Page 160 of Ruthless Sin
Oksana goes quiet for a moment. “A swallow,” she says. “In Ukraine we say the swallow brings good luck to a house.” She looks at the Vietnamese woman. “Thank you.”
The Vietnamese woman nods.
I have brought nothing. I didn’t know what to bring. I looked at the dresser this morning and there was nothing there that wasn’t mine except the two lockets and the cross and the Tsvetaeva, and none of those were mine to give.
When Oksana reaches me she sees my empty hands.
“You came,” she says. “That is the gift. Sit down.”
“I’m sitting.”
“Then stay sitting. That is also acceptable.”
Her hand closes around mine. The room is warm. The honey cake is being cut. Someone is pouring more tea. The blonde woman is laughing at something the Vietnamese woman said, a real laugh, surprised out of her, and she puts her hand over her mouth like she forgot she was allowed.
Mid-shower, Oksana leans toward me. Low.
“Tvoy muzhchina privyel tebya segodnya. Eto khorosho.”
Your man brought you today. That’s good.
I don’t answer. I take her hand in mine.
The room is warm. The flowers on the table have opened further in the heat of the room. Someone refills the tea.
Oksana is telling the story of the night she thought she was in labor for the first time, contractions three minutes apart, three in the morning, the taxi driver who did not speak English, the emergency room nurse who spoke Ukrainian and held her hand and saidscho zh, ditynko,well then, little one, and sent her home four hours later because it was false labor, and Oksana is acting out the taxi driver's face and the room is laughing and I am?—
The first sound.
A thump. From the lobby. A fraction too loud.
My body is up before my brain catches up. Fear. Cold. Focused.
I know the exits. Primary, the door we came in. Secondary, the service door at the back left behind a panel.
Oksana stops mid-sentence. The room goes quiet.
The second sound is closer. Three suppressed rounds. The cough-flat kind. Not from the lobby anymore. From the hallway one corridor over.
I reach for Sofia’s wrist. “Andiamo.”
My first Italian. I pull her up.
I move us to the secondary exit at the back of the room. Oksana follows. The hallway is wrong. Smoke from somewhere I cannot see. A door open at the far end of the corridor that isn’t supposed to be open. A man in tactical gear at the far end, back to us, rifle low. He hasn’t turned.
The supply alcove is six feet to my right. I pull Sofia into the alcove. The space is barely wide enough for her body. She presses her back against the brick exterior wall. Her notebook still in her hand.
Oksana comes after her. The alcove is too narrow. She can’t fold against the wall. The belly takes the depth Sofia took plus six more inches.
I am in the doorway of the alcove shielding both of them with my body.
I take the folding knife out of my pocket. I open it. The blade is the blade Renzo gave me. In case. I have never opened it in front of anyone.
I open it left-handed. The grip my father taught me when I was small.
Ty ne molot, Milochka. Ty nozh. Nozh ne udaryaet. Nozh skol’zit.
You are not a hammer, Milochka. You are a knife. A knife does not strike. A knife slips.
