Chapter 3
I’ve been standing here for three minutes, watching her breathe. Not in a way that would get me arrested, but in a way that confirms she’s still functional. The shallow rise and fall of her chest tells me whatever cocktail she mixed last night hasn’t shut down her respiratory system. Yet.
She didn't make it to her bedroom. The gold dress has ridden up to mid-thigh, and she's twisted at an angle that guarantees she'll wake up unable to turn her head.
One bare foot touches the floor. The other is tucked under a throw pillow.
She looks like she fell from a great height and landed here, a beautiful disaster in silk and smeared mascara.
I should leave her. She made the bedroom rule clear: off-limits, no entry, not even if she's on fire.
But if she sleeps like this, she'll wake up with a spine like a question mark, and then she'll be useless for whatever threats are circling her.
Keeping the asset functional is part of the job.
That's what I tell myself as I cross to the couch.
"Marisol." I say it quietly, testing. She doesn't stir. I try again, louder. Nothing.
She's out cold. The kind of unconscious that comes from mixing champagne with whatever she took in that bathroom. The kind that makes people vulnerable.
I slide one arm under her knees, the other behind her shoulders. She weighs nothing, all chaos and sharp elbows and expensive fabric. Her head lolls against my chest as I lift her, and she mumbles something I can't make out.
The walk to her bedroom feels longer than it should.
Her door is cracked open, and I push through with my shoulder.
The room hits me with her scent: vanilla, coconut, something floral underneath.
It's concentrated here, soaked into every surface.
Clothes are everywhere. A bra hangs from a lamp.
Jewelry tangles on the vanity like expensive chaos.
I set her on the bed, and she immediately curls onto her side, pulling her knees up. The movement is instinctive, protective. Even unconscious, she's guarding herself.
Her phone sits silent on the nightstand. No notifications, which somehow makes me more uneasy than if there were threats lighting up the screen. The absence of messages could mean nothing. Or it could mean someone's being careful.
I pull the silk duvet over her, and she sighs, burrowing deeper into the pillow. Her lips move, but the words are a slur. Could be "creepessive"
I stand there for a moment, processing. She's given me a name. Made up a word for me. Filed me away in whatever part of her brain sorts the world through humor and deflection.
I retreat, close the door behind me, and stand in the hallway trying to understand why my mouth wants to twitch upward.
This is a problem. Not the names, those are just noise. The problem is that I almost smiled.
That doesn't happen. I don't smile at clients. I don't smile at chaos. I definitely don't smile at drunk disasters who smell like vanilla and make up words.
I need to do pull-ups until this feeling goes away. First, a few hours sleep so I can function tomorrow.
Five AM arrives like a drill sergeant, and my body responds before my brain fully engages. The guest room sheets are too soft. Egyptian cotton, probably. Everything in this apartment is soft except the woman who owns it. She's all sharp edges wrapped in silk.
The doorframe holds my weight without complaint. I grip the bar I installed last night while she was unconscious, feel the familiar bite against my palms. The pull-ups begin. Today's count, starting fresh.
One. Two. Three.
Sofia left twenty-five days ago. I count them like I count reps, each one a small punishment.
She chose Alexei Volkov over blood. Chose love over family.
Part of me understands. The other part, the part that trained her, that built her into something that could survive, that part feels like I failed.
Fifty-one. Fifty-two.
Did I make her too hard? Push her too far from who she was meant to be? Or did I not push hard enough, leave her soft enough to believe in things like love?
One hundred and three. One hundred and four.
My shoulders burn, but I keep going. This is my meditation, my prayer, my penance. Four hundred and twenty-three yesterday. Today I'll push for more. Today I'll earn the exhaustion that makes thinking impossible.
Two hundred. Two hundred and one.
The AC unit hums, loud enough to mask footsteps. A vulnerability. Anyone could approach her door without her hearing. I file it away, another risk to mitigate.
Movement in the main room. Too early for Marisol. She won't surface before noon if her patterns hold. I drop from the bar, silent on bare feet, and move to investigate.
No intruder. Just the apartment itself, telling its story in debris.
I examine everything systematically. The kitchen: seven empty champagne bottles lined up on the counter like soldiers.
The freezer contains vodka, ice, and what might once have been food but has evolved into something else.
