Chapter 2 - The Man at My Door
“Call Mr. Volkov.”
The driver’s voice was low, but something in it made Marco look at him differently.
Not like a chauffeur anymore.
Like a man who had been trained for emergencies.
“I said no.”
I stood in the middle of my destroyed kitchen with red lipstick screaming from the wall behind me.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HER FINISH IT.
Marco’s eyes kept moving between the message and me.
“Sofia.”
“I’m handling it.”
“With what?”
He gestured toward the room.
“With forty-three dollars?”
That hurt because it was true.
Before I could answer, the driver stepped into the hallway and made the call anyway.
I followed him.
“I told you not to.”
“I work for Mrs. Volkov tonight.”
His expression remained calm.
“She told me to make sure you arrived home safely.”
“I arrived.”
He looked over my shoulder at the broken apartment.
“No.”
He said it quietly.
“You didn’t.”
Footsteps sounded downstairs.
Heavy.
Several men.
Marco immediately moved closer to me.
I grabbed the nearest thing that could be used as a weapon.
A broken wooden chair leg.
The driver noticed.
For half a second, something like approval crossed his face.
Then Damian Volkov appeared at the top of the stairs.
He had removed his tie.
His black jacket was open.
Two men followed him, and another remained near the stairwell.
I had known him for less than two hours.
I was already furious to see him.
“You brought this here.”
He stopped.
His eyes went to the lipstick on the wall.
Then the ruined furniture.
Then Marco.
Finally, me.
“Are either of you hurt?”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“It isn’t.”
Marco stared.
“You’re Damian Volkov.”
Damian looked at him.
“And you’re Marco.”
“That’s creepy.”
“Marco.”
“What?”
“He knows where I go to school.”
“That does make it creepy.”
Damian almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he turned toward one of his men.
“Photograph everything.”
“No one touches anything until the police come.”
Every head turned toward me.
Damian studied my face.
“You want police involved?”
“Someone broke into my home and threatened my family.”
“Yes.”
“That’s generally what police are for.”
“In a perfect city.”
“This isn’t your decision.”
“No.”
He took out his phone.
“It isn’t.”
That surprised me.
He made a call.
He gave the address.
He requested a detective by name.
Then he put the phone away.
“Detective Alvarez will be here in nine minutes.”
I stared at him.
“You know detectives personally?”
“I know people personally.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
Marco moved toward the wall.
“Who is Cassandra Vale?”
Damian’s expression became still.
I answered before he could.
“A rich woman who doesn’t like hearing the word no.”
Marco looked at the destruction.
“She did all this?”
“We don’t know.”
Damian’s answer came immediately.
I looked at him.
“You think someone else did?”
“I think assumptions are expensive.”
“So are mattresses.”
One of Damian’s men turned his head to hide a smile.
Damian didn’t.
But his eyes changed.
He walked farther into the apartment.
He did not touch anything.
He examined the broken lock.
The drawers.
The sliced mattress.
The empty medicine cabinet.
Then he looked at the floor beneath my kitchen window.
“What?”
He crouched.
“There.”
A small black object rested beneath a chair.
One of his men put on gloves and picked it up.
“A listening device.”
Marco swore.
I forgot to correct him.
My stomach went cold.
“How long has that been here?”
“We’ll find out.”
Damian stood.
“This wasn’t just intimidation.”
I crossed my arms.
“What was it?”
“They searched.”
“For what?”
His eyes met mine.
“That’s the question.”
The police arrived seven minutes later.
Detective Luis Alvarez looked nothing like the dramatic homicide detectives on television.
He was short.
Forties.
Tired eyes.
Brown jacket.
He listened more than he spoke.
He photographed the message.
Bagged the listening device.
Checked the door.
Took our statements separately.
When he asked why Cassandra Vale might want to threaten me, I told him exactly what happened at the ballroom.
I did not leave out Damian.
I did not leave out the job offer.
And I did not leave out the fact that Damian somehow knew my mother’s hospital room and my brother’s pharmacy problem.
Alvarez looked through the doorway toward him.
“That bother you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I frowned.
“Good?”
“People get hurt when impressive men stop bothering them.”
I liked him immediately.
When the police finished, Alvarez pulled me aside.
“Don’t stay here tonight.”
“I can’t afford a hotel.”
“You won’t need one.”
I looked at Damian.
“No.”
Alvarez shrugged.
“That part is between you and Batman.”
“I heard that.”
Damian’s voice came from across the room.
Alvarez smiled.
“I wanted you to.”
An hour later, I was still refusing to leave.
Marco had packed a backpack.
Traitor.
Damian waited near the broken door.
He was patient in the way dangerous people could afford to be patient.
“I’m not moving into your house.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“A hotel?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
“A secure apartment.”
“Yours?”
“One of several.”
“That answer made it worse.”
“Sofia.”
I hated the way he said my name.
Too calmly.
Like he expected to use it many times.
“My mother is in the hospital.”
“A car can take you there whenever you want.”
