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Not to mention that the cash for Igor is already more than even the dress and jewelry are worth, so it hardly fucking matters at this point.
My heart is pounding when I leave the apartment for work. I cling to the bag over my shoulder, knowing I probably look more than a little suspicious, but terrified that someone will sneak up on me and snatch it. I walk as briskly as I can to the club,slipping in through the back door and setting the bag down as I look around for Ruby. There’s no one in the dressing room, which is strange for this time of night.
“Ruby?” I call out her name, frowning as I walk towards the door that leads out to the club. It opens in less than an hour, and it makes no sense for there to be no one getting ready at all. “Taffy? Crystal?”
There’s no answer, but as I push the door open, I hear the sound of gasps and low conversation coming from the hall that leads down to Igor’s office and the storage rooms. I walk down the rough-carpeted steps, making a turn towards his office, painfully aware of the money waiting for him in my bag.I should have just grabbed it and gotten it over with,I think, and then I stop as I see every single girl on the schedule for tonight, all crowded around Igor’s office door.
“What’s going on?” I walk forward, looking for Ruby. “Did something happen?”
“You could say that.” Taffy’s voice is shaking as she turns to look at me. The group of girls parts, letting me see Ruby standing at the front of them, looking into Igor’s office with an expression of pale shock. “Igor–”
“What’s happened?” I push past them toward Ruby–and then freeze in place as I see exactly what it is that she’s looking at.
Igor’s body is sprawled on the bloody carpet, his throat sliced open, his fingers scattered on the carpet, and his palms slashed. His pants are pulled down around his hips, and I have to look away before I can see the rest, bile rising in my throat.
Ruby lifts a hand, pointing shakily toward the wall behind his desk. There, scrawled in blood, is a message.
Vory umirayut medlenno.
Thieves die slow.
“Do you know who might have done this?” Ruby looks at me in stunned horror, and I shake my head, backing up, feeling the sting of acid still in my mouth.
“Why would I–” I trail off, realizing in a flash of clarity exactly why she would think that. Igor threatened me, extorted me, just last night. And I told her about it. “No, of course not! I would never–I don’t know anything about–”
I swallow hard, feeling the other girls looking at me. A blind panic fills me as the possibilities of what could happen now occur to me.
A body means cops. Cops mean questions, and my story can’t hold up against that kind of questioning.
I need to get out of here.
I spin on my heel, rushing back toward the dressing room, and I hear footsteps behind me. I know it’s Ruby before she even calls after me. Still, I keep going, all the way back into the warm safety of the familiar room, as I wrap my arms around myself, trying not to go from melt down into a full panic.
“Athena.” Ruby’s voice is calm as she steps into the room, shutting the door behind her. “I wasn’t saying I thought you had anything to do with this. Just that–you might know who did.”
“No–of course I don’t!” I turn towards her, wiping tears away from my eyes before they can fall. “I can’t believe–”
“You don’t think Mikhail had anything to do with this?” Ruby raises an eyebrow. “After you went to his house last night? You didn’t say anything to him?”
“I did, but–” I bite my lip, trying to think past the swirling panic. “He didn’t care. He wasfuriouswith me for showing up. He was so angry–he pinned me up against the door, and he–”
Ruby’s eyes go round with horror. “He didn’t–”
I shake my head. “No. But he did other things. I barely said anything about Igor–he didn’t want to hear it. He was too caught up in being pissed about me showing up out of nowhere. I don’t think–”
That’s not the truth.
But I can’t tell Ruby the truth, that I think there’s a very real possibility that Mikhail, in the aftermath of his furious lust, remembered what I said and decided to finish off Igor for his greed. That his possessiveness, his jealousy, found a new outlet when he was finished taking it out on me.
I told him that Igor threatened to violate me. That he was going to take my money.
Thieves die slow.
I’ve behaved abominably–
I shake my head, determined to stick to my story. I can’t let Ruby think that Mikhail had anything to do with this or that there’s any reason to suspect me. I’ve trusted her, and I believe she’s my friend–but I’m not so stupid or naive as to know that there are boundaries to friendship. I don’t know for sure what hers are–or if this crosses it.
“This isn’t Mikhail,” I tell her firmly. “Look, I brought this with me. He sent it to my house as an apology. He wouldn’t have done this–”
