Page 77 of City Of Thieves
He smears my tears across my cheeks with his thumbs, and I find myself daring to believe him.
When he crashes his mouth down onto mine, I find myself daring to believe in a future.
Chapter Twenty
Tatiana
They saytime can be measured in steps, as well as passages.
For me, it’s the three polished granite ones leading up to my family’s apartment block on 57thStreet.
I take the first step, and I’m eighteen again—wearing too much make-up and drunk on the promise of fun; eager to Instagram my memories, just so I can boast about how perfect my so-called life is.
The next step sees the lie come crashing down. It’s the night I ruined the painting ‘Ines’ and turned my self-loathing into parental relationship ruin. I missed this one in my haste to escape and went tumbling to my knees on the sidewalk.
The third step is my favorite.
It’s the here and now.
It’s the one that finally brings me back.
From outward appearances, it’s like I never went away. I find myself smiling up at the same doorman as he opens the door for me. The gold sentry mat still rucks in one corner, no matter how many times it’s been trodden on in the last five years.
ButI’mdifferent.
A little battered. A lot bruised. Wearing a ruined designer silk jumpsuit with messy dark hair and smeared make-up, holding a square package in my hand that I collected from the gallery on the way here.
“Good afternoon, Miss Sanders. How lovely to see you again.” As I step into the lobby, I catch the doorman glancing at my disheveled appearance before hastily averting his eyes. “I’ve already called ahead. The Senator is expecting you.” He gestures at the waiting elevator carriage. “May I take your parcel?”
“No need.” I hug it a little tighter, finding comfort in the way the sharp corners keep digging into my skin.
“Would you like me to accompany you up to—?”
“I think I remember the way.” Giving him another tight smile, I press the button for the penthouse, and the doors close shut on his polite curiosity.
The carriage rises, and with it, my apprehension. Renzo told me something before we parted at Teterboro Airport an hour ago, and I can’t stop thinking about it:
“Everyone has a past, dolcezza. Just don’t let it fuck up your future.”
I get the feeling he was saying it to himself as well as me because we’re both heading toward family ground zeroes.
My father is waiting for me when the doors open, with a triple shot of Macallan in one hand and those familiar dark shadows at the corners of his mouth—his not-quite-a-smirk when he’s not sure what’s coming for him.
He hasn’t aged much in five years. His hair is still the same degenerate shade of black, his gray eyes are just as flinty and wicked. Mom used to joke that he aged like the fictitious Dorian Gray, and somewhere in the attic there was a painting collecting his age and his sins.
We stare at each other until the doors start to close again, jolting me out of my trance. Diving forward, I slap my hand across them, and when I do, I nearly drop the package.
“Shit!”
“Language...” He glances down at it and frowns. “Funny looking bottle,” he adds, finishing up his drink. “Or is it the framed deeds to a French vineyard?” His eyebrows shoot up as I take a hesitant step into his Calacatta marble-lined lobby, and we’re caught somewhere between a greeting and regret.
“Hello, Dad.”
“Hello, back.” He tilts his head to the side and frowns again. “Am I allowed to say you look like shit, or is it against the rules? For a political trailblazer, I’m constantly told I’m not very politically correct.”
I smile weakly. “Since when have you ever followed the rules?”
“Fair point.” He goes to take another drink from his glass and then curses when he realizes it’s empty. Beneath his easy swagger, I can tell he’s just as edgy as I am.
