The one in the passenger seat opened my door and motioned for me to step out, smiling kindly. The smile even reached his eyes, and there wasn't a hint of malice in them, but the effect was ruined by the black ink crawling up his neck. And the tattoo of the eye behind his ear.
I gave him a tight smile and climbed out, clenching my coffee to give my hands something to do.
The morning air hit my face, and I scanned the street—left, right, across the way. Waiting for movement. For the shout. For the rush of bodies in tactical gear.
Nothing.
Just morning traffic. A woman walking a dog. A delivery truck idling.
The driver stepped up next to us and led us not into the store but around the back, to the stairs leading to the entrance of my apartment. Without my keys, I was wondering how we were going to get in when he pulled them from his pocket.
Darius must have grabbed them when he knocked me out; they had just been sitting on the counter in the shop.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs, truly terrified about what we were going to find in my apartment.
Each step upward was a monumental effort, my thighs screaming in protest. The collar seemed to tighten with eachstair, or maybe that was just my imagination. Maybe it was the panic closing my airway.
Had my mother already been here?
Was she still here?
I was sure she'd have called the police by now.
Had they already been in my apartment, or were they sitting there waiting for us?
He opened the door and I flinched, bracing for the inevitable fallout of a gunfight between federal agents waiting in my apartment and these men who were under orders from one of the scariest people I had ever seen.
I pressed myself against the stairwell wall, shrinking myself as small as possible. My coffee cup crumpled slightly in my grip, hot liquid sloshing over the rim and burning my fingers. I barely felt it.
There was nowhere for me to hide, and I could just see the news headlines:
“Senator's Daughter Tragically Killed in Shootout Between Russian Mob and Police. Her grief-stricken mother is pushing through for another election because serving the people is what her daughter would have wanted.”
The open door was met with silence.
No gunfire. No shouted commands. No mother.
Just...silence.
I stepped inside, with the two men following me. I looked around really quickly and could find nothing out of place.
But everything looked wrong through the lens of my fear. The shadows seemed darker, the familiar space suddenly foreign. My vision tunneled, focusing on details. The dust motes in the sunlight, the slightly crooked frame on the wall, everything blurred through the unshed tears of my peripheral vision.
My favorite mug was still sitting on the drying rack on the counter, and the small dining room table was covered insheet music and Post-it notes. Random knickknacks that I had collected over the years, odds and ends that my mother hated and said only existed to take tourist dollars and collect dust, covered my bookshelves, just because they made me happy.
It didn't look like anyone had been up here at all.
That realization hit me like a physical blow.
My knees buckled slightly, and I had to catch myself on the back of a chair. The wood bit into my injured palm, and I gasped.
She hadn't come. She hadn't sent anyone.
One of the men who came in with me motioned for me to take a seat at the dining room table while they went through my apartment.
I had no idea what they were looking for.
My stomach clenched as their search took an eternity. They opened every door, every drawer, and even looked under my couch cushions like police officers might be hiding there.
