“You’ve been a good girl,” he murmurs into my hair as I walk him through the dining room. “Did I ever tell you that, Cassie?”
Cassie.I hate that so much. I never want to hear it again. “You did. Many times.”
“Good.” His head bobs. “Good.”
I get him to the bedroom, then sit him down on the edge of the mattress and crouch in front of him to untie his shoes. I don’t want to—fuck knows I never want to kneel in front of this son of a bitch again—but I have to, because I need this to look exactly the way it would look on any other night.
I get everything off him, shoes and socks and outer clothes. His watch and cufflinks go onto the bedside table. “Lie back,” I tell him, and then I tuck his legs under the duvet.
I stand over him and gaze down for several long minutes. His mouth is slack. His eyes flutter once, twice, and then close. His chest rises. His chest falls.
When I’m sure he’s finally out, I let my mask drop.
“I hope you dream about her, motherfucker,” I spit down at him. “I hope she’s the last thing you ever see.”
Then I leave the room.
In the kitchen, I clear the dishes into the sink. I rinse Raymond’s bourbon glass and his water glass. I run them under hot water until the inside of the bourbon glass is clean of any residue at all.
I take the other pill out of my apron pocket. Half a milligram—just enough to put me under, but not enough to hurt the baby. Or so Matvei promised.
I’m trusting you,I say to him silently.I know you won’t let me down.
I change into a pajama set, then walk down the hall to the guest room and close the door behind me. Once I’m in there, I throw back the pill and swallow it dry. When it’s down the hatch, I rest one hand on my stomach as I settle back onto the pillows and gaze up at the ceiling.
I spent so many nights like this, looking up at the dark ceiling and wondering when my nightmare would end.
Now, we’re here. Right at the cusp of the end.
Not far away, a man in a long black coat is moving across rooftops and through service entrances, getting closer. I can feel him coming. He’ll be here. He said he would be, and Matvei would never lie to me.
Not about this. Not about anything that matters.
I let my eyes fall shut.
Mat is on his way,I think.Mat is on his way. Mat is…
39
MAT
I fucking love when a plan works.
The service entrance to the Snyders’ apartment building on East Sixty-Ninth has a camera over the loading bay that has been busted for four days now, courtesy of a small, untraceable favor I called in on Tuesday. The doorman on graveyard rotation is a Bratva-friendly Belarusian named Dima who, for the price of a thousand dollars and a bottle of Beluga, will be in the basement counting linens for the next forty-five minutes and remember nothing when the police arrive tomorrow morning.
I take the stairs. It’s twenty-one flights, but I’ve got fucking jet fuel in my bloodstream, so I do them two at a time, flying higher and higher. This is the best my body has felt in months—because for the first time in months, I am movingtowardher instead of away. My ribs don’t make a peep.
I tell myself what I will do once it’s done. I will let myself into the guest room. I will sit on the edge of the bed beside her and watch her sleep for one full minute, because I have earned it, and because I’m owed one minute in this entire wretched life wherethe only thing I have to think about is the rise and fall of her chest.
After that… fuck it. Who cares what happens after that? We’re free.
I reach the top of the staircase. The lock on the penthouse’s service door is a Medeco. I have the bump key in my breast pocket, next to the sonogram that I haven’t put down since the moment Cass gave it to me.
Turns out I don’t need the bump key, though.
Because the service door is unlocked.
The observation hits me like missing a step on a staircase. A fraction of a second of nasty imbalance, and then the cold rush of everything reordering itself.
