Page 103 of Sweet Ruin

But will I continue to be okay when we get to wherever we’re going?

Stay tuned to find out.

We go up the West Side. Stepan drives fast and smooth in a way that makes me realize how badly I drive. Everything outside is lit up and crowded. People in sequins and puffer coats, club girls in glittering dresses that barely cover their asses, a guy selling glowing plastic 2027 glasses out of a milk crate. It’s a whole city getting ready to be happy at midnight.

I’d really like to be happy at midnight, too.

I turn to eye the man on my left. He’s the one who holds all the keys to my future. Will I be happy at midnight? How about in four months? How about in four minutes? I don’t know, but he does, and that’s really starting to irk me.

I keep pestering him the whole way, but Kane doesn’t even look at me. He just gazes out of the window with a half-smirk on, acting like my voice simply goes in one ear and out the other. Shockingly, it does not improve my mood.

We finally come to a stop on a side street off Madison. I immediately distrust the store we’ve arrived at.

It’s one of those places with no prices in the window. Actually, there’s almost nothing in the window at all. One dress on a headless mannequin, one pair of shoes on a little marble block, and a lot of empty space around them. It’s as if the stuff inside is too important to be crowded.

The awning is a very chic dark green. The name is in gold letters so thin I have to squint to read them, and even then, I’m not sure I’m pronouncing it right in my head. MAISON D’HIVER, I think? I’m pretty sure that means “House of Winter,” but I got a C- in high school French, so I’m probably the wrong girl to ask.

More of those gold letters are etched on the glass.

HOLIDAY HOURS

DEC 31: 10 A.M. – 2 P.M.

CLOSED JAN 1

I check the clock on the dash. It’s twenty after three.

“They’re closed,” I announce.

Kane doesn’t answer. Stepan is already out and coming around to my side.

“Kane. Look at the door. It says two o’clock. We’re over an hour too late.”

“They’re not closed for us.”

“Are you confused? That’s not how store hours work.”

“These do.”

Stepan opens my door and the cold crawls in. I don’t move.

“Then are we breaking in? I can’t do that. I’m a good citizen. Never committed a crime in my life, not even a parking ticket. Well, unless you count the time I told the health inspector our walk-in thermometer was new. But that’s, like, a white lie at worst. ‘New’ is a relative term, you know what I mean?”

Kane finally looks at me, and he’s got that little curl at the corner of his mouth that I’m learning to be nervous about.

“Get out of the car, Lilah.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

When we get close enough, I see that there’s a woman standing just inside the door in a razor-sharp black suit with her hands folded, watching us come up the sidewalk like she’s been standing there a while.

She unlocks it before Kane reaches for the handle.

“Mr. Makov,” she croons. “We’re ready for her.”

Up close, it becomes obvious just how jaw-dropping this woman is. She’s very tall and very thin. Pilates-every-day thin, sparkling-water-and-a-single-almond thin. Her platinum blonde hair is pulled back so tight and so glossy that it looks lacquered on. Her lipstick is a brown-red I’ve seen in magazines and never once on a human face in Sunset Park. Her cheekbones could slice a wedding cake into perfect even slices without a knife.

She’s gorgeous. Objectively, professionally gorgeous.