Page 24 of The Last Dance

I liked Lin, whoever he was. He was the only person in this house who seemed to appreciate how far out of my depth I was.

I drank the water, took the pills, and got out of bed.

My first three steps were fine. The fourth was a disaster, because I looked down and realized that not only was I naked, but I was also—how to put this—marked. There was a perfect semicircle of bruises at the top of my thigh, and a bite on my left collarbone that was already blue at the edges.

I inspected the damage in the mirror. If I’d wanted plausible deniability, it was already gone. I looked thoroughly debauched, which was probably the point.

The bathroom was bigger than my entire last apartment. Marble everywhere, the kind of tile that stayed cold even when you ran the water. The shower had six heads. I counted.

I tried them all.

I stood under the spray, letting it drill the sleep out of my bones. The soap was scented, something subtle and expensive, not like the two-in-one I stole from the gym. I used it liberally, watching the suds collect in the drain like evidence.

It was strange, being here. Being in a place where nothing was broken, nothing needed duct tape, nothing smelled like mildew or old food. There was a towel rack—heated—and the towels themselves were so thick I lost a hand in one by accident.

I wrapped up and stepped back into the bedroom. There, on the foot of the bed, was a pile of clothes: jeans, white T-shirt, button-down, and a pair of house slippers that looked custom-made for someone my size. There were even socks, rolled with military precision.

I dressed. The jeans fit perfectly, hugging my hips like a second skin. The shirt was soft enough to count as armor against the outside world. And the slippers had no right to be as comfortable as they were.

I checked the mirror again. I looked… not like myself. Not quite. More like an approximation drawn from a very expensive memory.

At the threshold, I hesitated. If I’d had any sense, I’d have locked myself in the bathroom and waited for this all to pass. But sense had never been my strong suit, so I opened the door and followed the smell of bread and coffee down the hall.

Somewhere, I knew, this Lin guy was already two steps ahead of me.

The smell of bread had a gravitational pull. It drew me through three hallways, down a set of stairs so polished I nearly face-planted, and into a breakfast room the size of a community college library.

There were floor-to-ceiling windows that let in enough morning light to power a glow lamp farm. The table was long enough to host the Last Supper plus the overflow seating, but only two places were set, both at the near end.

Vadim sat at the head, in a chair with the exact posture of an expensive throne. The dark suit was tailored within an inch of its existence, and he wore it like a man who could kill you with the cufflinks alone. Next to his left hand was a glass of mineral water. Next to his right was a stack of what looked like—no, they were definitely—bank statements.

I took the seat across from him. The plate was already loaded with three types of bread: a crusty round, a seeded roll, and a slice of what I could only describe as “bread for people who don’t like bread.”

There was also a butter dish with a lid.

“Good morning,” Vadim said.

I stared at the spread. “I didn’t know bread came in this many forms.”

He did not smile, but there was a flicker at the corner of his mouth, like he was adding the observation to a private folder. “Eat.”

I did. The first bite was so perfect it made me angry. The butter was unsalted and probably cost more per ounce than Adderall. I tried each bread in turn, then circled back to the first, unwilling to admit that I was already strategizing the order in which to eat them.

Vadim watched the process with an expression usually reserved for high-stakes chess.

I broke the silence. “So. This is…some house.”

He nodded, as if I’d complimented the weather. “It keeps the rain out.”

“I’d guess it also keeps out most of the National Guard,” I said.

“That’s by design.”

I tore off another piece of bread, mostly to keep from saying something like, “Do you sleep in a coffin?” Instead: “How long have you lived here?”

“Eight years.” He poured himself coffee from a carafe. “Sugar?”

I shook my head, but he added sugar to my cup anyway. He slid it across the table, careful not to spill. I tried it. He was right. It was better with sugar.