Page 47 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

“Hm.”

I give Walter the butler a stare like a matador, so that he knows loud and clear that his help will be ending at the bathroom door. I may be homeless, but that doesn’t mean I’m A-okay with everybody and their grandpa seeing me naked.

His face merely shifts with an expression that could mean acceptance, or a mute acknowledgment of the futility of it all.

At any rate, it’s only once we stop at a door that I realize my head’s still spinning so much I’m barely looking around the nicest place I’ve been in, ever, period, full stop. It’s too late now to gawk at the exterior. The butler’s opening the door, gesturing inside.

He whisks me inside, down a hall, left, right, through a door, another, then we’ve arrived. The fresh linen smell gets me before I even step in the room. I teeter on the threshold.

Yep, this is a bathroom, all right. But it’s a bathroom in the same sense that Godzilla was a lizard. This place is all golden gleams and deep turquoise wall and expensive Italian marble flooring. The bathtub lording over the far wall is the size of my old apartment. You could sink the Titanic in that thing.

“I will be waiting outside if you need anything,” Walter says in an already-bored voice. “Everything you need should be inside.”

“Okay,” I mumble, still overwhelmed.

Go on, get in there, I urge myself, still standing at the edge.

But it seems too pretty, too gleaming. Like a trap. Like a trauma-induced daydream that will shatter to pieces the moment I step my dirty, hole-ridden sock on one of the pretty teal tiles.

“Is something the matter, madam?” Walter asks.

Chowder is still held out from his body, looking as puzzled as all get out.

Just get on with it.

I lift my foot, step it down. Exhale.

There. It is real.

“No,” I tell Walter, and mean it. “Everything is perfect.”

And then I go inside. Even once I’m in and have shut the door behind me (with a small final wave for Chowder), I can’t seem to get used to this place. The light is too bright, as if it knows I don’t belong and can’t believe I have the audacity to dirty its shine.

The tiles are too slippery, although my feet, peeking through the holes in my socks, do stop me from doing a faceplant.

Still, I lock the door, wrestle off my clothes and shoes, then race to the tub, carefully avoiding my reflection. No need to be reminded that my under-eye circles would give an insomniac a run for their money, my hair is a near-dreadlocked rat’s nest, or that I’ve lost a dozen pounds and would fit right in on one of those ‘Help the Homeless’ brochures.

Turning on the bathtub tap produces an efficient fizz and gallons of hot water pouring out to greet me. I start it out warm and crank it up hotter, bit by bit. When the tub is brimming and steaming, I sink into the warmth, letting it ease out all the stiffness from me.

For one brief, blissful second, life is as good as it has been in—well, ever.

And then, all at once, it hits me:

Gavril Vaknin is in this house.

My back stiffens.

Somewhere, Gavril Vaknin has been told of my arrival. Somewhere, he is making plans for me, waiting for me.

And I thought I could just trot off afterwards?

Not anymore.

I put aside the thought and try to focus on the now: the fluffy teal loofah with gold flecks (yes, even the loofah matches), the Shimmer Dream teal bodywash. I apply Shimmer Dream to the loofah and get the deep-cleaning started.

But no sooner do I swipe the sweet-smelling loofah over my elbow than he’s back, claiming my thoughts.

I’ve been a fool.

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