Sold to the Bratva King novel · Chapter 9 of 32
Chapter 9: Four Boxes and a Ficus
I owned four boxes and a ficus.
Zoya had bought me the ficus. She said every apartment needs one thing that can die if you ignore it, so you'll practice not ignoring things.
Matvei's driver carried it up the outside stairs to my apartment with both arms around the pot.
He set it by the window, turned it a quarter turn toward the light, and nodded at it.
It was the most I'd ever seen him express.
Matvei carried two boxes at once. Zoya carried my red coffee can and wouldn't let anyone else touch it.
The apartment was three rooms over the garage.
A kitchen with a gas stove from before I was born. A bedroom with a slanted ceiling. A bathroom with a claw-foot tub somebody had painted green.
I'd scrubbed it all the night before until the old tile shone.
The door had two locks. Both were on my side, and both keys were in my pocket. Nobody else in the world had a copy.
I made them stand in the kitchen while I locked it and unlocked it three times.
Zoya filmed it for her Instagram.
"I'm making dinner," I said.
Matvei and Zoya looked at each other.
"I'm a good cook," I said.
"You've cooked before?" Matvei asked.
"I've scrubbed every pot in that house for twelve years." I took a chicken out of the fridge. "Lindsey had a cook. I wasn't allowed to touch food unless it was a leftover."
"So no," Zoya said out loud.
"I have a recipe on my phone."
The recipe said one hour at three hundred and seventy-five. I thought more heat would make it faster.
The smoke alarm went off at minute thirty-one.
Matvei reached up and twisted the alarm off the ceiling with one hand.
Zoya couldn't hear the alarm. She was laughing so hard at his face that she had to sit on the floor.
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