Chapter 2 - THE MAN OUTSIDE HER APARTMENT
Z
Aliyah refused Victor Malenkov’s car.
She refused his driver.
She refused the terrifying man named Nikolai who appeared from nowhere wearing a black overcoat and an expression suggesting he had never enjoyed a joke in his life.
Then she walked three blocks toward the subway before realizing a black SUV was following her at exactly four miles per hour.
Aliyah stopped beneath a streetlamp.
The SUV stopped.
She marched toward it and knocked on the passenger window.
Victor lowered the glass.
“This is stalking.”
“This is transportation with unreasonable resistance.”
“You cannot follow me home.”
“I already know where you live.”
That stopped her.
Victor apparently realized it sounded worse than intended.
“My people checked.”
“Your people checked?”
“For security.”
“You had me investigated in twenty minutes?”
“Nineteen.”
Aliyah stared at him.
He stared back.
Rain collected in her curls, ran down her cheeks, and soaked through the collar of her cheap coat.
Finally Victor opened the door.
“You are getting wet.”
“I noticed.”
“And angry.”
“I noticed that too.”
“Get in angry.”
Despite herself, Aliyah laughed.
It escaped before she could stop it.
Victor went completely still.
For the second time that night, she saw something human break across his face.
Not grief.
Surprise.
As though he had forgotten what laughter sounded like when directed at him without fear.
Aliyah sighed and climbed inside.
Her apartment was in Dorchester, on the third floor of a narrow brick building above a laundromat that never seemed to close.
When the SUV stopped outside, Aliyah immediately noticed the man standing beneath the awning across the street.
Baseball cap.
Dark jacket.
Hands in his pockets.
Victor noticed him too.
Everything changed.
“Nikolai.”
The driver was already reaching beneath his coat.
“No guns,” Aliyah snapped.
Both men looked at her.
She pointed toward the apartment windows.
“There are families here.”
Victor’s eyes remained on the stranger.
“Nikolai, take Miss Brooks inside.”
“I’m capable of walking.”
“Tonight you are capable of following instructions.”
“Apparently you really enjoy saying that.”
Victor opened his door.
Aliyah grabbed his sleeve without thinking.
His entire body froze.
She released him immediately.
“Sorry.”
Victor stared at the place where her fingers had touched his arm.
Then he looked at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It was clearly something.”
For twelve years, touch had meant memory.
His dead wife collapsing against him.
Blood soaking through her dress.
Her fingers going cold inside his.
Doctors pulling Victor away because he refused to release her.
After Elena’s murder, even accidental contact made his skin burn. He had learned to avoid handshakes, crowds, embraces, women who approached him at parties.
Then Aliyah Brooks had crashed directly into his chest.
And he had not recoiled.
That terrified him more than Sergei Petrov ever had.
“Stay in the vehicle,” Victor said.
He crossed the street.
The man under the awning ran.
Victor followed.
Aliyah barely saw what happened next.
The stranger reached the alley.
Victor caught him before he cleared the first dumpster.
A fist struck brick.
Someone grunted.
Nikolai muttered something in Russian.
“Is your boss killing him?”
“Probably not.”
“Probably?”
Nikolai considered this.
“Mr. Malenkov has shown unusual restraint tonight.”
Aliyah opened the door.
Nikolai locked it from the driver’s controls.
“Are you serious?”
“Very.”
Two minutes later, Victor returned alone.
There was blood across one knuckle.
Aliyah looked behind him.
“Where is the guy?”
“Gone.”
“That answer is disturbingly vague.”
“He ran.”
Victor climbed inside.
Aliyah grabbed his hand.
Again, he froze.
She examined the split skin across his knuckles.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It is nothing.”
“So was my hand, apparently, until you turned it into a federal emergency.”
She reached into her backpack for alcohol wipes.
Victor watched her clean the cut.
Nikolai watched through the rearview mirror with an expression of absolute disbelief.
Aliyah noticed.
“What?”
Nikolai immediately looked away.
Victor almost smiled.
“You make my employees nervous.”
“I’m a waitress.”
“No. You are a waitress who is disinfecting my hand while criticizing me.”
“That’s because whoever usually looks after you has clearly given up.”
Victor’s expression darkened unexpectedly.
“Elena used to say something similar.”
Aliyah stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize every time her name enters the room.”
His voice was quiet.
“She existed. I prefer remembering that to pretending she didn’t.”
Aliyah finished wrapping his hand.
“Then tell me about her sometime.”
Victor studied her.
Most people avoided mentioning Elena because Victor’s grief was legendary. Others mentioned her strategically, searching for weakness.
Aliyah simply sounded curious.
“She was stubborn.”
“That tracks.”
“What does?”
“You kept the handkerchief for twelve years. I figured she must’ve been memorable.”
Victor looked out the window.
“She was.”
Upstairs, Aliyah’s apartment showed no immediate signs of disturbance.
Then she reached the third-floor landing.
Her door was open.
She knew she had locked it.
Victor moved in front of her.
“Stay behind me.”
This time she did.
The living room had been destroyed.
Books covered the floor. Couch cushions had been cut open. Kitchen drawers hung crooked. Her nursing textbooks were scattered beside broken dishes.
Aliyah ran toward the bedroom.
Victor caught her wrist.
“My grandmother’s box.”
“Aliyah.”
“It has my mother’s things.”
She pulled away.
The bedroom was worse.
Her mattress had been overturned.
Clothes covered the floor.
On the wall above her bed, someone had written four words in black marker.
HE WILL BURY YOU.
Aliyah stared.
All the stubborn humor drained from her face.
Victor entered behind her.
For the first time since meeting him, Aliyah looked afraid.
Not startled.
Not irritated.
Afraid.
Victor’s voice became deadly.
“Nikolai.”
“I’m calling the team.”
Aliyah touched the letters.
“Why would they do this?”
“To frighten you.”
“They succeeded.”
Victor looked around.
Nothing of value had been stolen.
This had never been burglary.
Then Aliyah gasped.
She dropped to her knees near the dresser and pulled a small wooden box from beneath a pile of clothes.
The lid had been smashed.
Inside were old photographs, hospital bracelets, and a silver necklace.
Aliyah picked up a photograph of herself as a child beside a woman in blue hospital scrubs.
“My mother,” she whispered.
Victor crouched several feet away.
“She died when I was fifteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
Aliyah gave him a tired look.
“You’re allowed to apologize for dead mothers, apparently.”
The faintest smile touched his mouth.
Then she noticed something under the photograph.
A Polaroid.
It wasn’t hers.
Aliyah lifted it.
Her blood turned cold.
The photograph showed her leaving nursing school that morning.
Someone had taken it from across the street.
On the back, written in red ink, were six words.
ASK VICTOR ABOUT SAINT AGNES HOSPITAL.
Aliyah looked up.
Victor’s face had gone completely white.
“You know that name.”
He didn’t answer.
“Victor.”
His jaw tightened.
Aliyah stood.
“What happened at Saint Agnes?”
“Twelve years ago,” he said, “my wife was taken there after she was shot.”
Aliyah looked at the photograph again.
Her mother had worked at Saint Agnes.
Victor noticed the hospital logo printed on her blue scrubs.
He took the old picture from Aliyah’s trembling fingers.
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Denise Brooks.”
For the first time that evening, Victor Malenkov looked genuinely shocked.
He stared at Aliyah.
Then at the photograph.
Then back at her.
“I knew your mother.”
Aliyah stopped breathing.
May you like
Victor’s next words came almost reluctantly.
“She was the last person who spoke to my wife before Elena died.”