“My brother has school.”
“He can continue attending school.”
“I have work.”
“You resigned tonight.”
“I did not.”
“The hotel manager terminated your employment twenty-six minutes after you left.”
The room became silent.
“What?”
Damian handed me his phone.
It was an email.
Richard had sent it.
Effective immediately, my employment at the Hargrove was terminated due to physical misconduct toward a guest.
My chest tightened.
I had expected Cassandra to retaliate.
I just hadn’t expected the first blow to land so quickly.
Marco read over my shoulder.
“Can they do that?”
“Apparently.”
Damian took the phone back.
“Your thirty-day employment with my mother begins now.”
“I haven’t signed anything.”
“Then sign tomorrow.”
I stared at the wall.
At the red words.
At the medicine bottles dumped into the sink.
At the ripped couch my mother had saved three years to buy.
“Thirty days.”
Damian nodded.
“Thirty days.”
“And Marco stays with me.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother gets moved only if her doctors approve.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody follows Marco into school.”
Damian hesitated.
“No visible security inside the school.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“That wasn’t what I said.”
“It’s what I’m agreeing to.”
Marco whispered, “Take it.”
I glared at him.
He lifted both hands.
“I’d personally enjoy not getting murdered over algebra.”
So we left.
I expected some giant mansion with gates and statues.
Instead, Damian took us to a renovated brownstone on East Seventy-Second Street.
Four floors.
Private entrance.
Security glass.
A discreet guard station.
Elegant, but not theatrical.
Elena was already there.
She sat in the living room drinking tea.
The moment she saw Marco, her face softened.
“You must be the younger brother.”
Marco glanced at me.
“Does everybody know everything?”
Elena smiled.
“In this family, yes.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
For the first time that night, I laughed.
It came out broken.
Too sharp.
Almost a sob.
I turned away.
Elena noticed.
Of course she did.
“Sofia.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, dear.”
She rolled closer.
“You’re functioning.”
There was a difference.
I knew there was.
I had been functioning for years.
She held out her hand.
I looked at it.
Then at Damian.
He had moved to the far side of the room.
Giving us space.
I took Elena’s hand.
“My apartment was destroyed because I stopped someone from hitting you.”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret what I did?”
Her answer came immediately.
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“Good.”
“But I’m scared.”
She squeezed my hand.
“So am I.”
That stopped me.
Damian’s mother.
The woman people had moved away from in a ballroom the moment her son arrived.
She was scared too.
“Of Cassandra?”
Elena looked toward Damian.
“No.”
His expression changed.
Barely.
“Mother.”
She ignored him.
“I’m afraid of what Cassandra is attached to.”
I slowly sat down.
“What does that mean?”
Damian answered this time.
“It means tonight wasn’t about a wet dress.”
I looked between them.
“Then what was it about?”
Elena took a slow breath.
“Three weeks ago, I discovered money missing from a charitable trust.”
“How much?”
Damian answered.
“Forty-eight million dollars.”
Marco nearly dropped his backpack.
I stared at Damian.
“And Cassandra?”
“Her family’s bank handled the transfers.”
The room suddenly felt smaller.
“Was she trying to hurt your mother because she knew?”
“We don’t know.”
“But you think so.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“My mother received an anonymous warning yesterday.”
Elena looked down.
“Stop asking questions.”
I stared at her.
“You still went to the gala?”
She smiled faintly.
“I am seventy-two, Sofia.”
“So?”
“So I spent thirty years surrounded by men who thought threats were a substitute for authority.”
Her eyes became sharp.
“I’m too old to be impressed.”
Marco whispered, “I really like her.”
Damian looked at me.
“I offered you the job because my mother trusts you.”
“You offered me the job before my apartment got destroyed.”
“Yes.”
“And you already knew about the money.”
“Yes.”
Anger returned.
“You should have told me.”
“You’re right.”
That answer threw me off.
“I’m what?”
“You’re right.”
He stepped closer.
“I should have told you.”
No excuses.
No speech.
Just that.
Then his phone vibrated.
He read the message.
The softness disappeared.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Security pulled the hotel footage.”
“And?”
“Cassandra didn’t arrive alone.”
“Who was with her?”
Damian’s eyes went cold.
“Your manager.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“Richard?”
“He met Cassandra in the service corridor seventeen minutes before the incident.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No.”
Damian held my gaze.
“But he handed her something.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
He turned the phone toward me.
The image was grainy.
Richard stood near the loading entrance.
Cassandra beside him.
In her hand was a photograph.
Damian zoomed in.
I knew the face immediately.
My mother.
Taken outside St. Agnes Hospital.
Marco whispered one word.
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
Because suddenly the destroyed apartment was not the most frightening thing that had happened that night.
Someone had been watching my family before I ever stopped Cassandra’s hand.
Before the ballroom.
Before the job offer.
Before Damian Volkov knew my name.
Which meant the most important question had changed.
May you like
It wasn’t why Cassandra wanted revenge.
It was why she already knew who I was.
