But beneath the absurdity, I can hear the iron in his voice.
He means it.
The headache vanishes under a clean wash of adrenaline.
I draw a slow breath through my nose. “One week.”
“One week.”
“You’ll have it.”
“I do enjoy optimism in the condemned.”
“Mysk.”
He lifts his brows.
“If you send anyone else to kick in my door before I’ve even had coffee, I will consider it a personal attack on culture.”
That gets me a real laugh from one of the enforcers. Mysk glances back, annoyed, and the sound dies instantly.
Then the crime lord looks at me again and gives a little bow. “Survive your week, performer.”
He turns on his heel. The enforcers follow.
At the threshold he pauses and glances back into the apartment, at the bottles, the clothes, the wreckage of me.
“Do repair the door,” he says. “If I have to murder you, I prefer a more dignified entrance.”
Then he’s gone.
Bootsteps recede down the hall.
Silence rushes in after them.
For a long time I just stand there with my hands braced on the counter, staring at the curtains puddled on the floor like a joke that’s gone bad in the mouth.
Then I say, very softly, “Well. That’s not ideal.”
The room smells like fear now. Funny how fast that cuts through whiskey.
I move before I can think too much. Cross the apartment. Slam the broken door mostly shut. Engage the manual deadbolt out of pure spite, though the frame hangs crooked and one hinge is whining. Then I go back to the couch and sit down hard.
The cushions exhale a tired littlewhuff.
My heart is still slamming.
I pick up the comm and open my finance accounts.
Savings: insulting.
Primary account: wounded.
Secondary account: morally offended.
Hidden stash I once told myself was for emergencies only: not remotely enough.
I check royalty statements. Old streams, old appearances, licensing crumbs from songs that had one beautiful season on the holonet before the next shiny disaster rolled over them. Money drips in. It does not arrive. It certainly does not materialize into the kind of sum Mysk wants in seven days.
