“I am.”
“To babysit me.”
“I’m just here to monitor your situation until certain questions are answered.”
She flinches at the wordmonitor, and for a moment, I think she might slam the door in my face. But then a small figure appears at her side and peers around her legs.
The daughter. Kira. She has her mother’s dark hair and coloring, but her eyes are blue instead of brown. She’s sporting a gap-toothed smile as she looks up at me.
“Mama, why does he have scars on his hands?”
Daria’s face drains of color. “Kira, we don’t ask questions like that.”
“But I want to know.”
I crouch so I’m at eye level with the girl. She doesn’t flinch the way her mother did. Instead, she studies me with the fearlessness only children possess.
“I got them from working,” I tell her.
“What kind of work?”
“The kind that’s hard on your hands.”
She considers this answer with the seriousness of a general planning a military campaign. “My mama’s hands have bumps on them from playing piano. Are your bumps from playing piano, too?”
“No. Not from piano.”
“Kira. Go to your room and play,” Daria tells her. “I need to talk to our... guest.”
The girl looks like she wants to argue, but something in her mother’s tone makes her think better of it. She gives me one last curious glance before disappearing down the hallway.
Daria steps back to let me into the apartment. The space is small but clean, filled with secondhand furniture and obsessively organized. An upright piano dominates one wall of the living room, and its surface is covered with sheet music and a small lamp.
“I need to get Kira ready for bed soon,” Daria says without looking at me. “You can wait here.”
The dismissal is clear.
I don’t sit. Instead, I stand near the window and observe. The apartment has two visible entry points: the front door and a fire escape accessible through one of the back rooms. The standard locks on the front door wouldn’t slow anyone with basic skills. No alarm system or security cameras.
The lack of protection surprises me. If Daria is working with dangerous people, she should have something in place. Unless she doesn’t think she needs it. Or unless the people she’s working with have convinced her they’re all the protection she requires.
Daria moves around the kitchen, preparing a snack for Kira while avoiding my gaze. I watch her reflection in the window glass, noting the way her hands tremble when she reaches for a cup and how she keeps glancing toward the hallway where her daughter disappeared. She’s afraid. Not just of me, but of something else.
Once she’s eaten, Daria ushers her down the hall, and soon, I hear the sounds of a bedtime routine. Water running. Teeth being brushed. A story being read aloud by Daria. Then, a lullaby sung with a sweetness that doesn’t match the haunted woman I met at the door.
Then silence.
I wait. Patience is a skill most people never develop. They fidget, check their phones, and let their minds drift to things that don’t matter. I learned a long time ago how to empty myself and simply exist, tracking every sound and shadow until the moment demands action.
Two hours after the lullaby ends and Daria is engrossed in a television show, I begin my sweep.
I walk through the apartment in a grid, section by section, using my phone’s light on its lowest setting. The living room yields nothing suspicious. The kitchen is clean and sparse, with cupboards that hold more empty space than food. The bathroom contains standard toiletries and a child’s bath toys. There’s nothing hidden behind the mirror or inside the tank.
I check Daria’s bedroom next. Her bed is neatly made, and her closet is so meticulously organized that it’s obvious it was done by someone trying to control the few things she can. I find no hidden compartments, secret documents, or burner phones tucked between folded sweaters.
Then, I ease open the door to Kira’s room.
Rule one: Don’t wake the child. Rule two: Don’t move what you don’t have to.
