Aria Bennett had exactly three dollars and forty-seven cents to her name, a growling stomach that could probably be heard in the next street, and the distinct impression that the universe had a personal vendetta against her.
She fumbled with her keys outside the back door of Morrison Gallery, juggling her oversized art portfolio, a half-empty coffee cup that had gone cold hours ago, and what remained of her dignity. The keys, apparently sensing her desperation, decided this was the perfect moment to stage a rebellion and slipped from her fingers.
"Oh, come ON!" she snapped at the inanimate objects as they clattered to the ground. "Even my keys are abandoning me now. What's next, my shoes?"
She crouched down to retrieve the keys, and naturally because the universe wasn't done with her yet her portfolio decided to join the rebellion. Canvas boards scattered across the alley like oversized playing cards, and her latest painting landed face-down in what she really, really hoped was just a puddle of rainwater.
"Perfect. Absolutely perfect." She sat back on her heels, surveying the disaster. "This is fine. This is totally fine. She started gathering her scattered artwork, muttering under her breath. "Twenty-four years old and this is my life. Collecting my dreams off dirty pavement. Mom would be so proud. 'Aria, sweetie, maybe you should have listened when I said art school was a waste of money…"she had imagined her mom shove her failed career choice down her throat for the umpteenth time.
A sharp crack echoed through the alley.
Aria froze, half-crouched with a canvas in her hands.
That had sounded distinctly like….
She immediately shrug the thought off.
It was all her fault, she could have just passed the normal route home but she had felt this was a better route considering she wouldn't have to face her landlord who night-walks the main path. She has always wondered why the man chose nights for his exercise. Even when his movements shouldnt have mattered much to her, she still couldn't afford to come in contact with him, her rent has been due since the previous month and she was just too broke to face the man.
Please tell me that was just someone stepping on a really big twig. A really, really big twig.
Another crack. Definitely not a twig.
She should run. Any normal person would run. Any person with functioning survival instincts would grab their stuff and sprint toward the street like their life depended on it.
Instead, Aria Bennett, an apparently defective human being found herself creeping toward the sound.
This is how people die in horror movies. This is literally the exact thing people yell at the screen about. 'Don't go toward the scary noise, you absolute walnut!' But here I am, being a walnut.
She peered around the corner of the dumpster, and her brain immediately tried to process what she was seeing while simultaneously rejecting it entirely.
A man in an expensive-looking coat stood over another man who was very clearly dead. Like, dramatically dead. Hollywood-level dead, complete with blood pooling on the concrete.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope. This is not happening. This is not real. I'm having a stress-induced hallucination brought on by too much caffeine and not enough food. That's it. That's totally it.
The man in the expensive coat who was tall, dark-haired, and would have been devastatingly handsome if not for the whole 'standing over a corpse' thing calmly tucked a gun inside his jacket like he was adjusting his tie.
She tried to back away quietly, but her traitorous portfolio chose that exact moment to remind her of its existence by sliding off her lap and hitting the ground with the subtlety of a marching band.
The man's head snapped toward her hiding spot.
Oh, fuck.
"Well, well," he said, and his voice was exactly the kind of smooth, accented rumble that belonged in expensive hotels and intimate dinners, not back-alley murder scenes. "What do we have here?"
Aria's fight-or-flight response finally decided to show up to the party, unfortunately arriving fashionably late and completely drunk. Instead of running like a sensible person, she found herself standing up on shaky legs, clutching her portfolio like a shield.
"I didn't see anything," she blurted out, which was quite possibly the most suspicious thing she could have said.
The man stepped closer and in the dim street light filtering into the alley, she could see his features more clearly. Sharp cheekbones, intense dark eyes and a mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile sometime around the Renaissance.
"You didn't see anything," he repeated, sounding almost amused. "How convenient."
"Look," she said, backing toward the street and trying to project confidence she absolutely did not feel, "I'm just going to go ahead and leave now, and we can all pretend this little encounter never happened. Sound good? Great. Lovely chatting with you."
But her mouth, apparently operating independently of her brain's increasingly frantic signals, kept going. "I mean, I'm sure you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for... all this. Maybe he fell?
Really hard?
Multiple times?
On bullets?"
The man actually smiled at that, he let out a small, genuinely surprised expression that transformed his entire face. It was not the reaction she'd been expecting.
"On bullets," he said thoughtfully. "That's creative."
"Right? I'm very creative. It's literally my job. Well, supposed to be my job. Currently, I'm more of a professional starving artist, but the point stands." She was still backing away, but he was following at the same pace, like they were engaged in some sort of bizarre, deadly waltz.
"And what exactly does a professional starving artist do when she witnesses something she claims not to have seen?"
The question hung in the air between them, loaded with implications that made her stomach clench. This was it. This was where he decided whether she lived or died, and her fate was apparently going to be determined by whatever absolute nonsense came out of her mouth next.
"Well," she said, "traditionally, I think the protocol is to mind my own business and develop a sudden case of amnesia. Very selective amnesia. The kind that only affects the last..." she glanced at her phone, "...twelve minutes of my life."
