10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 45

I’m getting really sick of the on-the-nose metaphors.

As the stairwell door clicks shut behind me, I feel good about what I told Kosti. You’re wrong about him. He’s not a monster. But the first step down the stairs brings with it the first inkling of doubt.

Kosti’s voice echoes between my ears: You lose your life, or you lose your soul.

I squeeze my eyes shut and clutch the railing for balance. No. Sasha is a good man. For fuck’s sake, I’ve seen it! Bad men can’t kiss you like that. Bad man can’t cuddle you like that.

The next step down, though, comes with a question.

Why can’t they?

After all, Sasha started this ten-day trial run with very clear goals: Do what he needed to do to break me. Sure enough, he’s gotten what he wanted, didn’t he? I’m putty in his hands now. I’m choosing him over my own uncle, for crying out loud. A man who held me the day I was born! I’m spitting in the face of that relationship for someone I’ve known for ten days because—checks notes—he’s good in bed?!

Another step down. Another doubt. Another crumbling insistence that I chose the right path. By the time I hit the floor, I’m like what’s left of a flower after too many rounds of he loves me, he loves me not. I feel frayed at the root.

With all the negative thoughts occupying my head, it takes me a second to realize what’s strange down here. Then it clicks.

It’s quiet.

The printers are still, the bullpen empty. I don’t even hear the gurgle of the heaters pumping. Then someone clears their throat.

I turn to see John leaning against the hallway wall, arms folded over his chest. His tie is loose and his hair mussed, like he’s been running his hands through it again and again in the throes of stress. The mustard stain on his cuffed sleeve makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. It’s the kind of thing you’d see on a sloppy child—but the expression on his face belongs to an executioner.

“My office, Ward. Now.”

I gulp and follow.

The door hisses shut. John rounds his desk, then slaps something down on its surface. The Patriot Press masthead stares up at me in garish bold font. Beneath it, words and pictures I’ve already memorized.

…BUTCHER’S BABE…

…How a Mob Princess Infected NYC’s Press Corps…

John collapses into his Aeron chair. It groans beneath his weight. “Here’s the thing, Ariel.”

Adrenaline sours my tongue. “I didn’t realize you moonlighted at TMZ now. You want my side of the story? It’s about⁠—”

“Extortion, racketeering, conspiracy to distribute narcotics.”

I stop short. “What?”

John tosses arrest records at me. OZEROV, SASHA is printed across the top. Blurry surveillance stills of Sasha exiting a Queens warehouse with blood splatters on his shirt. His scrawled signature on bank transfers moving nine figures into offshore accounts.

“Do you think this looks good for me, Ariel? For my paper?”

“John, I⁠—”

He holds up a hand to silence me. “To be honest, I don’t particularly give a shit about what you have to say. It might even make me legally culpable for something, which I assure you is the last thing I need.”

“Please, John, it’s just⁠—”

“Stop. Ariel, just stop.” He rises and plants his fists on his desk. “The legal shit is low on my list of worries. I’m worried about the mob shit. I worked the crime beat for twenty years. Did you forget that? I know how these guys operate. I’ve been to crime scenes that these fucks left behind. I’m still in therapy about it.” His eyes are haunted, his cheeks gaunt. “One mobster’s daughter? Another mobster’s girl? You’re a target. And as long as you work here, that means we’re a target, too. For the sake of my paper and my staff, I can’t allow that.” He slides a termination letter across the desk. “All you have to do is sign to acknowledge it.”

The pen John slaps down feels like a scalpel. The patient on the table?

My career.

Ariel Ward—Reporter. I worked so fucking hard for that title. I still remember doing “field work” my first semester in journalism school, interviewing a deli owner whose security camera had caught cops planting evidence. Rain soaked through my knockoff Blundstones as he chain-smoked Parliaments and laughed at my questions. You the billionth kid who thinks she gonna change the world with a notepad?

“No,” I’d said, proud and defiant to a fault. “I just want to tell better stories than the ones the world makes up about us.”

Two years later, John hired me straight out of j-school because I crashed the Gazette’s holiday party wearing a dress made of rejection letters. That first byline is seared in my brain. Local Hero or Arsonist? The Strange Case of the Bodega Cat That Solved a Twenty-Year-Old Cold Case. Sixth page, but who cares? Mama framed it next to my preschool finger paintings.

She’s the reason I’m here at all, actually. She taught me to love stories while we perched on the cracked vinyl stools of that Greek café. Our game was sacred: Mondays after school, two lemonades, one baklava to split.

I used to think those stories were real. Then, when I got a little older, I realized they were just to make me laugh. Now, I see that I was actually right the first time.

They were real. Because the man in the suit just might be a dark prince. There really may be a happy ending walking down the sidewalk.

We all wear masks. Book jackets that hide the story of our lives. It’s not until you crack it open and start to read that you learn anything about anyone.

John taps the paper. “Whenever you’re ready. Security is waiting to escort you out.”

I put the tip of the pen to the paper, but then I hesitate. For a long moment, I consider what to write. I’ve been so many different people now that I’m starting to lose count. My past is littered with skins I’ve shed. I’ve been Leander’s pawn, Jasmine’s sister, Belle’s daughter, Sasha’s puppet. I’ve been Ariana Makris and Ariel Ward. So who am I now?

My choice in the end surprises me.

Ariel Ozerova.

Ariel Ward—Reporter dies without a byline. Just another mob story’s bloody footnote. What comes next is anyone’s guess.

He nods when it’s done. “Your badge, please.”

My fingers tremble as I tear the lanyard off and set it down on his desk. Then I rise to leave.

But the door bursts open before I reach it.

Gina’s heel cracks marble as she storms in to hurl her own badge on John’s desk. “Suck my entire feminist ass, you spineless sellout!”

Lora follows—shy, sweet Lora who orders decaf and colors her anxiety charts in lavender highlighter—tossing her badge after Gina’s like a grenade. “Up yours!” she cries out, which is probably the meanest thing she’s ever said aloud.

They both look at me. Gina winks. Lora flashes me a double thumbs-up.

I want to cry.

John sighs. “I take it the two of you are resigning in solidarity?”

“You take it right, you prick,” Gina confirms. “Now, go fold the morning edition ‘til it’s all corners and shove it up your ass.” She turns to me and smiles as big as she can. “Martini lunches for everyone. My treat.”

We march out, chins held high, even as mine wobbles with tears I’m not yet ready to shed.

Down the street, we huddle on milk crates in a back alley. The owner, a friend of Gina’s, brings us a handle of vodka, salted rim shots, and a trio of plastic cups.

I leave the cup aside and chug straight from the bottle. I feel like everything’s upside down and inside-out right now. I’m supposed to pick who to trust, but how can I?

Kosti’s right. Sasha’s right. My father’s right. Everyone’s a little bit right and a whole lot wrong, and the only thing that matters is whose lie you choose to stand under when the sky finally caves in.