MARIKA

Marika Cervena’s earliest memories were red.

It was her father’s favorite color. 

If it was his favorite color, then it was hers, too. After all, Marek Cervena didn’t tolerate dissent. He drank red wine, so his wife finished the bottle. He drove red cars and wore red suits, so her mother’s nails matched. Red was their linens. Their curtains. Their carpets.

When Marek showered at night, the water matched it all.

“Indulge him, darling,” her mother would tell Marika at dinner, brushing her daughter's dark hair from her face with trembling hands. Gisela Cervena’s rings were too big for her slender fingers. Mari would always remember how they felt scrubbing her skin clean of evidence. “Wear the red tulle he likes so much.”

Mari didn’t want to. She wanted to wear white, or peach, or navy. Anything else. Anything, please, mother.

But Mari didn’t have a choice.

It became a habit, in time. Red dresses. Shoes. Accessories, and jewels, and lipstick. And for convenience’s sake, only black was better.

But black was quiet and careful, and the Cervenas were not the sort. Marek made sure of it.

So at twenty-nine, Mari still wore red. Even with both her mother and father dead and buried, the impulse was impossible to shake. It had become her armor. A red body con dress. Heels that clicked when she walked. All of it, a ruse.

It was perhaps a bit much for the mid-sized regional bank she needed to secure a loan from today, but no one would ever accuse her of being bashful.

“Miss Cervena?”

The man who called her butchered the name. She expected as much — men like him usually did.

“Yes,” Mari said, and stood neatly from her chair. She wasn’t alone, but she certainly looked it. Mila had learned decades ago how to exist as a ghost in plain sight. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Mari unless she was cold and dead first. The gun strapped to Mila's thigh would cut through the cheap plaster walls in here like butter.

“Please follow me!” This...assistant was chipper, she would give him that. His tortoiseshell glasses were thick and plastic, and they aged him. She wanted to spike them into the wall like a hand grenade and watch them shatter.

“Back here is my boss’ office,” the assistant told her as they walked. She could hear the steady click of her own steps in the narrow hallway. “He just wanted to clear up a few questions with your application before it was processed. Just a formality.”

“I was told the paperwork was a formality in the first place.” Mari had learned patience, long ago, but she lost more and more of it the longer she was in charge. “I have exceptional credit and a long history with this bank. Yet here I am.”

“We’re very sorry about the inconvenience,” the assistant told her. And perhaps he meant it, his face didn’t twitch the way liars often did. “Mr. Reid can be...particular. But he’s reasonable.”

“I see.”

Mari kept her clutch gripped tightly between her fingers, squeezing the beading so hard she could feel it digging into her skin.

The man knocked twice and entered the last office in the hallway.

It smelled...stale. Like the windows hadn’t been opened in too long, and the air had long since gone sour. 

But MR. QUINTON REID, as his placard happily announced, was the neat sort. His desk was clear and polished, with a half-dead plant at the end and a cup of a dozen identical pens.

“Miss Cervena,” he greeted, and this time, the consonants weren’t misplaced. He was handsome in the boring way. Uninteresting. “Please take a seat. Thank you, Ryan.”

Without another word, Ryan shut the door and left her with Quinton Reid and his unusually organized office.

“Your assistant tells me you have questions,” she said, and even she could hear the agitation in her own voice. “I am at your disposal.”

“That I did.” Quinton brushed a strand of sandy hair from his eyes and pushed a pair of reading glasses up his nose. “I see that you’re looking to purchase a property just on the edge of town.”

“Yes.”

He pursed his lips, flipping the page and scanning her application. “The selling price is over asking, despite the property needing substantial work.”

“The sellers are old family friends.” Mari had no idea who the people were, but they’d been associates of her father’s, and the house was an old one. There was too much buried there to let it slip away. She had no interest in letting the empire she’d fought to keep tooth and nail crumble because of his bad decisions.  She couldn't be outbid. “I have memories of the property, and will account for the gap in appraisal and purchasing price.”

“Miss Cervena, you have the assets to purchase this house outright. Why are you seeking a loan?”

Stop asking questions you can’t have the answers to, Mr. Reid. 

“There is no need to liquidate my assets when I can get a loan under market return.” She shrugged. “If you do not wish to issue the loan, I am happy to bring my business elsewhere.”

That was a lie. This bank was small enough not to make connections the bigger players would. She needed this loose end tied up, not unraveling the rest of the tapestry.

This was the last time she would clean up a mess of her father’s making.

Quinton Reid hummed and searched her face. She knew he would find nothing but the flat affect of false patience there.

“If that is all,” he said quietly, tucking her application back into a glossy branded folder with a frown. “Then I will get this processed.”

“Thank you, Mr. Reid.”

And perhaps it was nothing, nothing at all, but Mari could feel his eyes watching her as she left. 

She did not trust Quinton Reid.

And he sure as hell didn’t seem to trust her.