She Played Sweet for Her Boyfriend, He Learned Who She Really Was novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Milk at Viktor's Table
At Sunday dinner Viktor orders the bookkeeper Nika is guarding killed that night, and Luka sends her to do dishes; she slips out, stops the hit men on the stairs, and Luka's car pulls up behind her.
Viktor Draganov poured me a glass of milk in front of twenty people, and I thanked him with my best smile.
It was the second Sunday of the month, which meant dinner at his house.
The table was long enough to seat the whole family and the men who worked for it.
"Nika doesn't drink," Viktor told the man beside him. "Wine gives her headaches. I remember these things."
"You're too kind, Viktor," I said.
He patted my hand. His palm was dry and warm, and he held on a moment longer than he had to.
Everyone at that table liked me because I was easy.
I laughed at the right jokes and ate what I was given.
In twenty months I had never raised my voice, and I had never once asked what any of them did for a living.
My boyfriend sat on my left with his arm along the back of my chair.
He was frowning at his plate. Luka frowned at most things.
He had frowned when he asked me out, and again when he told me I wasn't allowed to take the train after dark.
His thumb moved on my shoulder, once, without his looking at me.
My phone buzzed against my thigh under the napkin.
I glanced down. The message was from Mara.
"Orlin is at the Archer flat. Still yours till Friday. Do not let him open the door."
I turned the phone face down and reached for the bread.
Nine days ago Mara had booked me a job.
An old accountant named Orlin, hiding from a man he refused to name.
I had parked across from his window every night since, and I had never heard Luka say that surname.
Now Viktor tapped his fork against his glass, and the talk around the table stopped.
"A small matter before dessert," he said, in the same soft voice he used to praise the soup.
"Pavel Orlin has kept my books for thirty years. For ten of them, he has kept a second set."
Nobody moved.
A woman near the door set down her napkin very quietly.
"Tonight," Viktor said to his driver, at the foot of the table. "Take two others."
"The laundromat on Archer, upstairs. He thinks nobody knows he is there."
The driver nodded and stood.
Friday had been the date. Mara had been sure of it.
Viktor had moved it up, and he had done it over roast lamb.
He had done it in front of the whole family, so every person there would share it.
Luka's hand slid from my shoulder to my knee.
"Hey," he said, low, only for me. "It's business. It has nothing to do with you."
"Okay," I said.
"You've gone pale." He studied my face. "Go help my aunt with the plates, Nika-love. I don't want you hearing this kind of talk."
"Of course," I said.
I stood and smiled at Viktor, who smiled back.
Then I picked up the nearest dish and carried it out to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Luka's aunt had her sleeves pushed up and a sink full of water.
"Those two," she said, nodding toward the dining room. "Men and their dinners. Hand me that."
I handed her the dish.
My purse hung on the back of a chair.
Luka went through it every week and through my phone every month.
He always did it gently, and he always said it was so I'd never be stranded.
In all that time he had never once touched the black case under my bed.
I took the purse and slung it over my shoulder.
"I left my pills in the car," I told his aunt. "I'll be right back."
"Take a coat. It's cold."
"I will."
I did not take a coat.
I went out through the back door, down the alley, and onto the street, where I opened an app and called a car.
Nine days I'd spent on that stairwell and that window. Orlin had cried when I told him he wouldn't die on my watch.
I had made that promise as a favor to Mara and a paycheck to myself.
Now it had Luka's father's name attached, and Luka's hand on my knee telling me it was nothing to do with me.
I wasn't going to let them kill him.
That was the whole decision, and it took one block to make.
The car let me out at the corner of Archer Avenue.
I walked the last half block with my braid over my shoulder and my cardigan buttoned to the neck.
The laundromat was lit and empty except for a dryer turning somebody's sheets.
Beside it was a narrow door that led up to the flat.
I crouched and slid the thin blade out of my boot, the one taped there every Sunday, and tested the door.
It was already unlocked.
I took the stairs in the dark, close to the wall, where the wood didn't creak.
The first man stood on the landing with his back to me, a pistol hanging at his side.
The second stood at the flat's door with a suppressor already on his pistol.
The driver was not with them. That was a mistake on Viktor's part.
I put the blade through the first man's wrist, where the tendons ran, and his hand opened.
I caught the pistol before it hit the floor.
He turned to shout, and I hit him under the ear with the butt, and he went down against the banister.
The second man spun and fired.
The shot was a flat cough, and it took a chip out of the wall beside my head.
I shot him twice in the shoulder and once in the thigh.
He folded onto the landing, and his gun slid away down the steps.
It was over fast.
On the other side of the flat's door I heard a chair scrape and an old man's voice whisper, "Who is there?"
"It's the girl from across the street, Mr. Orlin," I said. "Stay down. I'll be a minute."
I looked at the two men, and at the pistol in my hand, and I breathed out.
Then I heard a car door close at the bottom of the stairs.
I knew that sound. It was the heavy, expensive thud of a black Mercedes.
I turned around.
Luka stood in the doorway of the stairwell with the street light behind him.
He looked at the two men on the floor.
Then he looked at me, and at the gun in my hand.
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