Page 11 of Vasily the Hammer

“Oh,” she says, a clipped note. “Like, I work concessions or... I’m a projectionist?”

“No, not at a movie theater. At a stage. You’re an event coordinator.” Hopefully that’s close enough to what she meant before.

She does perk up a little there. “Oh! That sounds nice. Am I in the middle of, umm, is there something big or do I have some responsibility that—?”

“No, you’re more of a contract worker,” I say quickly. “They reach out to you when they need you, and you don’t have anything going on.”

“Guess I picked a good time to get kidnapped by a sex trafficking ring.” She laughs awkwardly.

“Yeah.”

She looks at the bed again, tests the springs. Glances back at the bathroom. “Doesn’t seem like anything I’d be too worried about my sleep schedule for,” she murmurs.

“It’s more me. My work schedule is difficult. In fact...”

She frowns once she catches what I’m hinting at. “You need to work now? It’s the middle of the night! What do you do?”

It never crossed my mind that she wouldn’t know who I am. Hubris, I suppose. But if everything is going the way I want it to, I’m a ghost. If actual law enforcement had rescued her— not that they would have; Janson and Benedetti are both proof of how poor a job they do of dealing with anything at the ground level— she would have been a Jane Doe until her memories came back.

And then she’d have had to figure out how to explain to them that she needed to be returned to her mob family, so the fact that Sasha’s crew found her was a victory all around.

“I’m a printer,” I tell her, and at her quizzical look, I spin a lie that’s closer to the truth. “I run a 3D printing company. Large scale. Specialty equipment.”

She nods like it makes sense. That’s how most people react when I sayghost guns. It’s an unknown, incredibly lucrative field. God bless the Second Amendment.

“Well, have a good night,” I tell her, exiting the room before she can ask me any additional questions.

Chapter5

Ana

Watching Vasily Baranov, my husband, peel an orange, puts me in the oddest crisis.

I have no idea if I like oranges.

Also, my husband is an extremely handsome man. It didn’t click immediately, not when, in a sea of scary-looking men, he was the scariest. Not when I was so desperate to match his face to a memory and so disheartened when the memories weren’t there. But watching him in the soft lighting as he performs the simple task of peeling that orange, observing his own kitchen as though hunting for something while he prepares food in the most banal way possible, it hits me that on my wedding day, I must have thought I was the luckiest woman in the world to have gotten such a handsome husband.

He hardly looks at me, so I don’t think he feels that way about me now, but it’s possible that yesterday or a week ago or whenever I saw him last, I didn’t feel that way either. And the way he looked at me once he realized I was watching him? I think perhaps he did think he was the luckiest man in the world on his wedding day to have gotten such a pretty wife.

God, I hope he loves me. I hope I love him. I hope whatever the disconnect is between us is just a temporary thing and I’m reading into everything poorly because I’m missing the context.

This orange half in my palm could be Vasily’s love language.

I don’t think he’s a sentimental man. I suspect I’m a sentimental woman, but I’m careful with it. That’s why the condo is so stark but there are beautiful flowers. That’s why Vasily did know why I reached for my neck and immediately vowed to get my cross back.

I don’t think he’s a religious man, but I’m a religious woman.

I wonder what day of the week it is, if I should ask Vasily if he’d be willing to take me to church. I bet he doesn’t like going but he’ll go for me.

But I hear the front door open and close and realize I’ve lost my chance to ask him, at least for now.

I give myself a moment to stand and breathe and just focus myself before I walk into the closet. My first glance of it gave me this feeling of everything being staged, and my second impression is no different. In my mind, a closet is supposed to be cluttered, with everything mismatched on the hangers and a pile of shoes on the floor and random boxes and blankets stacked to the ceiling. There should be an odor to it, not unpleasant, but that smell ofclutter, of detergent and leather and wood pulp and just a hint of mustiness and whatever the shoes tracked in. An undercurrent of existence.

This closet smells like a clothing boutique but sanitized. All the shirts are on one side, all the bottoms on the opposite side, all the dresses and outerwear along the back. Everything is organized by style and then by color, tiny rainbows iterated with each cut. There are at least thirty pairs of leggings and yoga pants in three lengths, half of them black, but still with the rainbows. There are tee shirts, tank tops, long-sleeved shirts. Blouses.

No jeans, which seems weird. And at first, I think I must favor business attire, but despite all the blouses, there are no fitted slacks. None of the dresses are snug. There are some lovely dresses, both casual and formal, but they all have a relaxed fit to them.

I don’t know who I am, and it’s yet another punch that these clothes aren’t what I thought of for myself either. And once I start digging through the rack, struggling to find anything that has some familiarity or draw to me, I notice that none of it even looks worn. It’s all been washed, nothing has tags on it, but it all looks like I bought it yesterday.

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