Page 94 of Sweet Ruin

I roll my eyes and stride into the dining room, where the map is still rolled out across the massive oak table. It’s held down at the corners with two crystal ashtrays, a stapler, and a bottle of vodka. The one white square in the plane of green is pissing me the hell off.

I snatch up the vodka and drop into a chair, propping my feet up on the table as I sip straight from the bottle. Niko comes sauntering in a moment later and claims one of the other seats.

“There’s a storm cloud over your head, my friend,” he observes. “What’s the deal?”

“Nothing. Work. Usual shit.”

He turns like he’s addressing an unseen studio audience. “Folks, he thinks we’re stupid! ‘Work,’ he says. ‘Usual shit,’ he says. Does he really believe that we don’t see something’s got his panties in a twist?”

“Drop it, Nik.”

“As if I’d ever do something that nice.” Niko sets his plate on the corner of the map and squares up to me. “You went out last night. True or false?”

“I go out a lot of nights.”

“You went out to Sunset Park, specifically.” He licks his thumb.

“Says who?”

“Yuri. He talks.”

I clench my teeth and make a mental note to send Yuri on a one-way trip to Siberia. “He should learn not to.”

“So it’s true then. You went and saw the baker.” He leans back in his seat. “Is that sordid little saga over with? Did she sign her life away?”

“There’s nothing to sign.”

That gets him to stop chewing. “What do you mean, there’s nothing to sign? You said you were going to make her an offer she couldn’t turn down. I assumed you meant—” He stops and pales. “What did you do, Kane?”

“Relax. It’s not what you think.”

He exhales. “Well, that’s good at least. Because what I was thinking was pretty fucking bad.”

I take another slug of room-temperature vodka and set the bottle on the table. “I went in to collect. That was the plan. She understood what I was saying pretty fast. She’s got no chance in court and even less of one outside of it, so it’ll be easier for all of us if she simply hands over the deed and walks away.”

“Mhmm. True that. How’d she handle it?”

“Well enough. She seemed ready to concede to reality.”

“‘Seemed,’“ Niko echoes. “That’s a funny word. Because it feels like this should be the end of the story. But ‘seemed’… That’s not an end-of-the-story kind of word.”

I look away. “That’s because it’s not the end of the story. Something… happened.”

My brother drags his chair around the corner so he can face me fully. “What kind of something?”

“She knocked her father’s calendar off the counter.”

He pauses. Blinks. Looks around again, up at the ceiling, back at that imaginary studio audience, and gives them all a quizzical look. Then his eyes return to mine. “Her father’s what? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“His planner. Like, an appointment book or whatever the fuck. She’d drawn a bunch of X’s on it. Caught my eye.”

“I’m not sure if you’re stupid or I am, but I am not following this at all, man,” drawls Niko. “Can you break it down for me in a way that, like, actually makes some goddamn sense?”

I sigh and rub my temples. “She was cross-referencing bank statements and found all the days her sister and husband were conducting their affair. Mostly holidays, as it turned out. Family gatherings.”

Niko scratches at the back of his head. “I mean, tough, yeah. That’s no fun. But I still don’t understand what the hell it has to do with us. Since when do we fall for sob stories?”

“I don’t.”