He was close enough now that she could see the expensive fabric of his coat, the gleam of a watch that probably cost more than her yearly income, and the way he was studying her like she was a particularly interesting specimen.
"Twelve minutes," he mused. "Very specific."
"I'm a very specific person. Also very forgetful. Terrible memory. Sometimes I can't even remember what I had for breakfast." She paused. "Actually, I didn't have breakfast, so that's probably a bad example, but you get the idea."
"You're not afraid," he observed, and there was something almost curious in his voice.
Aria nearly laughed. Nearly. "Oh, I'm absolutely terrified. But fear makes me chatty. It's a defense mechanism. Like how some animals play dead, except instead of playing dead, I just... don't shut up."
He stopped walking, which meant she stopped too, because apparently her feet had decided to mirror his movements without consulting her brain first.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Aria Bennett," she said immediately.
"Well, Aria Bennett," he said, and the way he pronounced her name made it sound like something rare and valuable, "you have presented me with quite the dilemma."
"See, ordinarily," he continued, "when someone witnesses something they shouldn't have witnessed, the solution is quite simple." His hand moved toward the inside of his jacket.
But instead of fainting like a sensible person, Aria found herself taking a step forward.
"Wait," she said, holding up her free hand while clutching her portfolio with the other. "Before you shoot me because that's obviously where this is going, can I just say that this is possibly the worst timing in the history of terrible timing?"
He paused, hand still inside his jacket. "Elaborate."
"I haven't eaten in approximately eighteen hours, I have three dollars to my name, my rent is long over due,and I just spent the last six hours working on a painting that's now face-down in mystery puddle water. If you're going to kill me, could you at least wait until after I've had a proper meal? I'd really prefer not to die on an empty stomach. It seems undignified."
The man stared at her for a long moment, and she could practically see him trying to figure out whether she was incredibly brave, incredibly stupid, or just completely unhinged.
All three. The answer is all three.
"You want me to postpone killing you so you can eat dinner," he said slowly.
"Ideally, yes.
Something flickered across his expression, surprise, amusement, something that almost looked like respect.
"You have quite possibly the strangest reaction to mortal peril I have ever encountered," he said.
"Thank you?" She wasn't sure if that was a compliment or an insult, but she was going to take it as a good sign that he was still talking instead of shooting.
He pulled his hand out of his jacket, but instead of a gun, he produced a phone. Aria's knees nearly buckled with relief.
"Lev," he said into the phone, never taking his eyes off her. "We have a complication."
A pause, then: "Yes, a witness. No, don't send the cleaners yet." Another pause. "Because she's... unusual."
Cleaner? Unusual? What the hell have I gotten myself into?
He hung up and tucked the phone away. "It appears you're going to get your wish."
"My wish?"
"Dinner," he said simply. "You're coming with me."
"I'm sorry, what now?" she said out loud.
"You wanted a meal before you died. Very well. Consider it a last request."
"That's..." she started, then stopped. What was the appropriate response here? Thank you for the pre-murder meal? How thoughtful of you to feed me before you eliminate me?
"Generous?" he supplied, looking almost amused again.
"I was going to say 'deeply concerning,' but sure, let's go with generous."
Two men appeared at the mouth of the alley, both wearing dark suits and expressions that suggested they'd heard this particular conversation before.
"Boss?" one of them said, glancing between the dead body and Aria's disaster of scattered art supplies.
"Clean this up," the man apparently the arrogant boss said, gesturing to the corpse. "And collect the lady's... artwork."
"Carefully," he added, and Aria looked at him in surprise.
"You don't have to—" she started.
"Yes," he said firmly, "I do." He gestured toward a sleek black car that had materialized at the end of the alley. "Shall we?"
"After you," she said having decided that smart was overrated.
As they reached the car, he opened the passenger door for her with old-fashioned courtesy that seemed wildly inappropriate given the circumstances.
"You know," she said, pausing before getting in, "I don't even know your name. Seems like something I should know about the person who's planning to kill me after dinner."
"Viktor," he said simply.
"Viktor," she repeated. "Well, Viktor, this has been the strangest night of my life, and that's including the time I accidentally walked into a furry convention while looking for a bathroom."
Viktor's mouth twitched. "I imagine this evening is far from over, Miss Bennett."
As she settled into leather seats that probably cost more than her entire wardrobe, Aria caught sight of herself in the side mirror. Hair escaping from its ponytail, paint-stained clothes, and an expression that suggested she was either having the adventure of a lifetime or the most elaborate nervous breakdown in recorded history.
Well, she thought as Viktor closed the door and walked around to the driver's side, at least it'll make a good story. Assuming I live to tell it.
The car pulled away from the alley, leaving behind the crime scene, her scattered life, and any pretense that Aria Bennett was having a normal Tuesday night.
But as Viktor navigated through the city streets with the confidence of someone who owned them, Aria found herself stealing glances at his profile and wondering if she was making the biggest mistake of her life or if her life was just beginning to get interesting.
Probably both, she decided. Definitely both.