The world stops. Every nerve in my body fires at once, a full-body shock that roots me to the asphalt beneath my feet. He looks terrible. His left eye is swollen shut, a deep purple bruise that extends down his cheekbone and across the bridge of his nose. His lip is split and badly healed. He's thinner than I remember. Twitchy. His eyes, the one that's open, is wild.
"Kyle." His name comes out of my mouth like a reflex. Like a flinch.
"You fucking bitch." His voice is high and tight. "You sent him after me? You sent a fucking psycho to my apartment?"
My phone is in my hand. The lamp is four steps away. My keys are in my bag. I run through the calculations the way I've been running calculations for three years; except this time the math involves something I've never factored in before. Physical danger.
"I don't know what you're—"
"Don't." He steps closer. I step back. "He broke my phone. My laptop. My backup drive. He broke three of my fingers, Nadia. Look at this." He holds up his right hand. Two fingers are splinted crudely with tape and what looks like popsicle sticks. "And he said if I ever contacted you again, he'd come back and finish it. So I figured, why contact you? Why not just come find you?"
"Kyle, please. It's over. Just walk away."
"Over?" He laughs. High, brittle, unhinged. "You owe me. You've always owed me. Those photos were worth a fortune and your boyfriend destroyed everything. You think I'm just going to eat that?"
He grabs my arm. His grip is hard and desperate, the grip of a man with nothing left to lose. I try to pull back, but he's got my wrist and he's pulling me away from the lamp and into the darkness at the edge of the parking lot. My phone falls to the ground.
"Let go of me, or I swear to god I’ll scream.”
His laugh is cold and merciless. "You're going to get me my money. Every cent. Or I'll find another way to make your lifehell. Your dad, your sister, your brother. I know where they live, Nadia. I know where you live. I've always known."
Panic floods through me. The old panic. The kind I thought was gone. He's dragging me across the parking lot toward a car I don't recognize, a beat-up sedan parked under the dead streetlight at the far end.
"Kyle, stop" I'm digging my heels in but he's bigger than me. "Someone will see."
"Nobody's here. Nobody's ever here when you close. I've watched you, Nadia. For weeks. I know your schedule better than you do."
He opens the passenger door of his car and shoves me toward it. I grab the frame and brace myself. My fingers slip on the metal.
"Get in the car."
"No. If you’d been watching me, you’d know my fiancé picks me up every night after my shift."
He hits me. Open palm, across the face. My head snaps to the side and the parking lot blurs. The taste of blood fills my mouth, sharp and metallic. My ears ring.
"Fuck you and your psychofiancé. Get in the fucking car, Nadia."
He pushes me and I fall into the passenger seat. The door slams. I hear him run around to the driver's side. My hand finds the door handle but he's already in, already starting the engine, already hitting the locks.
The car pulls out of the parking lot and I watch Rosa's shrink in the side mirror. My bag is on the ground next to my phone.
Nobody knows where I am.
Rafferty
I'm late and I hate it.
Fifteen minutes. That's all. A call from Connor that ran long, something about a distribution contact in Cork who needed reassurance after the Baron situation. I handled it, but it put me behind, and now I'm pulling into Rosa's parking lot at six fifteen instead of six and Nadia isn't standing under the lamp.
She's always standing under the lamp.
I park and scan the lot. Two cars. Neither of them familiar. No Nadia on the sidewalk, not in the doorway, not visible through the restaurant windows. The closed sign is up. The lights inside are dim.
I get out. The air is cold and sharp and something in my gut is already tightening before I've taken three steps.
Her bag is on the ground.
It's half open, the contents spilling onto the asphalt. Her phone is face down two feet away. The screen is cracked. I pick it up and the glass bites into my fingers. The last thing on the screen is a text from Iris about cake.
