slows my steps just enough that I’m still standing there when I feel it.
Not a sound.
Just a shift and the awareness that comes from being raised in a world where not noticing things can get you killed.
Someone has positioned themselves too deliberately in my peripheral vision, and it’s the deliberateness that I register first.
That careful, practiced nonchalance that isn’t nonchalance at all.
I move to the nearest rack and flip through it without seeing a thing on it, giving myself a few seconds to take in the intruder.
Baseball cap.
Ordinary clothes chosen to disappear into a crowd, medium build, early to mid-forties, handsome. He’s spent years being watched and knows how to manage what people see.
He’s not one of my father’s men.
He’s not Volkov.
He picks up a silk nightgown from the display beside him and studies it like he’s considering the purchase, but his eyes stay on me with practiced patience.
Lucas Manifold.
I’ve seen his face in enough articles and research to place it without the suits and the campaign backdrop.
He looks smaller without all of that.
More ordinary.
Which is, I understand, entirely the point.
I stay where I am and don’t signal my men.
Across the room, Boulder has already noticed him.
SB has too. Neither moves because I haven’t given them a reason to.
Whatever he’s about to say, I want to hear every word, so that when I sit down with Artem and my brothers, I’m handing them the full picture.
I let him come to me. He stops beside me at the rack with his eyes on the silk like we’re just two strangers with similar taste.
“Nice color,” he says conversationally. “What do you think? Too much lace?”
“I think you should put it down and say whatever you came to say, Mr. Manifold.”
He smiles, and it’s a good smile, the kind that gets people elected. Warm and self-deprecating and hollow underneath.
“You’re direct. I appreciate that.” He replaces the nightgown on the rack carefully, every movement measured because he’s very aware of who else is in the room.
“I’m looking for Misha Makarov.”
“Aren’t we both?”
“I highly doubt that, Miss Gallagher. You’re his fiancée, which means you probably know more about where he is than you’re inclined to share.”
“The engagement ended,” I tell him. “Whatever arrangements Misha made, those aren’t my concern anymore.”
“They are now.” Something shifts underneath the pleasantness of his tone.
Something with teeth. “Misha and I had an arrangement, and arrangements don’t dissolve simply because one party decides to leave town.
Three million dollars is a significant sum, and it doesn’t disappear with him.
” He picks up another item from the rack without looking at it, maintaining the performance of browsing while his eyes remain fixed on my face.
“Which means the conversation comes to the people closest to him. And right now, Miss Gallagher, that’s you. ”
“I don’t think that’s your best move, Mr. Manifold. I have two men behind me who will drag you out by your ass with a glance. I’m not the one to play with.”
“Your father came to me six months ago. Did you know that? Asked me to look the other way on certain operations, offered me something significant in exchange.” He tilts his head, cataloguing my reactions.
“I declined. Not because I lack practicality, but because what your father was offering wasn’t commensurate with what I’d be giving up. ”
“And what would you be giving up?”
“My trajectory,” he says simply. “I’m going somewhere, Miss Gallagher.
Further than this city or this state, and the people I need to get there are watching very carefully how I handle situations like yours.
” He lets that sit for a moment. “And that means I need Misha’s debt settled, one way or another, and I need it settled soon. ”
“Then find Misha.”
“I’d rather find you,” he says, a threat delivered with manners.
“You’re more accessible, more visible, and frankly more motivated to make this disappear quietly, given the company you’ve been keeping lately.
” He pauses. “Artem Makarov is an interesting choice for a woman who’s supposedly just a civilian.
But then, you’ve never really been just a civilian, have you? ”
Something twists in my chest, but I keep my face even. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.” He steps closer, and I hold my ground.
“I’ve been watching your family for a long time.
I know considerably more than you’d find comfortable.
And what I know tells me that you are connected to people who can make my work very easy or very difficult, and I would strongly prefer easy.
” His eyes hold mine with steady, practiced confidence, sharpened by years of making people uncomfortable and walking away clean.
“Think of this as an opportunity to be useful. Which, from what I understand, is something the Gallagher family has always expected of you.”
He reaches out and closes his hand around my wrist.
Not violently yet, just the kind of pressure that silently communicates that he can do considerably more than this, and we both understand that perfectly well.
I don’t look at my men, nor do I make a sound.
I keep my eyes on Lucas Manifold’s face, and I think about every word he’s said since he picked up the nightgown.
He’s using me as leverage. He thinks I’m stupid.
I let him continue to think that and allow him to hold my wrist because I’m not finished listening, and letting go on his terms would mean this conversation is over on his terms, too.
“How are we going to settle this, Miss Gallagher?”
“You really are a fucking idiot, aren’t you, Mr. Manifold? My two brothers would hunt you down and torture you for walking up to me like this.”
He smirks like a confident piece of shit he is. Like he’s doing all this for the good of the people and his perceived notion that he’s doing some good in the world.
“I have the law behind me,” he replies. “And men in blue who will rip through your family within a night’s time.”
“Good luck with that, Mr—” A body steps in between us, and I have zero time to register it before I hear a grunt and the massive muscle and flesh move to the side.
I’m released and find a hand wrapped around Manifold’s throat.
Not his face.
Not his face. His throat. A precise, deliberate choice that folds Manifold forward without a sound.
I look at the third party who just interrupted our conversation and see Artem.
The whole sequence takes fewer than two seconds, and the women browsing the rack six feet away haven’t even looked up yet.
Boulder moves in as Artem forces Manifold forward. Before I fully process what’s happening, the two of them are steering him toward the service corridor. SB stays beside me.
The whole thing happens so smoothly that no one nearby seems to realize anything is wrong.
A few seconds later, two muffled shots come from somewhere beyond the service door.
I go completely still.
The store keeps moving around me. Soft music. Low conversation. Women with their hands full of beautiful things and no idea what just happened twenty feet away.
I stare at the empty space between the racks where Lucas Manifold was standing less than a minute ago.
Then I think about cameras and the saleswoman two racks over refolding a cashmere sweater. I think about everything he said before.
A few seconds later, the service door opens and Artem walks back out alone. He looks at my face first before his eyes drop to my wrist.
He takes it carefully in both hands and turns it over, examining the marks Manifold left there with an attention that is at odds with what he just did forty seconds ago.
Gentle and methodical, running his thumb carefully over the reddened skin.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
He looks up from my wrist to my face, the controlled blankness giving way to something that isn’t quite soft but is the closest thing to it that I’ve seen from him.
“Lisichka…” He cups my face in one hand and tilts it up before pressing his lips to my forehead and holding them there.
Like he hadn’t just killed someone in the middle of the nightwear section.
I close my eyes and breathe because it’s the first full breath I’ve taken since Manifold closed his hand around my wrist.
“Nod. Scream. Do something,” Artem mutters as if my silence is driving him mad.
He always sounds so… worried.
I nod, hoping that it’s enough to show him I’m fine.
“Okay,” Artem says against my hair before moving away. “Come on.”
His hand moves to the small of my back, and he guides me toward the exit without rushing. Slow is less noticeable in a crowd.
I walk beside him and say nothing, thinking about everything Lucas Manifold said before Artem arrived.
It doesn’t matter anymore because he’s gone.
Dead.
Artem’s hand remains at my back and, somehow, it’s all the comfort I need.
It feels right.
Like it’s him that was supposed to be at my side all along.