Chapter 1
SUSANNA
Through the bent and dented blinds, I scanned the street outside my apartment for any suspicious elements. My basement window was so low, all I could see were people’s feet. And all of them looked suspicious to me.
I wanted to lock myself in and stay here, relatively safe and sound, and literally underground. But my fridge was empty, as was my wallet. To put something in both, I needed to work.
I grabbed my purse and padded to the door. Pressing an ear to it, I listened for any suspicious sounds, as if the mafia thugs who stalked me would announce their presence.
All seemed quiet.
With a deep breath, I clutched the handles of my purse in my sweaty hands and opened the door. I climbed the set of crumbling concrete stairs up to the street and emerged from my underground hideout into the bright Manhattan morning.
The street was busy, like most streets in central New York. It seemed easy enough to get lost in the crowd. Only I knew that Bolshoy’s people would find me. They always did.
The last time, one of them cornered me in the alley two doors down on my way from the ladies’ fashion store where I worked.
They wanted the money my husband Tom stole from them. And they didn’t give a damn that my dearest husband also stole everything from me—my trust, my innocence, and every single penny of my substantial inheritance. If I ever saw him again, I would punch him in the face then kick him when he fell.
Too bad he fled the country months ago, taking all my money, millions of his investors’ funds, and whatever he owed to Bolshoy and his people.
Grabbing whatever he could before making a run for it, Tom had also snatched the busty secretary from his office. The two of them were out there now, probably enjoying the sun on a beach somewhere, while I was half-running to my job, scanning the street in fear for any sign of the dangerous people he was stupid enough to steal from.
It was a good thing I'd switched to wearing flats. The first day of working in retail in five-inch heels had almost killed me. Now, running was so much easier in my black, low-wedge shoes.
I reached the store, completely out of breath.
“You’re late.” Aileen pursed her lips. The owner and the manager of the store, she appeared to live here twenty-four-seven.
I threw a glance at the display on the cash register. “Just by two minutes.”
“Five,” she replied in an icy tone. “This clock is three minutes behind.”
Resisting the strong urge to flip her a finger, I mumbled, “Sorry,” on my way to the tiny employee-room-slash-office-slash-storage-room at the back to drop off my purse and coat. This wasn’t one of the high-end fashion shops on 5th Avenue, even if Aileen liked to pretend it was just like them.
No wonder I was late. I had sat by the window for who knew how long, gathering the courage to leave my apartment. The sensation of the thug’s rough grip still lingered on my throat from the last time one of them had caught me.
I kept telling them I had no money. But for some reason, Bolshoy believed I was an accomplice of Tom’s and my two retail jobs were just a cover to keep a low profile. Like I would be living in a mouse-infested basement, eating frozen dinners, and working two jobs if I had access to the millions Tom had stolen.
Aileen had given me my very first job ever. I was born into money and raised in luxury homes with maids and nannies. I’d never been taught to do anything for myself. My mother wouldn’t even let my sister and me make our own beds.
“There are less fortunate people in the world. We shouldn’t take their jobs from them. We have to give them the opportunity to earn a living,” she’d say in a dignified voice.
Mother thought herself a benevolent person by making others do things for her. She provided them with “means to earn a living” while looking down her nose at those she employed.
Customers of Aileen’s often reminded me of my mother. Like her, they were snotty and self-important with no real accomplishments other than being rich. After two months of working in the store, I was still learning how to deal with them. Sometimes, I just felt like punching their well-exfoliated, made-up faces.
But I needed this job to pay the astronomical rent my landlord charged for that crawl space room I now lived in and to occasionally buy some food to eat too.
So, I smiled at the snotty shoppers and repeated like a parrot all day, “How may I help you?” and “Have a nice day.”
Around noon, the bell above the door rang again, announcing the arrival of yet another customer.
I heaved a breath and plastered on a smile, then I saw my twin sister walking in.
Mara looked every bit like the customers I'd been dealing with on a daily basis. Louboutin heels. Hermes scarf tied artfully around her neck. Italian wool coat thrown over her shoulders, unbuttoned, because she’d taken a cab here, not walked like me. The handbag that people lined up for years to buy hung in the crook of her elbow.
Sliding her oversized sunglasses down her nose, she threw a glance around the store. The look in her blue eyes clearly conveyed she didn’t want to be here.
Her gaze stopped on me. “Oh, there you are. I need to have a word with you.”
She hadn’t changed a bit. Though, just two months ago, she wasn’t in a much better situation than me.
Mara’s fiancé Jim would likely be at the beach with Tom and his busty secretary, right now. Jim and Tom were childhood friends, Ivy league graduates, and partners in crime—literally, as it turned out. I met them both through Mara.
Before he left, Jim had cleaned out her banking accounts just like Tom had mine. Unlike me, however, instead of taking two jobs to survive, Mara found a couple of wealthy men to pay for her expenses.
My sister and I never got along that well. And lately, she’d been treating me like a second-class citizen.
“I’m working,” I snapped.
She trotted closer, expertly balancing on her sky-high heels.
“Come on, Susanna. It’s important. I’ll buy you lunch.” She tossed another glance around the store. “It’s not like there’s anyone here, anyway.” She tipped a chin at Aileen. “That old lady can cover for you.”
Aileen squinted at her with so much disdain, another drop and she’d set my twin sister on fire.
It might be best to get Mara out of here before a fight broke out. It had been slow today. Lunchtime was close. My stomach growled, and the food truck parked on the street corner called to me. I was not in the position to turn down a free lunch.
“Fine,” I said to Mara. “But only if you’re paying. Aileen, can I take a break, please?”
Aileen must want Mara out of her store badly, because she didn’t even argue about me taking my lunch break early.
“Thirty minutes,” she sneered.
“I’ll wait for you outside.” Mara strolled out the door while I got my purse and coat.
After I’d joined her outside, we got gyros from the food truck, then walked to a bench nearby.
“This is not a place for a Takolsky.” She curled her lip in distaste.
Takolsky was her last name. It had been mine too, before I changed it to Tom’s—less glamorous—Riley.
“Which place? The store? Or the bench?” I snorted.
She sounded like our father. He always had a firm opinion about all the suitable and unsuitable places for his family to be. And no, a second-rate fashion boutique would never be considered a proper place for one of his daughters to shop, not to mention to work. Come to think of it, this chipped, worn bench wouldn’t be much to his liking, either.
“You know what I mean,” she brushed me off. “This is not what you should be doing with your life, Susanna.”
By “this,” she meant having any form of gainful employment, of course. She tossed a disgusted look back at the boutique as if it were some dirty strip joint.
“Well, gyros cost money,” I argued. “So does a place to live. And since all wealthy men in Manhattan are taken...” I waved a hand in the air and took a bite of my gyro. God, was it ever good! I stifled a moan of pleasure, savoring it. Lunch time had been the highlight of my day ever since I’d first discovered this food truck.
Mara neatly unwrapped the paper from one end of her gyro too. “You didn’t even try to find a wealthy man. The moment Tom left, you were applying for jobs.”
“I didn't really feel like trading one asshole for another, you know.”
“Well...not all men are assholes,” she said hesitantly. I looked at her cynically, and she faltered. “Fine. Maybe in this city, they are. But you don’t need to stay here.”
I’d been thinking about leaving. A new start would be nice. Except that Bolshoy’s people would find me wherever I went.
“This thing with Tom and Jim will have to end one day,” I said. “Then, I’ll leave. Maybe.”
Mara’s expression grew somber. Bolshoy had been threatening her too.
“Do you think it will ever end?”