Then I heard a door opening floors below me. More voices. More boots. They were covering the exits.
I stopped on the eighteenth-floor landing, chest heaving, and pressed my ear to the door. Heard nothing on the other side. I cracked it open to an empty hallway. I slipped through, letting the door close silently behind me.
No time to find the right apartment. I picked a door at random and pounded.
"Please," I whispered through the wood. "Please."
Nothing.
I moved to the next one. Banged harder.
A woman's voice, annoyed: "Who is it?"
"Maintenance," I hissed. "Gas leak. You need to evacuate now."
The door cracked open—a middle-aged woman in a bathrobe peeked out, confused. I pushed through, the H&K hidden behind my back.
"What the—"
"Get in your bathroom. Lock the door. Don't come out until you hear police. Do it now."
Something in my face made her move. She scrambled. I heard the bathroom door slam and lock.
I went to her window. There was a fire escape. Thank God for New York buildings; I would have been shit out of luck in Florida.
I slid the window up, climbed out onto the iron grating, and started down. My hands were shaking.
I kept climbing down. Twelfth floor. Tenth. Eighth. The fire escape ended on the second floor. There was a ladder that required a pull cord to lower. I pulled. It stuck. Fuck it.
I dropped the last few feet and hit the pavement running. I heard voices, and I ducked behind a row of industrial dumpsters, gasping, the H&K still tucked into my waistband. My feet were cut up. My lungs were fire. But I was out.
I counted to sixty, listening for pursuit. Heard nothing but city noise. Sirens in the distance.
I pulled myself together, making sure nobody was heading my way before I took off running toward the mouth of the alley. It had to be one or two in the afternoon because the streets were crowded. I blended in and got the fuck out of dodge.
I was six blocks away before I let myself breathe.
Chapter 3
Indigo
I made it back to my apartment just over an hour later, trailing bloody footprints across floors I’d paid way too much for.
I went straight to the bathroom, turned the shower on scalding, and stripped out of the dead man’s silk pajama bottoms and oversized shirt. The moment the water hit the cuts on my knuckles, knees, and feet, I hissed—but I leaned into it.
Pain meant I was still alive.
I grabbed the soap and scrubbed until my skin turned raw. I washed until the water ran clear.
Then I kept washing.
The smell still wouldn’t leave.
Lilies and copper.
It clung to the inside of my nose, coated my lungs like a second skin. I dug my nails into my arms, trying to scrape the memory off.
Not the killing. That didn’t bother me. The fat Russian fucker deserved the second smile I’d carved across his throat.