The Devil Holders

IRINA VOLKOV

The wire transfer notification chimed on my phone at exactly 3:09PM.

Fifty thousand dollars. Clean. Untraceable. So beautiful.

My gaze was fixed on the screen in the dimly lit corner of the cafe, my fingers wrapped around my coffee that had lost its warmth an hour prior. The scene was filled with Moscow's young professionals, absorbed in their laptops and pricey lattes, completely unaware that a con artist was present, pilfering bank accounts with merely a smartphone and a fabricated tale.

Yeah-and that's me.

Fifty thousand was good. Better than good. It just brought my running total to four hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars over the past twenty-two months.

Thirty-seven thousand left. Phew!

Thirty-seven thousand, and I'll be free. The debt Viktor, my father, had saddled me with before I escaped his house and his fists would finally be paid. The loan sharks who have been watching me will have their blood money. And I, Irina Volkov, or whatever name I'm choosing next, will disappear into a life where no one owns me. No one controls me. No one can hurt me.

I allowed myself one small smile before closing the banking app and deleting it from my phone. Rule number seven: Never keep evidence.

My phone buzzed with a new message. I opened the encrypted chat app, different from the one I'd just used and different from the one I'd use tomorrow, and felt my pulse quicken.

My last message to my mark was,

Anastasia: Got it. Thank you, Damien. You're a lifesaver.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. Damien Romanov. My last mark. The name Anastasia Sokolova isn't mine. Rule number two: No real names.

It's just my character name in a play, performing for an audience of one.

But Damien was quite different from the others.

In the three months since I made him my mark, something had shifted. His messages came at odd hours...3 AM, when I imagined him unable to sleep, reaching for his phone in the darkness. He asked questions that had nothing to do with money. What books did I read? What did I think about when I looked at the stars? If I could go anywhere in the world, where would I choose?

Prague, of course.

And yes, I'd answered because that was the game. To build intimacy. Create connections. Make my mark believe the fucking fantasy.

But sometimes, late at night in my tiny apartment with its peeling wallpaper and the sound of my stupid neighbor's arguments bleeding through the walls, I found myself thinking about his questions. Answering them honestly. Well...at least to myself.

It's dangerous. Stupid. Yeah, I know.

Damien Romanov: Always happy to help. I hope your sister's surgery goes well.

My lips curved into a smile. There was no sister. No surgery.

Just a carefully constructed emergency that had required immediate funds. I had perfected the plan, which is to create urgency, appeal to emotion, and make the mark feel like a hero for helping.

And then, boom-they fall into your trap.

The three dots appeared, disappeared, and appeared again. I watched them, an uncomfortable twist in my chest.

Guilt, maybe. Or something worse, regret. It can't be.

Damien Romanov: I'd like to meet you.

My heart stopped.

Rule number three, the most important rule, the rule I fight myself hard not to break: Never meet in person.

My fingers trembled as I typed and deleted, typed and deleted. I should say no. All I need is to disappear right now, burn Anastasia's identity and move. I have almost enough money. I could target someone else for the final thirty-seven thousand.

Another message dropped.

Damien Romanov: I know this is sudden. But I've been thinking about you. A lot. Too much, maybe. I'd like to take you to dinner. Just dinner. No pressure.

Huh huh. A very strict NO!

Then, before I could respond:

Damien Romanov: I'm working on a business deal. Real estate investment. Three hundred thousand euros. I could use a partner. Someone I trust. We could discuss it over dinner?

Okay, three hundred thousand euros. Three hundred thous....

That is... more than what I needed. Jeez! More than I'd dared to hope for. With that kind of money, I could pay off the debt and have enough to start over. Really start over.

New city, new country, new life.

This is too good. Too perfect. To easy.

Which also means It's probably too dangerous.

But thirty-seven thousand is a small money compared to three hundred thousand.

Okay, One meeting. One dinner. One final con, and I'd be free forever.

I can do this.

I looked around the café. A young mother wrestled a toddler into a high chair. A businessman shouted into his phone about some quarterly reports. An old man fed biscuits to his dog under the table.

Normal people, living normal lives. The kind of life I never had. The kind of life Viktor had stolen from me when he dragged my mother to the altar and then, after the cancer took her, transferred his gambling debts onto a sixteen-year-old girl's shoulders.

I just wanted normal. Wanted it so badly it made my chest ache.

And this three hundred thousand euros would buy me that life.