The fridge tells the same story. More champagne, takeout containers conducting science experiments, one sad lime that's given up on life.
The living room: Her clutch is still on the floor, contents scattered. I collect the lipstick, the credit cards, carefully don't touch the small bag that isn't my business.
What interests me most is the bookshelf. The photos are dusty, like she doesn't look at them anymore and instructs her maid to stay away.
One shows a woman with Marisol's honey eyes and softer smile. Her mother, based on bone structure. Beautiful in that way that makes men stupid.
Another photo stops me cold. Marisol, maybe seventeen, genuine smile bright as she leans into a young man's shoulder.
Dark hair, intense eyes, protective arm around her.
Her brother, I think. This is before: before the mother died, before whatever sent him to the priesthood, before she started drowning herself nightly.
They look happy. Real. Nothing like the disaster I carried to bed four hours ago.
I study the photo, trying to reconcile this girl with the woman I met last night. Something broke her. Something specific and devastating, beyond just losing her mother. Maybe the brother's absence is a wound she's still bleeding from. Absent siblings can do that, i think, mind flitting to Sofia.
Movement on the rooftop catches my eye through the skylights. No threat, just morning birds. But it reminds me there's a whole other level to secure.
The private rooftop pool is pristine. Untouched. The water reflects the pre-dawn sky without a single ripple. Expensive loungers that have never held a body. An outdoor kitchen that's never seen food.
She owns a pool she never uses. In Miami. In a penthouse designed around water views.
Last night she avoided looking at it. The same way she avoids silence, avoids stillness, avoids being sober enough to feel whatever she's running from.
I understand the strategy. Different methods, same war. I exhaust my body until my mind shuts down. She exhausts her mind until her body gives up. Both of us running from ghosts, just in opposite directions.
Eleven AM. The bedroom door opens like a confession.
She looks like death went on a bender. Silk robe barely tied, last night's makeup creating abstract art under her eyes, hair defying several laws of physics and possibly threatening nearby aircraft.
She squints at me like I'm personally responsible for the existence of daylight. Shuffles toward the kitchen with the coordination of a newborn giraffe. Stops when she sees me at her island, eating eggs.
The silence stretches. I count: three seconds, four, five…
"Horse Man lives." Her voice sounds like she gargled gravel.
"Good morning."
"Is it? Is it good?" She gestures vaguely at her entire existence. "Because I feel like someone scraped me off a nightclub floor and reanimated me badly."
"You look like it too."
She barks a laugh, genuine, surprised, then immediately clutches her head. "Ow. No laughing. Laughing is cancelled. You're not allowed to be funny."
"I wasn't being funny."
"That makes it worse." She navigates to the coffee maker like it's a complex military operation. Stares at it. "Why is there already coffee?"
"I made it. At five."
"Five in the MORNING?" She spins to face me, horrified. "That's not a real time. That's a myth. Five AM is what happens when you stay up too late, not when you wake up."
"It's real. You slept through it."
She pours coffee with shaking hands, drinks it black, makes a face like it personally betrayed her. "This is punishment coffee. This coffee hates me."
"It's military coffee."
"Of course it is. Even your coffee is angry and joyless." She takes another sip anyway, a masochist with a mug. "Wait. Did you carry me to bed?"
I keep my face neutral, take another bite of eggs.
Her eyes narrow. "I remember the couch. I definitely passed out on the couch. Now I woke up in my bed. EXPLAIN."
"You were in a suboptimal sleeping position."
"You CARRIED me? To my ROOM? The room that's OFF-LIMITS?"
"You were unconscious. The restriction didn't seem to apply."
"It ALWAYS applies! That's what off-limits means!" But she's flushing pink under the disaster of her makeup, and there's something in her voice that isn't quite anger. "You just… picked me up and… like a…"
"Like an asset that needed to be relocated to a more suitable position."
"AN ASSET." She sets the mug down too hard, coffee sloshing. "I'm an ASSET now."
"You've always been an asset. That's why I'm here."
"I'm a PERSON, you ridiculous…" She waves her hands, searching for an insult that won't come. "You… you TACTICAL BANANA."
I blink. Process. "Tactical banana?"
"I'm HUNGOVER. My insults aren't working right. But you know what I mean!" She grabs a croissant from a bag on the counter. "You can't just carry people without their consent. There are RULES."