Chapter 5 - UpstairsThe storm knocked out half the block ten minutes later.
Blue Harbor Diner went dark except for the emergency lights above the exit and the yellow glow of the gas stove. Rain came through the broken kitchen window until Jerry boarded it with an old sign that used to say PIE SPECIAL $2.99.
Mikhail’s men removed the bodies through the back like they had done it before.
I tried not to ask where they took them.
I tried harder not to care.
My shoulder burned beneath the towel Jerry pressed against it.
“You need stitches,” he said.
“I need coffee.”
“You need a hospital.”
Mikhail appeared beside us. “A doctor is coming.”
I looked up. “I didn’t ask for one.”
“You are bleeding because of me.”
“I’m bleeding because a masked man broke into my diner.”
“Because of me,” he repeated.
There was no argument in his tone, only fact.
Misha sat curled in the corner booth beneath my old Chicago Cubs blanket. He had refused to go outside. Refused to leave me. Refused to be carried by anyone except his father.
For a boy surrounded by dangerous men, he looked heartbreakingly small.
“My apartment upstairs has one bedroom,” I said. “If he sleeps there, I sleep on the couch.”
Mikhail studied me. “You said no.”
“That was before men came through my kitchen window.”
His mouth shifted, almost a smile.
Almost.
“Your survival instincts are inconsistent.”
“My compassion gets in the way.”
“Yes,” he said. “I noticed.”
I led them upstairs through the narrow back staircase. My apartment was nothing like the world Mikhail came from. The carpet was old. The radiator knocked when it worked. My sofa had a blanket covering the rip in the middle cushion.
Misha stepped inside and looked around as if it were a palace.
“You live here?”
“Above the diner,” I said.
“Can you smell pancakes all the time?”
“Unfortunately.”
He smiled again.
Mikhail did not.
He walked through the apartment once, opening closets, checking windows, looking behind curtains. I stood with one hand on my injured shoulder and watched the richest, most feared man in Chicago inspect my thrift-store curtains for assassins.
It would have been absurd if it had not been my life.
The doctor arrived through the back entrance twenty minutes later, a gray-haired woman with a leather bag and no questions.
She stitched my shoulder while Misha held my free hand.
Mikhail watched from the kitchen doorway.
“You should not look so guilty,” I told him through clenched teeth.
“I am not used to strangers getting hurt for my family.”
“Maybe your family is the problem.”
The doctor’s hands paused.
Mikhail’s eyes lifted.
Jerry, from the doorway, whispered, “Clara.”
But I was tired, bleeding, and done being afraid.
“You said it yourself. Your house is compromised. Your son was left in a storm. Someone from your world sent men here. Maybe you should stop looking outside and start looking at the people eating at your own table.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then his phone buzzed.
He read the message.
His face became stone.
“Ana is dead.”
May you like
Misha’s fingers tightened around mine.
“And beside her body,” Mikhail said, “they found your diner receipt.”
