“—hangs in the balance, and you’re the only person who could possibly understand?—”
“Get out.”
“Please,” I hear myself whimpering, “just hear me out?—”
“You have sixty seconds to leave,” she says. “Starting now.”
“Eliana—”
“Fifty-five seconds. And just so you know, when I hit zero, I’m going to start screaming loud enough to wake this entire building. Then I’m calling the police and telling them exactly where the supposedly dead Bastian Hale is hiding.”
“For fuck’s sake, you wouldn’t?—”
“Wouldn’t I?” She cocks her head to one side. “I don’t care if it puts you in danger or ruins whatever plan you’re cooking up. All I care about is getting you out of my apartment and out of my life before you destroy what little I have left.”
“Just give me?—”
“Forty-five seconds, Bastian.”
I know when I’ve lost. Without another word, I turn and leave. She slams the door behind me hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling tiles. It floats around me and coats my shoulders like the sprinkle of powdered sugar on a kouign-amann from a lifetime ago.
The hallway yawns before me, dimly lit and smelling of mildew and someone’s forgotten takeout. I trudge down the stairwell. My feet are heavy, so fucking heavy. Just putting one in front of the other is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I should have known better. In hindsight, it’s so fucking obvious that she’d tell me to go to hell. What did I expect—that she’d welcome me with open arms after everything I’ve done? After what she saw in that alley?
The image of her standing in the doorway in her funeral clothes burns behind my eyelids. Her ribs poking through a sweat-stained undershirt.Idid that to her.Ibroke her down to this shadow of the woman. She used to march into my office ready for war, and I ruined her.
Outside, the midsummer humidity hits me like a wet wall. The world doesn’t give a shit that I’m supposed to be dead. Traffic still moves. People still walk past without looking up from their phones.
I continue my trudge to the car, a nondescript sedan I bought with cash three days ago. I paid extra for the salesman to “forget” about the paperwork. I wanted nothing that could be traced back to the dead man I’m pretending to be.
I get in and drive exactly one block before pulling over. From here, I have a clear view of her building’s entrance.
I tell myself I’m just making sure she’s safe. Once I know that no one followed her home from the funeral, I’ll leave. Purely pragmatic, nothing more.
It’s all bullshit, and I know it. The truth is I can’t make myself drive away.
I lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes, but all I see is the hatred with which she looked at me in that apartment.
You have a lot of fucking nerve.
She’s right. I do. Only a man with a lot of fucking nerve would do what I did. Three nights ago, I killed a man and dragged his corpse into a South Side warehouse that Aleksei owns through a series of nameless shell companies. The resemblance between us had been close enough. Same height, similar build. After I put two bullets in his skull at close range, the facial features became academic anyway.
The coroner I paid off did the rest. A few grand in the right pockets, and suddenly, Greek mobster Giannis Kostis became Bastian Hale in the official reports. The medical examiner didn’t even blink when he signed off on the death certificate. Just another day in Chicago.
I’d stood in the shadows outside that warehouse, watching the coroner’s van pull away with “my” body, knowing that by morning, the news would report the tragic death of a successful restaurateur. A cautionary tale about getting too close to the wrong people.
What ever happened to him?some people would say.He had such a bright future ahead of him.
But the only people who’d say that would be the ones who never really knew me. I was all too aware, as I meticulously burned off the Greek mafioso’s fingertips and ripped out his teeth with pliers to avoid dental record identification, that my future wasn’t bright at all. It was pitch-fucking black.
And so was Sage’s.
Unless I found a way out for both of us.
I tell myself I’ll leave in five minutes. Then ten. Then thirty. But an hour passes, and I’m still sitting here like a fucking stalker, watching the warm square of light that marks Eliana’s apartment. The evening darkens around me. Streetlights turn on one by one, but that golden rectangle remains constant.
I wonder what she’s doing. If she’s raging. If she’s crying.
