Chapter 4: Soup for the Furious

Mara said three more things and hung up.

Take the battery out. Don't call me again. If you can, eat something.

I took the battery out of the second phone and put the pieces in my purse.

Luka watched every move I made.

"You have a handler," he said.

"A friend."

"A friend with a number in your lining who tells you when my father sets a price on you."

"She worries about me," I said.

He rubbed his face with his good hand.

"I need to sit down," he said, though he was already sitting, "and I need you to stop being reasonable at me."

"I'll try."

I opened the first-aid box and cleaned his arm.

He let me. He held very still while I poured the antiseptic over the torn skin, and he didn't make a sound.

I wrapped it in clean gauze, three times around, and pinned it.

"You'll want that stitched in the morning," I said. "I'll do it if you trust me."

"Trust you," Luka said to the ceiling.

I washed my hands at the sink.

There was a kettle on the stove and a shelf of canned soup.

There was a loaf of bread gone hard in its paper, and a jar of pickled beets someone had put up years ago.

"Mr. Orlin," I called, "do you like pepper?"

The old man looked up from the couch, where he sat with his bag still in his lap.

"I... yes. A little."

"Wonderful. Tomato or mushroom?"

"Nika," Luka said.

"Tomato, I think. Mushroom is for a better night."

"Nika."

"I can toast the bread over the stove if I scrape the mold off," I said. "Don't worry, it's only a bit."

"Stop it."

I turned around with the ladle in my hand.

Luka was on his feet. His face was white and his eyes were bright.

"Stop what?"

"That." He gestured at me, the ladle, the apron I had found on a hook.

"Humming. Asking about pepper. Men are bleeding on a laundromat floor."

Keep reading free with an account. Start She Played Sweet for Her Boyfriend, He Learned Who She Really Was from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.