Me: You're right. I'm sorry. It IS good. I'm really glad
Gemma: go to work, stop worrying about us, we're FINE
My heart wants to crack open. I know the truth. They're not fine. None of us have been fine since Dad took a loan from a monster and then had the audacity to die before paying it back. He left me to pick up the pieces of a debt that multiplies like a virus, feeding on interest and late fees and the particular cruelty of men who enjoy watching hope die slowly.
I set the phone down and catch my reflection in the darkened window above the sink. Twenty-four years old and I look ten years older. Shadows hang out under my eyes that no concealer can hide. I lean forward and get a closer look at the purple-gray crescents that speak of too many sleepless nights spent staring at spreadsheets that never add up.
I step back for an overall view. Rumpled hair that needs a trim I can't afford hangs around my shoulders.
I scootch my glasses up the bridge of my nose. “Ugh. God. I look like a zombie,” I groan at my reflection. My skin is too pale from too many hours spent under fluorescent lights. I have the kind of pallor that makes me look like I'm recovering from something I'll never actually escape.
I used to have dreams. A corner office at a publishing house downtown, the kind with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of the city I was conquering. Manuscripts piled on my desk, each one a world waiting to be discovered, stories I would help bring to life. I was going to make so many dreams come true. I was going to matter.
Now I shelve books other people will read and serve lattes to customers who look through me like I'm furniture, and I tell myself that at least Gemma gets to stay in school. At least Mom has a roof over her head.
The silver lining of my life right now is that at least the debt collectors haven't started calling my workplace again.
At least. At least. At least.
The sad anthem of a life lived in survival mode.
I drain my terrible coffee, the bitterness coating my tongue and doing nothing to shake the exhaustion from my bones. I rinse the mug, watching the water swirl brown against the stained porcelain, and I'm reaching for my work shirt when the knock comes at my front door.
I don’t move.
Another three sharp raps bang out against the cheap wood.
My blood crystallizes in my veins.
No one knocks on my door at six in the morning. No one except the kind of people who don't care about things like appropriate hours or basic human decency. The kind of people who own pieces of other humans and like to remind them of it.
Damn it.
I hold my breath, hoping I imagined it. Hoping the universe will grant me this one small mercy. The refrigerator hums in the silence, and somewhere down the hall a neighbor's television murmurs through thin walls.
Three more knocks. Harder this time. The door rattles in its frame.
"Katriana." The voice is soft, almost gentle. Somehow that makes it worse. "I know you're home. I can see the light under your door."
My body wants to crumple to the floor.
Victor Kedrov.
I could run to the fire escape. But I tried that last month and his goons were waiting for me at the bottom. I rub at my cheek where the back of Kedrov’s hand landed as a reminder he always gets what he wants.
I have no choice here. “Thanks, Dad,” I murmur into my empty living room.
My hands shake as I move toward the door, and I hate them for their betrayal. I hate the way fear has become my default setting, the way my body has learned to anticipate pain before it arrives. My heart pounds against my ribs like a trapped bird, and I can feel the pulse of it in my throat, my wrists, the tips of my trembling fingers.
I could pretend I'm not here. I could stay silent and pray he leaves.
But Victor Kedrov doesn't leave. Nah. The twisted asshole would wait as long as it takes to get what he’s owed. I mean, he's been waiting for years, circling my family like a patient vulture, and he has made it abundantly clear that he enjoys the waiting almost as much as the collecting. So I know better than to test him.
I open the door an inch at a time.
He looks like someone's grandfather. That's the thing about Victor that makes my skin crawl more than anything else. Thereading glasses perched on his nose, attached to a thin gold chain that glints in the harsh hallway light. The slightly rumpled suit that suggests academic distraction rather than calculated menace. The thin gray hair combed neatly to one side, not quite covering the age spots on his scalp.
He looks like a man who does crossword puzzles and worries about his cholesterol and sends birthday cards with crisp twenty-dollar bills inside.
