My first answer is no. My second is inspired by math—distance, light, crowds, exits. My third is the truth. I want five minutes of walking through the city with my woman. I nod.
“Let’s walk.”
I take street side, placing her on the building side. My hand covers hers inside my coat pocket. I text Orlov.
Parallel us on Madison. Pick up if anything goes sideways.
A checkmark comes back. Fine.
The city is in that quiet state between Christmas and New Year’s, a week with a strange energy like no other.
We don’t take Fifth. Too many tourists, too many phones. I lead us west two blocks, where the sightlines are clean and the doormen have long memories. I ping Nikolai a breadcrumb:Walking. Eight blocks. Eyes up.Another checkmark.
The temperature changes at block four. An E-bike idles in a place where it shouldn’t be. The rider isn’t looking at the bike; he’s looking at us. Cassandra notices it too. Her arm tightens against mine and I squeeze back in a silentI’ve got you.
I slow our pace. We cut down a side street with brick homes, iron gates, and two pools of shadow between lamps. If they follow, they do it in the open.
They follow.
Three shapes emerge. One peels from a stoop ahead on the left, shoulders loose. Another crosses over from a van on our right, cap low, hands tucked deep into his pockets. The E-bike ghosts in behind us to close the gap. Gloves on all three. No meth twitch. This is paid work, not random.
“Heads up,” I murmur. “If I say down, you fall behind me and stay down, understand?”
“Okay,” she says calmly. She keeps her face neutral. I’m proud of that, though I hate there’s a reason for it.
Front left drifts into our lane and gives me a chin tip. “Got a light?”
“No,” I say, and keep walking.
He steps closer. My right foot angles, moving Cassandra half a pace behind my hip.
He reaches inside his jacket. I don’t wait. Heel kick to the lead knee. Joint pops, his weight collapses. Palm heel under his chin and his head snaps. I bounce his skull off brick once.
The one from the right closes in fast. I step into his chest, killing his leverage. Elbow to the ribs. Short hook to the solar plexus. Stomp to the instep. He grunts and swings wild with a baton. I catch his wrist and turn it, the baton clattering to the ground. I kick it under a parked car and give him concrete.
The E-bike whines closer. “Now,” someone from the van says. A fourth man. Good. I like it when they overplay.
“Behind me,” I tell her sharply. She obeys. Her breath is steady. Mine isn’t. Mine is angry.
The rider is the herder. He’s got a pocket pistol he thinks I don’t notice. I snap-kick his front wheel. It swerves and he spills, cursing and scraping his knuckles. The pistol skids under the van. He dives after it. He’s out for the next ten seconds. All I need is five.
The fourth man is the problem. Leather jacket, large blade. He moves quietly. He’s done this before. He doesn’t come for me first. He slides toward Cassandra’s flank. The worst kind of stupid.
I drop him with a boot to the kidney. Then I step forward, hands open, making myself the bigger problem. He flicks his eyes to me but not his knife. His blade glints and keeps its line.
He feints low, then pivots around my front, going where I didn’t want him to go—into her lane. He lifts the knife, pointing it at her belly.
I don’t have the angle to take his wrist or the time to draw without risking her.
“Down,” I tell her.
She drops with one breath. She trusts me with that breath, and I’m not about to waste it.
I step toward him, thrusting my forearm against his to jam the line, my other hand at the back of his neck, but he’s fast and changes grip mid-motion. He wants to come down and in. He wants organ, not muscle.
I pivot my hip, placing my own flesh where hers was a breath ago. It’s the only solution I can live with, and my body knows it. My hand goes for his thumb and bends it backward, breaking his grip. I drive the front of my skull toward his face while my knee slams into his thigh.
The E-bike rider claws for his pistol under the van.
